Is God on Harbour & Jones's side?

Kitchen Rat fears contract caterer Harbour & Jones may be making the most of an unfair, other-worldly, advantage over rivals when it comes to picking up new business.

A recent visit to London landmark St Paul's Cathedral to meet some of the new Harbour & Jones team, suggested something more than a strong offer and charisma might have come into play when the caterer was competing for the contract.

Apparently when H&J was invited to pitch for the deal last year they arrived at St Paul's only to be told that one of their rivals was running late.

The knock-on effect was that the caterer was asked to present in a chamber away from the main dining area of the Crypt.

This, H&J co-founder Patrick Harbour conceded, suited his team down to the ground as they had a "Best of British" selection of produce with them to showcase, which they were then able to arrange fetchingly on a stone shelf inside.

This was all good, but better still, as the cathedral's top brass walked in to hear the pitch, a shaft of golden sunlight, as if on demand, shone through from the window above, illuminating the produce and creating a bucolic harvest scene. Divine intervention?

It's hard to say, but H&J co-founder Nathan Jones was apparently sighted later in the cathedral lighting a candle, which one imagines was in reverence but could have been in gratitude.

Well, in these tough times it pays to keep the supreme being on side, after all.

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