Highly anticipated, Arena’s sold out Spring Event, was its first of 2025 and it did not disappoint. Arena provides foodservice industry professionals with a fascinating day of learning, networking and thought provoking discussion on the issues that matter.
Taking place at the Sofitel London St. James, myself and fellow bean, Senior Account Executive Alvi Tysall – along with 200 attendees – gathered for the morning session to find out how the hospitality industry was shaping up.
Presented by Jill Livesey – MD at Lumina Intelligence we were first given a frank take on an industry still in recovery, the sectors performing, food trends to watch out for and predictions for the future.
January is often seen as a month of fresh starts and new beginnings. At jellybean, we see it as a perfect opportunity to focus on wellbeing, as individuals, a team and the wider community. As an employee-owned agency that values workplace culture, and has wellbeing at its heart, we believe in starting the year with small but meaningful steps toward a healthier, happier future.
Earlier this month I attended the Alliance of Independent Agencies’ Festival of Happiness, a day dedicated to exploring the role culture and wellbeing has within a business. Taking place at Google’s Kings Cross HQ, this year’s theme was focussed on leadership – that to achieve as a high performing agency, leaders must pay attention to the wellbeing and happiness of their people.
In the fast-evolving digital landscape, B2B food and drink brands are leveraging social media to build stronger networks, drive sales, and boost brand visibility.
LinkedIn, as the world’s largest professional networking platform and the oldest (21 years this year and counting), has become an important tool in these efforts, offering unique opportunities to connect with the right audiences.
We’re proud to share that jellybean has raised over £2,000 for DEBRA UK.
Our intrepid beans Abi Fraser and Liv Martin took part in a thrilling ‘Flight to Fight EB’ wing-walk at Headcorn Airfield (Sun 11th June), which saw them amount a plane and soar at speeds of 120mph through the sky to raise money for a great cause!
DEBRA UK helps people living with the rare, and extremely painful, genetic skin blistering condition, Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB), also known as ‘Butterfly Skin’ with essential patient support. Smashing their fundraising goal, so far our duo have raised an incredible £2,100 in support of this pioneering charity’s £5m ‘A Life Free of Pain’ appeal with donations still open!
We’re thrilled that jellybean has been shortlisted for the third consecutive year for ‘Best B2B Campaign’ in the Alliance of Independent Agencies’, Wing Awards.
With jellybean having won both previous years, we’re hoping for a hattrick!
‘Pep Up Your Menu!’ was a route to market foodservice campaign for PEPPADEW® UK – and we’re delighted that it has been shortlisted as one of the outstanding campaigns in the B2B category.
This integrated campaign was developed to help PEPPADEW® UK achieve national listings for its latest innovation, PEPPADEW® Bites. Our talented team pulled out all the stops combining strong strategy, bespoke insight, as well as impactful creative, to engage wholesale buyers and help our amazing client secure national listings for the PEPPADEW® Bites.
We’re incredibly proud the bean’s hard work has been recognised amongst the best B2B campaigns of the year. Having won in 2021 and 2022 with our campaigns for Sarson’s and Philadelphia, here’s hoping for a hattrick as we celebrate ‘independents day’ at MAD//Fest, 4th July 2023.
To read the Pep Up Your Menu case study click here.
For more than three decades, jellybean has been proud to support Plan International, a global children’s charity where each employee over that period has had a child sponsored for them in their name – 100 in total.
Earlier this month I headed into a rather rainy London for the first Lumina Food Strategy Forum of the year. With a new venue – the Everyman Broadgate – Lumina’s quarterly forums provide a fantastic insight into how the out-of-home market and consumer behaviours have changed over the previous quarter.
Now in its third year jellybean’s 12 Days of Giving is our way of giving back during the festive season, where we donate a day’s average jellybean salary to 12 charities of our choice.
So, you’ve booked your events and exhibitions for 2023, whether you’re planning a host of regional shows, focusing on a niche sector, or perhaps going big at the next William-Reed expo, there are some simple things you can do to boost awareness around your stand, get more traffic and help market your business pre, during and post show. As a leading food and drink marketing and PR agency we know a thing or two about foodie shows and how to make the most of them. So here are our 10 top tips…
As a leading food and drink agency with over 35 years working with chefs us beans are used to working closely with chefs. Indeed, over this past month I was incredibly lucky to spend time in the company of many brilliant chefs. Chefs of all ages and levels, they had either shined at the Salon Culinaire, Zest Quest Asia, or were in training to compete at the highest level – representing England at the World Culinary Olympics this November.
With Veganuary ending and reports that ten times as many people tried plant-based food last month (I was one of them), The Caterer’s Plant-Based Summit 2022 provided an insightful look at the vegan market, as well as fascinating discussions on the challenges and opportunities for operators, manufacturers and chefs.
After two years away The Caterer Supplier Awards returned in December to recognise hospitality’s most exciting manufacturers, producers, and suppliers.
The 2021 awards were even more crucial considering the pandemic and the challenges that our industry is facing. As well as providing operators with details on the essential products that could help their menus and business, the awards were also a celebration of the best foodservice manufacturers and suppliers who – despite facing their own trials during Covid – continued to innovate to support hospitality as it navigated the new normal and rebuild.
When Fiona our CEO asked which charities we would like to support as part of jellybean’s initiative – 12 Days of Giving, one immediately sprang to mind – A Passion to Inspire.
As part of Public Sector Catering’s fantastic Plant-Based Week, the jellybean team was in high attendance at the publication’s ‘Future of Plant-Based Meals’ webinar, where industry experts weighed in on the key issues around plant-based eating in the public sector.
That’s the first thought I had when Fiona asked us to put into words why we’re rising to the challenge of Hospitality Action’s fundraising initiative, ‘To Hell and Back’.
We’re approaching the time of year when myself and Mr. F would usually take the short but muddy pilgrim up to St Nicholas Godstone for the village Christmas Carol Service. It sees the whole community and many of our neighbours come together over singing, mulled wine and homemade mince pies. It’s a time to pause and catch up before the usual Christmas chaos, talk holiday plans and share our well wishes for the year ahead. St. Nicholas is heaving, and many people are left standing in the doorways of the little church. It’s one of my favourite Christmas activities and one I’m sorely going to miss this year due to social distancing.
We thought we knew cocoa, until that is we started working with Olam Cocoa to launch their new range of deZaan premium cocoa powders – which made us think again! We couldn’t believe the range of colour and taste variants they had developed, taking cocoa from an everyday staple to something to truly inspire professionals in the kitchen. And it seems the more you discover about cocoa, the more there is to learn – from pH to dutching, fat content to intrinsic and extrinsic colour (who knew!). Working with Olam Cocoa on the launch of their new responsibly sourced professional range has been a real education.
Good value for money has always been a priority to us, but since lockdown a lot has changed and consumer perception of it. As part of their Food Strategy Forum, the MCA examined what value for money really means in the new normal, here are my top take outs from their webinar.
