SERVICE LINE 02 — CATERING & CAMP SERVICES
Offshore and remote-site catering, run as a support-services contract
Delivered by Allive Team Services — catering and manpower
Offshore catering in Qatar is not bought as food service. It is bought as an integrated accommodation and support-services contract, priced on an all-inclusive man-day rate against forecast POB, and scored on systems rather than on cuisine.
The scope an operator writes into the tender is specific: supply and storage of all foodstuffs, ingredients, consumables and raw materials; supply of crockery, cutlery and kitchen and service utensils; maintenance of kitchen equipment, the galley fire suppression system and cold storage; and cleaning and waste management of the mess, dining halls and kitchens on a continuous basis. Offshore, it adds pantry services with coffee-machine maintenance and consumables, and — where the contract provides for it — the operation of mini-markets on a commercial basis.
That is the scope this page describes, in the order it is actually delivered.
ENTITY BOUNDARY
Which company holds the contract, and which company delivers
Safari Qatar Services Company (C.R. 48259) is the group's construction, offshore platform, marine machinery, oilfield supply, heavy transport and government-transactions entity. Its licensed activities are published in full on the group profile, with the activity code printed beside every capability line.
Catering, camp services and catering manpower are contracted and delivered by Allive Team Services W.L.L. — Commercial Registration 200001, Commercial Licence 264517 — on that company's own food-service activity, 5629001 catering food services, held alongside 781004 labour supply services.
We state this at the top of the page rather than in a footnote because operators read entity structure closely. Under the corporate HSE standard that governs contract work for Qatar's national energy company, the main contractor is responsible and accountable for the HSE performance of its subcontractors, must submit the list of every subcontractor engaged on the work, and must ensure each of them complies with the operator's HSE requirements and with Qatari law. A group site that blurs which legal entity signs and which legal entity cooks creates a question in the contracts review that costs time neither side has.
- Contracting entity for catering scopes — Allive Team Services W.L.L. — C.R. 200001, Commercial Licence 264517, licensed for activity 5629001 catering food services and 781004 labour supply services, carrying the catering payroll and WPS file.
- Contracting entity for construction, offshore, marine and supply scopes — Safari Qatar Services Company, C.R. 48259, Commercial Licence 201984, TIN 5000918284, 100% Qatari owned, member of the Qatar Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
- Where the two meet — On integrated scopes — an offshore campaign needing both trades support and a galley, or a camp needing both construction and messing — one entity leads as main contractor and the other is declared as a subcontractor before mobilisation, never after.
OFFSHORE
What an offshore catering contract actually covers
Hotel services on a live production facility, planned against POB and delivered inside a permit-to-work regime
An offshore catering contract is a hotel operation running inside an oil and gas facility. The galley never closes, the client's headcount changes at every crew change, and every task the team performs sits under the installation's own safety regime — permit to work for galley hot work, confined-space entry for cold rooms and water tanks, chemical control for deep cleans, and lifting rules for provisions handling.
The scope below is what we resource, roster and price. It is deliberately written as functions rather than as promises, because that is how the client's evaluation matrix reads it.
OFFSHORE — 01
Galley operations and messing
Service is planned against the POB curve issued by the installation, not against a fixed headcount. The number moves with drilling campaigns, shutdowns and turnarounds, and it is reconciled at every crew change against the flight and boat manifests. The galley team plans production, stock and manning from that curve, and the Camp Boss reconciles served covers against POB daily so that consumption, cost and waste are all traceable to the same number.
-
24-hour service cycle Breakfast, lunch, dinner and a dedicated night meal for the back shift, with a permanently stocked night pantry between service periods. Menu cycles are written to the shift pattern, not to an office day.
-
Packed and intervention meals Hot-box and chilled packed meals for crews working away from the accommodation module, for day-trip teams and for intervention visits to normally unmanned installations, packed and temperature-logged before dispatch.
-
Pantry and beverage service Pantry stocking, coffee-machine servicing and consumables replenishment across control rooms, offices, radio room and recreation areas, on a scheduled round rather than on request.
