Nick Oryino is uniquely placed to build bridges in the
catering equipment industry
Nick Oryino is the new chair of the Catering Equipment Suppliers Association (CESA). As managing director of Carford Group Ltd he has considerable expertise in both equipment supply and servicing.
Uniquely for a chair of CESA, Nick Oryino has previously been chair of CEDA, the Catering Equipment Distributors Association. Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of his key objectives for his tenure is to encourage closer cooperation in the catering equipment supply chain. “We need to encourage a more collaborative, inclusive approach,” he says. “There are critical challenges facing the industry, economic, environmental, workforce skills, and so on. As manufacturers, distributors or consultants, the best way to help foodservice operators meet those challenges is to work together, to put our differences behind us and focus on the synergies.”
As a qualified electrical engineer, Nick Oryino spent his early career in the Middle East installing aircraft ground support systems, before moving back to the UK to work in industrial engineering. He joined Carford in 1982 as the company’s fourth service engineer. By 1994 the company had 20 engineers and he was appointed service director.
In 2001, as managing director, he completed a management buyout with fellow employee, Richard Weller, merging Carford Catering Equipment Ltd and Carford Services Ltd into Carford Group Ltd, which had a turnover of £5 million.
Today the company has a turnover of £14 million and employs 132 staff, including 70 service engineers.
Nick has three grown up children, one of whom, William, works for Carford as a service engineer. His interests outside of work revolve around sport, mainly tennis and golf, although he says he is also “in the process of getting hooked on kite surfing.”
The Catering Equipment Suppliers Association (CESA)is the authoritative voice of the catering equipment industry, representing over 160 companies who supply, service and maintain all types of commercial catering equipment – from utensils to full kitchen schemes. For more information on CESA visit www.cesa.org.uk