Let’s just accept it. It’s a weird time to be alive.

It feels like only yesterday that I saw a man wearing a beekeeper’s mask and bright yellow marigolds while queuing at an off license. Was it really five years ago that Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby shared a tender embrace through a reinforced plastic shroud on live TV? Did Matt Hancock actually exist?

The second UK-wide lockdown happened on my 40th birthday. Five years ago this very week. I managed a trip to Tom Kerridge’s Hand & Flowers for a pleasantly muted celebration the day prior, before scurrying back to my lodgings and shutting the world out for a further 6-month stint. There and then, in a waspish fit of pique, I decided that I would symbolically claim that year back from the void like mis-sold PPI. This year, when I am due to turn net 45, I will, in fact, be only 44. Take that, universe.

It may be five years on, yet in the pandemic’s wash we continue to list. As a nation, we may now be fully unlocked, yet things still feel weird and I can’t help but think the events of 2020/21 were part catalyst. Back then the hospitality industry – facing almost total oblivion – received unprecedented support through both the furlough and Eat Out to Help Out schemes, yet it is now an unwitting actor in a long and painful recovery, still paying reparations. Burdened with one of Europe’s highest VAT rates and continuously mis-treated by successive Government regimes, Conservative and Labour.

Over the course of the last two months, I have been conducting in depth interviews with a number of chefs, who make up jellybean’s new ‘Secret Brigade’ – an anonymous cabal of highly opinionated cooks – from Michelin star holders to contract caterers, multi-site operators, pub chefs and beyond. Their fascinating insights have added unique fuel and flavour to our latest insight piece – Reading Chefs’ Minds, a state of the nation report powered by quantitative research and our SENSE social listening platform. Layering on these very personal perceptions has given the findings a completely new dimension, allowing us to peer inside the heads of UK chefs like never before. Preserving their anonymity is important, not least from a legal perspective, but it gives them the chance to be authentically angry and outspoken – most importantly, we get the absolute truth unbridled.

The general consensus? Brexit has caused arrant chaos, the Pandemic is still being paid off in huge instalments, while politicians posture for pub garden photocalls, pint of British beer in hand, lauding our world beating welcome, when in actual fact they don’t give a shit about the hospitality industry (not my words, but those of the Secret Brigade! See what I’ve done there; I can effectively say anything and remain unaccountable). One chef I spoke to went in so hard on so-called ‘inauthentic influencers’, I wept openly – yet that was another huge theme. One of respect for commensurate skill levels, for chefs as influencers, where engagement is hard earned, with plenty of ire towards brands who don’t get ‘it’.

One chef I spoke to – the proud holder of a Michelin star and one of the UK’s most respected household names – confided that at any one time, they are never more than 6 months from going under. Complete business obliteration. Indeed, recent insight from UK Hospitality found that a third of hospitality businesses are operating at a loss which as any business owner knows is simply not sustainable. The tightrope these people walk is frankly alarming and they need to be lauded for continuing to stick at it with such alacrity. I used to fantasize about owning a pub – all long lunches, Scampi Fries, fist fights with locals and yards of ale. But, honestly, after hearing about the struggles and hardships faced simply keeping the ship afloat – operating daily on a knife’s edge – I’ll take my chances with PR and marketing.

Talking of the latter, if you’re a brand marketing to chefs, you need to hear the new Reading Chefs’ Minds report. Register for your free pre-read here. The full bodied, unabridged version, is the preserve of jellybean to use with our clients; yet another reason to work with us.

Because while it may still be a weird time to be alive, it’s a new day in terms of how we talk to chefs. Don’t get left behind.

Nick Clancy
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