-
Mess, servery and galley cleaning Continuous cleaning of the mess, dining halls, servery, galley, cold rooms, dry stores and pantries against a written schedule, with signed daily records and a periodic deep-clean cycle under permit where chemicals or dismantling are involved.
-
Galley equipment upkeep Planned maintenance of cooking equipment, cold storage, extraction canopies and the galley fire suppression system, with a defect log, critical spares held on the installation and escalation to the client's maintenance system where the fault sits outside our scope.
-
Retail, commissary and vending Mini-market and commissary operation, vending supply and rental, and welfare provision where the contract includes it. Retail is normally run at the caterer's commercial risk under a concession and is priced and reported separately from the man-day scope.
OFFSHORE — 02
Accommodation, housekeeping and laundry
On an installation the accommodation module is where the workforce recovers between twelve-hour shifts, and it is the part of the contract crews judge most quickly. Housekeeping runs on a cabin-by-cabin schedule tied to the crew change calendar, because a cabin turned around late is a helicopter seat that cannot be filled.
-
Cabin servicing and linen Daily cabin servicing, bed making, bathroom cleaning and consumables replenishment, with a full linen and towel change on a set frequency and a complete strip, clean and remake on every crew change.
-
Laundry Wash, dry, fold and press of personal effects and workwear on a named-bag or numbered-locker system, with separate handling of contaminated or oily workwear and a documented turnaround time per cycle.
-
Public areas and sanitary blocks Corridors, stairwells, changing rooms, drying rooms, recreation and TV rooms, gym, prayer room, offices and shared sanitary blocks, cleaned on schedule with signed records and a colour-coded equipment system that keeps sanitary and food-area equipment separate.
-
Deep-clean cycles Scheduled deep cleans of cabins, galley extraction, cold rooms, mattresses and soft furnishings, planned into the shutdown or low-POB window rather than run against a live full house.
-
Camp management on remote sites Where the scope is a camp rather than a platform, the same team runs accommodation allocation, room-readiness, recreation provision, laundry and janitorial, and holds the camp registers the client and the authorities ask for.
-
Camp facilities to the client's specification Where the client's standard governs the compound — occupancy per room, floor area per person, sanitary provision per head, fire extinguishers and detection in kitchen, mess and recreation rooms, firewater storage, and waste pits sited away from the accommodation area — we operate to that written specification and record against it.
OFFSHORE — 03
Potable water, waste and pest control
These three are where an offshore catering contract is genuinely technical, and where an unprepared contractor is exposed at the first audit. Water and waste are legally constrained offshore in the Gulf, and both generate records the client will ask for by name.
We do not hold our own laboratory or a pest control licence, and we do not imply otherwise. Water, food and food-contact-surface microbiology goes to an independent accredited laboratory, and pest control is delivered under contract by a Qatar-licensed provider. Both are appointed for the contract and named to the client before mobilisation — the laboratory with its scope of accreditation, the provider with its Ministry of Public Health licence — and the test certificates and visit reports are issued in their name, not ours.
-
Bunkering and receipt control Water received from a supply vessel is taken through a certified, dedicated potable-water hose, dosed between the bunkering station and the storage tank, tested before transfer, and logged. Free residual chlorine is maintained in the 0.2 to 1.0 ppm range after bunkering, and every receipt is recorded against source, volume, dose and result.
-
Storage, calorifiers and distribution Monthly sentinel-tap checks: cold water below 20°C after two minutes running, hot water flow above 60°C and return above 50°C, with calorifier flow and return temperatures logged. Annual visual internal inspection of cold water storage tanks, calorifier drain-down and inspection, and backflow prevention valve servicing by an approved provider.
-
Sampling and Legionella control Quarterly bacteriological and chemical analysis from galley and tea-point outlets, sampled to a 24-hour transit at 2 to 8°C, covering total viable count, coliforms, E. coli and enterococci. Legionella sampling against a target below 100 cfu/L, with the sampling frequency stepped down only once a run of clear results supports it, and a written scheme of control kept on site.
-
Shower, outlet and dispenser hygiene Quarterly cleaning and disinfection of shower heads and hoses and of bottled-water dispenser internals, plus temperature and stagnation control on little-used outlets — the ordinary work that keeps a Legionella result clean rather than explaining it afterwards.
