Alan Roper, CEO of the Blue Diamond Group, who pioneered theatre in the garden centre catering environment 10 years ago with the front-of-house pizza oven at Trentham gives GTN Food Xtra readers his Top 10 tips for garden centre catering:

1. Setting up catering if you don't already have it is not that difficult. The main outside advice you’ll need is from someone to help plan your kitchen.
2. If you have an experienced chef in your existing set-up, use him when you’re planning an upgrade. He’ll know what is needed.
3. If you buy your equipment from specialists like Counterline in Liverpool, they can help you with the planning.
4. Everything else is simple. The Theatre Café at Redfields looks elaborate, but underneath it’s fairly basic.
5. You can have a good business even without hot food. If anyone doubts that, go to some of the places in Soho or some of the boutique places in London where they do a lot with quiches and salads, pulses, cakes and light bakes, homity pie, home-made sausage rolls and so on. You’ll be amazed at what you can do.  Our Wilton centre does that sort of thing and turns over £500k from a shed and a counter.
6. Sandwiches are key. Be adventurous with your fillings. Use good rolls and not just a piece of bread, and be sure to present it nicely.
7. Cakes should really be home-made. They are at all our centres.
8. Choose the bean for your coffee carefully. We use Ethiopian, 100 per cent arabica. And think about tea. But as an owner you do have to have a passion for this sort of thing. If you're into Nescafe, Mr Kiplings and fry-ups, don't bother! You’ll only mirror your own lifestyle in front of your customers, so find someone who has that passion.
9. If you’re a small centre, visit small tea rooms in places like Cambridge, Bath, Soho and the like. They’re not trying to do high-end sutff, just simple things done very well.
10. Of course, you’ve got to have the audience to play to. If all you have is C1s on your doorstep, it will be different. Round here (Fleet, in Hampshire), people are well monied.