HAVING secured a lucrative five-year contract with Rangers to provide everything from elegant dining in the corporate boxes down to pies for the Ibrox faithful, Azure Support Services is now on the prowl to land other major clients throughout the Central Belt.

Set up earlier this year

by Caroline Black and Lawrence Morison, the Glasgow-based company

aims to specialise in

providing catering facilities at stadia and large workplaces.

It is currently in talks

with three potential clients, with each contract worth upwards of #100,000 a

year.

These would build upon the Rangers deal, which Black said was worth about #3m annually. Azure has about

500 people working for it on a match day, serving food to the approximately 50,000 capacity crowd.

Black - former managing director of Kelvin, a subsidiary of Gardner Merchant and now part of French group Sodexho Prestige - said the football club had previously handled all its catering in-house. However, it decided to outsource this activity, a move that Black believes will become a trend among

football clubs.

After a competitive tender process, Azure was awarded the contract in April, and began serving up food at

Ibrox on July 1.

''I just put forward the research I had found out,

and what I believed was needed for stadia service,''

she said.

With financial backing

from Charlotte Ventures,

the Edinburgh-based

private investment company, Azure is also looking at potential acquisitions. This had been considered as a

way of getting the business

up and running, but was rejected on the basis that

few quality contract

catering companies come up for sale.

Although unwilling to discuss details, Black said

she and Morison -

formerly director of human resources at Kelvin - owned enough of the business

to qualify Azure as

''owner-managed''.

''I think it's important

that you own enough to be owner-managed, because

what you're selling is quality and confidence in your service, and clients need to know that you have control over that.''