-
Waste segregation and backload The Gulf is a MARPOL Annex V Special Area. No garbage is discharged from a fixed or floating platform, or from a vessel alongside or within 500 metres of one. Waste is segregated at source into the streams the client's plan defines, food waste is comminuted or ground only where a discharge is expressly permitted, and every other stream is containerised and backloaded to shore with a garbage record and monthly tonnage reported in kilograms.
-
Cooking oil and hazardous streams Used cooking oil collected, sealed and backloaded to a licensed receiver; cleaning chemicals held under a controlled inventory with safety data sheets on site; empty chemical containers handled as a declared stream rather than dropped into general waste.
-
Pest control programme Programmes covering galley, dry and cold stores, mess, pantries and accommodation, delivered under contract by a Qatar-licensed provider, with treatment records, a bait-station map maintained on site, and a trend review at each visit rather than a signature on a sheet.
OFFSHORE — 04
POB planning, crewing and field breaks
The arithmetic behind an offshore catering roster
Every offshore catering position needs at least two people. A 28/28 rotation means each post carries a named back-to-back, and leave, sickness and certificate renewals mean a standing relief pool on top of that. A twelve-head offshore catering crew is not a twelve-person payroll — it is closer to thirty once back-to-backs and relief are counted, and any bidder who prices it as twelve is either inexperienced or about to fail on service continuity.
Qatar adds a harder constraint. Continuous offshore stay is capped, and a mandatory onshore rest period must elapse before a person may return offshore. That is not a welfare aspiration but a contractual limit the client audits, and it drives the roster rather than the other way round.
Crew structure follows the standard offshore catering hierarchy: Camp Boss, Chief Cook, Second Cook, Night Baker, Steward, Messman, Galley Hand, Laundry Hand and Storekeeper. The Camp Boss is named to the client before mobilisation and is the single point of accountability for the galley, messing, housekeeping, laundry, stores, hygiene records and galley equipment condition.
| Planning unit | All-inclusive man-day rate against forecast POB | Banded rates by POB range, with a guaranteed minimum where the client's profile is volatile. |
|---|---|---|
| Service periods | 4 per 24 hours, plus night pantry | Breakfast, lunch, dinner and night meal, with packed provision for crews off the accommodation module. |
| Standard rotation | 28 / 28, named back-to-back per post | Every position on the organogram carries an identified counterpart, not a pool allocation made on the day. |
| Maximum continuous offshore stay | Per the operator's field-break rule | The continuous-stay cap and the minimum onshore rest period differ by location. Both are confirmed against the operator's own rule before mobilisation, and relief and cover are rostered so the cap is met without a gap in service. |
| Relief and back-to-back cover | Named counterpart per rotational post | Where two limits apply at one location, the roster is built to the shorter of them. |
| Mandatory onshore rest | 7 days minimum before returning | Recorded per person, with demobilisation and rest evidenced before re-mobilisation. |
| Offshore crew certification | T-BOSIET and H2S/BA, verified pre-travel | Checked against the issuing body's records before travel, not accepted as a laminated copy. Food hygiene and hospitality credentials do not substitute for offshore survival training. |
| Fitness to work | Current certificate per person, held on file | Plus health coverage evidence, and heat-stress management applied to galley and outdoor work during the summer regime. |
OFFSHORE — 05
Provisions and the cold chain to the platform
Fresh provisions do not arrive at an offshore installation; they are delivered by supply vessel in certified offshore containers and lifted aboard by crane. Every step in that chain is a temperature risk and a lifting risk, and both are documented.
Consolidation and pre-cooling happen onshore, before the load is containerised, so the temperature record starts at the store rather than at the platform crane hook. The store serving a contract is named to the client with the mobilisation plan, together with its chill, freeze and dry capacity against the forecast POB.
-
Order build against the POB forecast
The requisition is built from the forecast POB curve, the menu cycle, current stock on the installation and the sailing schedule, not from a repeat of last month's order. Shutdown and drilling-campaign spikes are ordered against the client's own look-ahead.
