Close competition in cake stakes

When the marketing team at business centre operator Regus planned celebrations for the company’s tenth birthday, it came up with a cake-baking competition – an uninspired idea, you might think.

But forget humble Women’s Institute village fêtes, the team at Regus’ Staines office was thinking along more ambitious lines.

They threw down the “bake a cake” challenge to the company’s 211 centres in 42 countries and sat back and waited for cakes from far flung corners of the Earth to arrive in Staines. After much munching and lip-smacking, a banana cake from Belgium was pronounced the winner.