Saffron Vanilla /
The SV Group
Hospitality Recruitment Website & Digital Transformation
Saffron Vanilla — also known as The SV Group — partnered with QED to revitalise their digital presence and recover a stalled online project.
What began as a simple hosting and maintenance request evolved into a full-scale technical rescue and SEO transformation.
Within months, their hospitality recruitment website was faster, more efficient, and ranking higher than ever before.
About the client
Saffron Vanilla, is a hospitality recruitment specialist operating across Liverpool, Manchester, Chester, and the wider North West. Their team connects skilled chefs and hospitality professionals with venues that need reliable, flexible staff.
As one of the region’s fastest-growing independent hospitality agencies, they rely heavily on their website for candidate applications, shift management, and client engagement – making a dependable digital platform absolutely essential.
The Challenge
When Saffron Vanilla’s Managing Director, Stephen Ramsden, first approached QED, their website was struggling with poor maintenance and unreliable performance. Pages loaded slowly, essential updates had been missed, and their digital infrastructure lacked security best practices.
More critically, an ambitious online timesheet system project had stalled after nearly a year of inactivity with another provider. This delay was creating serious inefficiencies in payroll processing and staff scheduling, directly affecting their day-to-day operations.
The Solution
We began by stabilising and securing their website, migrating it to our eco-friendly hosting platform to improve reliability and reduce environmental impact. Our team implemented essential maintenance updates, patched vulnerabilities, and enhanced site performance.
Next, we turned our attention to the halted timesheet system. Rebuilding it from the ground up, we designed a streamlined, user-friendly interface for both candidates and admin teams, with secure authentication and data handling at its core.
At the same time, we leveraged our experience as a hospitality SEO content creator, producing blog posts and resources that targeted high-value keywords relevant to hospitality recruitment. Each piece was designed to improve discoverability, answer search intent, and increase traffic from chefs and hospitality professionals across the North West.
To further increase Saffron Vanilla’s online presence, we utilised their Local SEO and Google Business profile
The Results
The impact was immediate and measurable:
- Keyword “matchday chef” improved from position 37 → 8
- “Temp chef agency” rose 29 places to rank #12
- Top 3 rankings achieved for “chef recruitment Liverpool” and “hospitality networking tips”
- Blog post “A Complete Guide: How to Become a Freelance Chef” earned a featured snippet in Google’s People Also Ask
- +17.4% new users and +10.0% increase in total events, indicating stronger engagement
Operationally, the new timesheet system streamlined payroll and reporting, cutting administrative delays and enabling faster staff onboarding.
The Candidate page now attracts 33.67% of all website traffic, transforming the site into an active recruitment tool rather than a static brochure.
Business Impacts
- Website migrated to carbon-efficient hosting with improved uptime
- Custom-built WordPress development with SEO-friendly structure
- Secure user authentication for candidate data
- Optimised database architecture for performance and scalability
- Clean, accessible UI for easy navigation and mobile usability
- PAYG Wordpress maintenance plan to ensure consistent performance
Design highlights