-
Supplier approval and goods-in
Purchasing is restricted to the approved supplier list, with halal certification, specification and traceability held per supplier. Goods received at the onshore store are temperature-checked, date-checked and recorded, and rejected at the door where they fail.
-
Consolidation and pre-cooling
The order is picked, consolidated and pre-cooled to the correct band before loading, so the reefer is holding a stable temperature rather than pulling one down during the sailing.
-
Containerisation into certified CCUs
Loading into refrigerated, freezer and ambient offshore cargo carrying units certified to DNV 2.7-1, with certified lifting sets, colour-coded slings within their inspection date, and the unit's data plate and certificate valid for the lift.
-
Sailing and crane lift
Sea transport on the client's or the contracted supply vessel, and lifting aboard under the installation's own lifting plan. Temperature loggers travel inside the reefer and are read on arrival, so any break in the chain is identified before the stock enters the galley.
-
Stores rotation into dry, chill and freeze
Receipt into the galley stores under FIFO, with labelling and date marking, separated storage for raw and ready-to-eat, dedicated halal storage, and stock levels held to the days of cover agreed in the contract, set against the sailing schedule and the weather downtime it has to absorb rather than a standing figure.
-
Backload
Empty CCUs, segregated waste streams, used cooking oil, returned equipment and soiled linen are backloaded on the return leg. The backload is planned as part of the run, not treated as an afterthought, because deck space and lift slots are the constraint.
ONSHORE
Onshore, camp and corporate catering
The onshore side of the business runs on the same systems as the offshore side and on a different rhythm. Rig camps and remote sites need a self-sufficient operation at the end of a long supply line. Industrial canteens need volume, punctuality and cost control against a fixed shift pattern. Corporate and event work needs presentation and flexibility on short notice.
One food safety system, one purchasing discipline and one set of records covers all three.
-
Rig camp and remote-site catering Canteen operation, kitchen and dining-hall cleaning, accommodation housekeeping and laundry, and camp waste handling at drilling sites and remote desert locations, with the whole operation resourced to run without a daily delivery.
-
Camp management Beyond the kitchen: accommodation allocation and room readiness, recreation provision, janitorial services, potable water and waste handling, and the camp registers that keep the compound inspection-ready.
-
Labour accommodation messing Messing at workers' accommodation run to the conditions and specifications set for proper workers' accommodation under Ministerial Decision No. 18 of 2014 — kitchens finished and ventilated to the required standard, refrigeration and cooking capacity matched to the number of residents, covered waste containers, dining halls sized to the population with insect netting to windows and doors, and food prepared and consumed only in designated areas.
-
Industrial and staff canteens Plants, workshops, yards and offices: fixed-menu daily service, shift meals timed to the shift change rather than to the clock, tea and pantry rounds, and vending and coffee-machine supply with consumables and servicing.
-
Corporate and office catering in Doha Boardroom and meeting catering, daily staff lunch service, and hospitality support for conferences and exhibitions, delivered temperature-controlled from the central kitchen with the same goods-in and holding records used offshore.
-
Event, VIP and banquet call-off Management visits and site tours, opening and inauguration events, banquet setup and service, Ramadan iftar and suhoor, and Eid and National Day provision — priced as call-off items against an agreed schedule of rates rather than negotiated each time.
-
Transport and temperature-controlled delivery Delivery to remote sites in temperature-controlled vehicles with journey-time and arrival-temperature records, so the cold chain from central kitchen to serving point is evidenced end to end.
FOOD SAFETY
Food safety, hygiene and the documents behind it
What is operated, what is licensed, and what is not certified
We separate three things that are routinely and dishonestly blurred in this market. A HACCP-based system is a method we operate. A licence is a permission the state has granted. A certification is a certificate an accredited body has issued. We operate the first and hold the licences the work requires. We hold no certification at all, and that is written below in plain words rather than left to be inferred from a row that says nothing.
HACCP is a risk-assessment methodology built on seven principles — hazard analysis, determination of critical control points, critical limits, monitoring, corrective action, verification and record keeping. It controls process. ISO 22000 is a full food safety management system that embeds those principles alongside prerequisite programmes, management responsibility and continual improvement, and it is certifiable by an accredited body. A firm may honestly say it operates a HACCP-based system without holding a certificate. It may not say it is HACCP certified or ISO 22000 certified without one, and an evaluator will check.
