Ruston began his career at 17 years of age having won a moped in the village raffle which enabled him to travel 12 miles to his first job in a hotel. A trained chef having worked for some of the ‘big boys’, he set up Blue Apple with Brian Allanson in 1998 and says he loves the industry as “with a little hard work, anyone can make it.”

Ruston doesn’t have a favourite food but he hates celery and broad beans and his best dining experience would be with his wife at Rick Stein’s restaurant in Padstow. His hobbies are sailing, walking and of course eating while a little known fact about him is that he once appeared on all Japanese TV news networks — you’ll have to ask him why?!

Robert honed his skills as a chef in some of London’s top hotels. He then rubbed shoulders with stars of film and television for production catering on location with such TV shows as Inspector Morse, The Bill and The Benny Hill show before joining the contract catering industry. Overseeing all of our operations and the ops team here at Blue Apple, Robert has a keen eye for the financials of the business but says, even after 30 years he “still enjoys all aspects of catering and the variety and standard which we provide.”

His other great loves in life are cooking, food, socialising (which often involves fancy dress) and his family while he lives and breathes rugby. He watches it, coaches and can still be seen on the field in the middle of the scrum, although he often comes into work the next day with a stiff neck or a limp.

Sarah has worked in the catering and hospitality industry for many years and always on the sales side. Known for her straight talking, she has been told on more than one occasion she puts the ‘blue’ in Blue Apple! Don’t let that put you off though – she doesn’t bite, loves great tasting food and thrives on finding a solution for tricky catering situations. A true foodie with a passion for contract catering, in 2019 Sarah was awarded Salesperson of the Year at the annual Foodservice Cateys!

Family and friends are very important to Sarah and she enjoys nothing more than enjoying home-cooked food round her kitchen table. While Sarah loves fine food she also has a secret love of burgers and once ate 7 mouth-watering messy burgers at the National Burger Festival in Battersea (although rumour has it she shared them with her daughter!)

Ruth joined the Blue apple bunch in summer 2017 after nearly twenty years working within Human Resources in the leisure and tourism industry, where she had became renowned for her famous colour-coded training materials!

After studying business at the University of Portsmouth, Ruth took a graduate role in HR and hasn’t looked back since. She’s particularly interested in training and development opportunities and as part of her role she is working to ensure that working for Blue Apple is an enriching and rewarding career choice.

Outside of work, Ruth is a keen cyclist (having spent her gap year cyclking around Europe) and runner and has taken part in a number of duathlons. She enjoys cooking, but enjoys eating cooking by other people even more!