Peach pubs picked up the highly coveted Best Place to Work in Hospitality Bar Chain (1-10 sites) 2009 at an award ceremony at One Whitehall Place in London on 14th September 2009.

Run by the leading magazine for the hospitality industry, Caterer & Hotelkeeper, the awards set out to recognise employers who are doing the most to attract, train, retain and motivate their teams today and give them the skills to offer world-class standards of customer service.

This year for the first time the awards were judged by perhaps the toughest critics of all - the employees themselves, who were asked for their honest feedback about what it was actually like to work for the company.

Mark Lewis, Group Editor of Caterer & Hotelkeeper says: “This year’s winners have all earned the right to display our ‘Best Places’ kitemark, proving that they are employers of choice. Peach has demonstrated an invaluable lesson in how to build a great team and provides a benchmark against which other employers can compare their own employment policies and practices, and workplace culture.”

Winning the award marks Peach out as an employer of choice – a crucial differentiator in the battle to secure the best industry talent so the company continues to grow and thrive. What’s more, the results of the survey, which was carried out online and analysed by an independent research company, show that the way Peach works with, trains and nurtures its people, as well as its strong ethos of ‘our house is your place’ in all of its pubs, is winning through. Here are just a couple of the comments made by the team:

“The company supports your development even if your path leads you away from them in the end. The support and training we get is first class from management level right through the teams.”

“The ethics and ideas behind the company are inspiring. The staff recruited are passionate about what they do, and everyone is always ready to share their experience to help each other out”.

“We are over the moon to win this award for the second year running,” says Andrew Coath, Peach director and owner of The Swan, The Black Horse and The Embankment. “Winning it – and winning it again – is a true testament to everything the company stands for.

“Peach was founded with the vision of being a shared ownership experience, with every member of the team sharing in the company’s success. We work very hard at looking after our teams and living up to the values we’ve set ourselves; we’re all about sharing, supporting and working together, respecting and trusting each other, and striving to be the best we possibly can.

“It’s great to have this recognised, particularly as we grow and take on new people, and shows the emphasis we put on our teams is paying off. We aspire to make everyone who works with us, and also who comes into our pubs, really feel our place is theirs, and we’re delighted that this award acknowledges that, too.”

Come and experience a warm welcome, great food and drink and great service from the award winning team at The Swan in Salford, The Black Horse in Woburn and The Embankment in Bedford. All three are open daily from 10.30am, serving lunch from noon and hot food all day.