- Documented HACCP-based food safety management system
- Operated
- Daily records available for client audit
- Held on site
- Ministry of Public Health health certificate — every food handler
- Annual, per individual
- Food handler licence via Qatar Chamber
- Three-year, per individual
- Food establishment licensing
- Per premises, before production
- Third-party certification
- None held
- Bridging to the client's own food safety standard
- On award
- Independent laboratory testing
- Subcontracted, accredited
MOBILISATION
Mobilisation, in the order it happens
Award to first meal served, with the gates a client actually applies
Mobilisation is a scored element of a catering tender, not a formality after it. Operators require a preliminary contract HSE plan as part of the tender submission, covering the contract phases from mobilisation through execution, demobilisation and site restoration, and stating the procedures and standards to be followed in each phase. On award it becomes a detailed plan for the Contract Holder's approval.
We plan every mobilisation backwards from the work commencement gate, because that gate is the only date that matters: no work starts on the client's location without an approved work commencement HSE certificate.
In-country mobilisation with an already-certified crew is measured in days, against a date we commit to for your scope and location rather than a slogan. Overseas mobilisation is measured in weeks: four to eight from offer letter to Qatar ID, once medical screening, attestation, visa centre processing and post-arrival formalities are counted. We quote the two routes separately and never present the first for the second job.
-
1. Scope, POB baseline and rate build
Read the scope, agree POB bands, service periods, cabin and laundry volumes, call-off items and the retail model. Price as an all-inclusive man-day rate by band, plus per-meal and per-bed extras above the base, a mobilisation lump sum and a demobilisation lump sum — the standard rate architecture for this work, and the one a client's estimator can check.
-
2. Preliminary Contract HSE Plan with the tender
Submitted with the bid, covering mobilisation, execution, demobilisation and site restoration, with the procedures and standards named for each phase. On award it is developed into the detailed Contract HSE Plan for approval by the Contract Holder and HSE Adviser.
-
3. Crew build and certificate verification
Post-by-post organogram with a named back-to-back for every position and a relief pool sized to the field-break rules. Food handler medicals and licences, fitness-to-work certificates, T-BOSIET and H2S/BA verified against the issuing body's records before travel. A laminated copy is not evidence.
-
4. HSE appointments and client interviews
HSE officer or supervisor appointed at the manning ratio the contract requires, CVs submitted for the client's review and interview where the standard calls for it, and the Camp Boss named to the client before mobilisation. Selection, replacement and removal of the HSE officer are the client's to approve.
-
5. Equipment, fit-out and commissioning
Galley and cold-store survey, equipment purchase and shipment, installation and commissioning of cooking equipment, extraction and the galley fire suppression system, crockery, cutlery and service utensils, chemicals and the colour-code system, and calibrated probes and thermometers with certificates.
-
6. Supplier approval and opening stock
Approved supplier list finalised with halal certification, specifications and traceability per supplier. Opening dry, chill and freeze stock built to the agreed days of cover, and the first provisions run consolidated, pre-cooled and containerised.
-
7. Pre-mobilisation equipment inspection
The client inspects the contractor's equipment and plant before it moves, producing the clearance certificate that permits mobilisation. Anything that fails is replaced before sailing, not argued about at the quayside.
-
8. Kick-off meeting and pre-execution HSE audit
Kick-off attended by the project sponsor, project manager, site representative and HSE manager. Pre-execution HSE audit against the agreed targets, with findings closed out on a dated action list.
-
9. Work commencement certificate
The gate. No work commences on the client's location until an approved work commencement HSE certificate is issued. The whole programme above is scheduled to land here with margin, not to arrive at it hoping.
-
10. Handover, takeover and first 72 hours
Where we replace an incumbent: documented stock count, equipment condition register, open defect list, transfer of retained crew where the client wants continuity and Ministry of Labour transfer requirements permit, and a dual-manned first 72 hours so the first breakfast under the new contract is indistinguishable from the last one under the old.
