Catering Insight – February 2018

HUSBAND AND WIFE TEAM DARREN AND JAYNE SHARPE ARE SHOWING HOW A

CUSTOMER SERVICE AND QUALITY FOCUS CAN STAND THEIR RECENTLY-ESTABLISHED

DEALERSHIP IN GOOD STEAD.

IN SHARPE FOCUS

F

or some, the idea of living

and working with their other

halves could be seen as,

let’s say ‘trying’, but there

are a growing band of husband and

wife teams in the catering equipment

community whose partnerships are

a match made in heaven. One of the

newest additions to these ranks is

Darren and Jayne Sharpe’s dealership,

Sharpes Commercial Kitchens.

The Scunthorpe-based company only

began in its current form last September

when Jayne came onboard full time as

a managing partner, but prior to that,

Darren owned the firm, trading as a sole

catering equipment engineer since 2012.

The rebranding marked a new era for the

enterprise, as Darren detailed: “I wanted

to go from a sole trader entity to a

recognised company within the industry

and as a well-known figure I wanted to

keep the Sharpes name in there.”

Jayne added: “We also wanted to get

involved in sales too, as Darren had never

done that before. So now we offer any

service relating to a commercial kitchen.”

Darren does indeed have an extensive

background in catering equipment,

having spent the last 25 years as an

engineer, following a stint in the RAF

as a radar technician. Looking for a

new career path at that time, he first

joint Hobart for 6 years, before spells

at Network Catering in Birmingham,

Millers Vanguard, where he also trained

as a bakery equipment engineer

(a rare feat for one person to cover

both catering and bakery equipment

servicing), Scobie McIntosh and then

David Work Catering Equipment in

Goole. In between all that, he ran a

servicing company as part of a two-

man management team for close to

10 years, before selling the company to

his business partner. Alongside this, he

dipped his toe into offering a catering

equipment engineer online directory.

While Jayne was somewhat

unfamiliar with the specifics of the

catering equipment sector before

forming one half of Sharpes Commercial

Kitchens, her comprehensive experience

is in customer services. Beginning

as a hostess and then maître d’ in

restaurants, she has managed a team

of 16 staff in a stationery shop before

spending 15 years in the motor trade as

a public-facing service advisor. As a keen

writer, she even wrote an entire manual

dedicated to customer service practice.

For a year prior to Sharpes’

establishment, she changed track

entirely and became a building

company’s accounts manager. “In that

time I pulled it back out of £80,000 in

the red just by working hard, working

out what had gone wrong and making

it right again,” she recalled. “That job

1

1

Darren and Jayne

Sharpe’s skillsets

are complementary

as managing

partners of Sharpes

Commercial

Kitchens.

2

Sharpes’ vehicles

outside the firm’s

storage facility in

Scunthorpe.

14

DEALER / SHARPES COMMERCIAL KITCHENS

C AT E R I N G INSIGHT / FEBRUARY 2018 / http://www.cateringinsight.com