Business Diary: May 21

A poor person enquiring later whether there was a sospeso available would then be served a coffee for free. But the Italian goodwill ‘caffe sospeso’ tradition has since spread across the world and has recently inspired a similar concept in Leeds.

The city’s Casa Mia Millennium restaurant has teamed up with nearby St George’s Crypt to launch an initiative called Suspended and Delivered to provide free food and drink for the city’s poor and homeless.

The ‘caffe sospeso’ tradition has been adapted by Francesco Mazzella, the owner of Casa Mia, who explained: “Like most good ideas, it is very simple. Suspended and Delivered enables Casa Mia customers to buy an extra coffee, tea, soft drink or a pizza or lasagne, which is then available for anyone with a St George’s Crypt voucher to claim.

“We will deliver our food and drink to the crypt to make the whole process easier. It is also worth pointing out that our customers can buy suspended items on line when they order a takeaway.

“We are delighted and excited to be teaming up with St George’s Crypt, which does such fantastic work across Leeds, to help those less fortunate than ourselves. There is a lot of poverty on the streets of our city and, if we can do our bit to alleviate that, then so much the better.

“We are making our customers aware of this campaign and, knowing them, they will be extremely supportive.”

Martin Patterson, the fundraising and public relations director at St George’s Crypt, said: “There is no doubt that begging on the streets is a concern in Leeds. There is also no doubt that many people feel uneasy about giving money to the homeless and poverty-stricken on the streets because they don’t know how it will be spent.

“Casa Mia’s Suspended and Delivered campaign neatly sidesteps that and provides much-needed food and drink for those with a St George’s Crypt voucher.”

Drive to go furthest

SPORT and hi-tech engineering can be happy partners, particularly if you’ve got dreams of pulling off the most spectacular hole in one in history.

A company based on the Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP) in Rotherham is bringing its technological expertise to a British team’s attempts to break the world record for the longest golf drive.

Design engineering specialists Performance Engineered Solutions (PES) have joined the project formed by Zen Golf, which aims to create the world’s most technologically-advanced golf driver, in an attempt to break the long-standing world record of 408 yards 10 inches for a golf drive.

Mike Maddock, managing director at PES, told Diary: “As a company we’re honoured to be working on this project.

“This is an opportunity to push the boundaries of innovation, combining technologies to showcase the capabilities of British engineering.”

Dan Fleetcroft, PES engineering design director, added: “What’s going to be interesting is using experience from engineering used in Formula One, and putting that into the golf driver.”

The team have links with the Bloodhound SSC world land-speed project of Richard Noble, and the golf record attempt is scheduled to take place in 2015 on the Hakskeen Pan in South Africa; the location where the Bloodhound SSC will also make its bid for the world title.

Mr Noble said: “The technical challenges facing Bloodhound SSC as we attempt to break the 1000mph barrier will undoubtedly lead to a quantum leap forward for British engineering. I’m really excited to see how these emerging technologies can be harnessed to break barriers in golf sports engineering.”

It’s an exciting development, but Diary wonders who will have the job of building a golf course to meet the demands of this invention.

Expert on exports

You don’t need to lecture Mike Strawson about the merits of an export-led recovery.

He’s been preaching about the importance of foreign trade since 1962. Mr Strawson, who works with the Bradford-based Chamber International, has received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Institute of Export for his outstanding contribution to export sales and also in teaching international trade skills to others.

He is one of only three people to receive the honour.

Mr Strawson, who is 71, has been involved in exporting since he was 17.

Mr Strawson added: “Despite what it might say on my birth certificate, I have no plans to retire.”