-
11. Demobilisation, planned at award
Stock run-down and handover, equipment removal, camp dismantling and site restoration, crew repatriation or redeployment, final HSE and food safety records handover, and closure of the contract file. It is written into the plan at tender stage because the client requires it there.
EVIDENCE
Reporting, records and how performance is measured
Catering contracts in this sector are not judged on the meal. They are judged on whether the contractor can produce, on demand and in the client's own format, the records that prove the meal was safe, the crew was certified, the water was tested, the waste was accounted for and nobody was hurt making it.
We compile monthly to the client's format and hold everything else on site, audit-ready and current — not reconstructed the week before the audit.
| Monthly HSE performance return | Client format, submitted monthly | Employees under the contract; man-hours worked including overtime and excluding leave and sickness; injury and illness cases by classification; near misses; unsafe acts and unsafe conditions; safety observation cards; heat-stress incidents; sickness absence days; road traffic and vehicle incidents; fire incidents; asset damage; spills and leaks; hazardous and non-hazardous waste generated in kilograms; inductions delivered; personnel HSE trained; toolbox talks; HSE meetings, inspections and audits; recommendations raised and closed; emergency drills planned and held; and logistics exposure. |
|---|---|---|
| Injury classification | To the client's definitions, not a generic one | A lost time injury is counted per injured person, not per incident — if one incident injures twenty people, that is twenty LTIs. A lost workday case counts a person unfit for work on any day after the accident, and any day includes rest days, weekends, leave and public holidays. We classify the way the client's standard classifies, so the numbers reconcile. |
| Published safety rates | Only with exposure hours and period | Rates are calculated per million hours worked and are meaningless without their denominator. We publish no rate on this site. Where a prequalification asks for one, it is given with the exposure hours and the period it covers, and supported by the monthly returns behind it. |
| Food safety records | Daily, held on site | Goods-in checks, cold and hot holding logs, cooking and chilling critical limits, probe calibration, cleaning schedules signed by task, oil quality, pest control visit reports, retained samples and corrective actions with close-out. |
| Potable water records | Monthly, quarterly and annual | Bunkering and dosing records, sentinel tap and calorifier temperatures monthly; bacteriological, chemical and Legionella sampling quarterly; tank and calorifier internal inspection and backflow valve servicing annually; all against the written scheme of control. |
| Waste records | Monthly tonnage by stream | Segregated quantities in kilograms by stream, garbage record entries, backload manifests and receipts from licensed receivers ashore. |
| Crew and certification register | Live, with expiry tracking | Per person: food handler health certificate and licence, fitness to work, offshore survival and H2S/BA, induction and site-specific training, rotation history and rest-period record. Expiries are tracked forward so a certificate is renewed before it lapses, not after a crew member is turned back at the heliport. |
| Service level and KPIs | Agreed in the SLA | Meal service punctuality, hygiene audit score, cabin turnaround time, stock availability, complaint logging and closure time, and the crew satisfaction survey result — reviewed at the contract meeting against the same figures the client holds. |
QUESTIONS
Questions a procurement team actually asks
Which company will I be contracting with, and which one cooks?
Catering, camp services and catering manpower are contracted and delivered by Allive Team Services, on its own commercial registration and food-service activity. Safari Qatar Services Company is the group's construction, offshore platform, marine machinery, oilfield supply, heavy transport and government-transactions entity, and does not present itself as a caterer. On an integrated scope one entity leads as main contractor and the other is declared as a subcontractor before mobilisation, because the main contractor is accountable for its subcontractors' HSE performance and the client will want that structure on paper.
How is offshore catering priced?
As an all-inclusive man-day rate — labour, food, consumables, overheads and margin — multiplied by forecast POB, normally banded by POB range with a guaranteed minimum where the profile is volatile. On top of that sit per-meal and per-bed rates for personnel above the base allocation, call-off rates for banquet, VIP and Ramadan work, a mobilisation lump sum and a demobilisation lump sum. We will price against your schedule of rates format rather than sending our own.
Can your catering crew actually go offshore in Qatar?
