SHELL Gas will today take its “New Era” campaign activities, on which it has already spent close to $20 million, to the Bay West Shopping Centre in Montego Bay with its second in a series of celebrity cook-offs.

Representatives of the Shell team will, between the hours of 12:00 pm and 4:00 pm, educate people on the new strides taken to ensure consumer safety and enhanced customer service delivery and the safety precautions people can take for themselves.

At the same time, people will get a chance to parttake of the culinary delights from the participants of the cook off even as they enjoy the music of well-known cabaret and jazz singer, Karen Smith.

Charlene Ashley, marketing director at Ashchar Consultants, the company responsible for Shell Gas’ public relations, said: “What we did was a survey to see what people wanted from cooking gas and we saw that they didn’t like the service they got… We found that homemakers wanted professional service. They wanted to feel safe and secure in the house,” Ashley told the Observer.

“So what Shell Gas has done is to overall their entire system, focussing primarily on making the homemaker feel secure and bringing in service as a very strong element… Therefore it is a new era and that is why we also say come feel the warmth of our service…”

The New Era campaign was launched on July 6, just about two months after liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders exploded at Juici Patties’ Kingston branch in Liguanea, injuring eight people.

In an interview yesterday with the Observer, Mark Williams, Shell Gas’ LPG sales manager, said while the incident “expedited” the campaign, the complete overhaul of their business was planned from before.

“What happened is that we did some assessment and we are subjected to Shell International audits and we found there were some serious safety breaches, especially with the 100-pound installation and therefore we decided to do something about it,” he said.

The steps taken include:

* the purchase of new LPG cylinders to the tune of $10 million;

* the execution of an education/safety campaign to the tune of $7 million;

* training and the purchase of uniform at cost of $500,000; and

* the purchase of new Shell signs to the tune of $500,000.

“What drives this process is firstly safety and then customer service. So that is where the money goes,” Williams said.