Only crew holding a valid T-BOSIET and an H2S/BA certificate travel offshore, and both are verified against the issuing body's records before travel rather than accepted as a copy. This applies to a cook exactly as it applies to a technician — food hygiene and hospitality credentials do not count towards offshore survival requirements, and without valid certification a person will not board. We roster to the field-break rules as well: maximum continuous stay of 90 calendar days at Halul or 60 on a production station, with at least seven days' onshore rest before returning.
Are you HACCP certified? Do you hold ISO 22000?
We operate a documented HACCP-based food safety management system — hazard analysis, critical control points with defined limits, monitoring, corrective action, verification and records, sitting on prerequisite programmes. That is a description of how we work, and the records are available for audit. Certification is a separate matter, and there the answer is no: we hold no HACCP certificate and no ISO 22000, and we will not write ‘certified’, ‘compliant’ or ‘aligned’ where what we mean is ‘this is how we work’. We would rather be short a logo than be caught claiming one.
How fast can you mobilise?
Two different clocks, and they should never be quoted as one. An in-country crew already holding current certificates mobilises in days, against a date we commit to for your scope and location. Overseas recruitment runs four to eight weeks from offer letter to Qatar ID, once trade screening, the GAMCA medical, police clearance, certificate attestation, Qatar Visa Centre biometrics and contract signing, travel and post-arrival medical, fingerprinting and QID issuance are counted. Equipment lead times and the client's own pre-mobilisation inspection and work commencement gate sit on top of both.
How do you feed a multinational crew on one service line?
With a written menu cycle rather than a bigger buffet. Each service period carries a recognisable main for the South Asian, Filipino, Arab and European groups on the installation, a genuine vegetarian line with its own utensils and preparation area, and a halal supply chain with segregated storage. Medical diets are prepared on the site medic's written instruction, allergens are declared on the printed cycle and at the counter, and Ramadan iftar and suhoor are timed to the shift pattern rather than to sunset alone.
What happens to water and waste offshore?
Potable water is bunkered through a dedicated certified hose, dosed and tested, with free residual chlorine held between 0.2 and 1.0 ppm and every receipt logged; sentinel taps and calorifiers are checked monthly, sampling is quarterly, and Legionella is targeted below 100 cfu/L. Waste is governed by the fact that the Gulf is a MARPOL Annex V Special Area: nothing is discharged from a fixed or floating platform or from a vessel within 500 metres of one, food waste is comminuted only where a discharge is expressly permitted, and everything else is segregated at source and backloaded with a garbage record and monthly tonnage reported to you.
Can you take over an existing contract from an incumbent?
Yes, and the transition is the part we plan hardest. A takeover runs as a documented handover: stock count and valuation, equipment condition register, open defect list, food safety and water record transfer, retained crew transferred where you want continuity and Ministry of Labour requirements permit, and a dual-manned first 72 hours. The measure of a good takeover is that the crew notices nothing on the first morning.
Do you supply catering staff on their own, without the service?
Catering and hospitality manpower — camp bosses, chief cooks, second cooks, bakers, stewards, messmen, galley hands, housekeeping attendants and laundry operators — is a distinct offer with its own licensing, and it is delivered by Allive Team Services W.L.L. on its own registration — C.R. 200001, Commercial Licence 264517, activity 781004 labour supply services, held alongside 5629001 catering food services. Supplying labour to another employer in Qatar is a separately licensed activity from running a catering service, and we do not blur the two. Take the registration number and check the activity on the Ministry of Commerce and Industry register — you should be doing that with every supplier.
NEXT STEP
Send us the scope, and we will price it properly
The fastest way to a real number is a real scope. Send the locations, the POB profile with its peaks, the service periods, the cabin and laundry volumes, the contract duration and required mobilisation date, and any call-off items — banquet, VIP, Ramadan, retail concession. If you have an inspection and test plan, a schedule of rates format or an HSE standard you want us to bid against, send those too and we will price into your format rather than ours.
If you are still shortlisting, ask instead for the prequalification pack. It contains the registration and licensing documents for both group entities, the food safety system description with a sample record set, the crew certification and rotation policy, the mobilisation programme template, and the HSE reporting format we work to.