In an ever-changing digital world, with AI exploding and hospitality businesses seeking new ways to drive customer experience and business efficiencies, digital transformation was the obvious topic for Arena’s Autumn Event. As the leading foodservice agency, we jumped at the opportunity to catch up with industry friends and contacts, whilst getting to hear from innovative events catering company Freemans Event Partners and Jeremy Blain CEO of Performance Works International, not to mention the chance for a sneaky peak behind-the-scenes at Lords Cricket Ground.
After a short hiatus for a worldwide pandemic, the Universal Cookery and Food Festival was back with a bang this year. With the location set appropriately in the Garden of England (Kent) the imposing big top at Loddington Farm played host to a wide range of brands, along with a trends and debate stage and The Staff Canteen Live. Not only was the event, dubbed Glastonbury for chefs, awash with food and drink, it also offered farm and foraging tours for those up for braving the elements and getting back to nature.
As the leading food and drink agency we make it our business to stay ahead of foodservice market trends. One of the many ways we do this is via Lumina Intelligence. This week we attended their informative webinar on the pub and bar market. These are our top 10 take outs… Read More
The Paris 2024 Olympics closing ceremony saw this year’s games come to a spectacular finale with Team GB ranked a very respectable 7th in the medal league table (we’re only a small island!) – having achieved a spot on the podium every day of the Olympics. The games legacy of inspiration and excitement will doubtless go on to inspire future generations of athletes, but not only did it leave behind memories of incredible athletic feats it also left a culinary legacy…
This summer jellybean is excited to launch our first Top 25 Food and Drink Influencers Report. The report highlights the rising stars across the food and drink scene from cooking at home and eating out, to vegan, drinks, and chef influencers.
Here at jellybean, we’re committed to supporting local projects and being an active member in the Leatherhead community. That’s why, this year, we are proud to have offered our support to a local charity, Leatherhead Youth Project (LYP), to sponsor its suitably foodie 5-A-Day Campaign.
Whether we’re attending the latest foodservice and retail insight events, keeping in the loop on social media with our monthly Trend Watch, or our favourite activity – sampling food at top-rated restaurants, as a leading food and drink marketing agency, we make it our business to stay up to date with the latest food trends. Read on for a rundown of our best restaurant recommendations this month (July 2024) …
There is one ‘gong’ that everyone in hospitality covets. From hoteliers to chefs, restauranteurs to mixologists, the iconic ‘lady holding a clamshell’ is frankly the equivalent of an Oscar when it comes to hospitality. So, I was hugely honoured to be invited to attend this star-studded night by Jacobs Media, publishers of The Caterer magazine and hosts of the Cateys. As a leading food and drink agency with over 37 years in foodservice and hospitality (six years longer than the Cateys have been running!) we have been proud to work with many Cateys’ award winners and sponsors over the years. So, it was wonderful to witness another cohort of winners receive their well-deserved awards.
With a stellar line-up including Kate Nicholls OBE, CEO, UK Hospitality, James Brown, CEO, BrewDog Bars, Pano Christou, CEO, Pret A Manger, Dame Karen Jones DBE, and Simon Stenning, Founder, Future Foodservice, this year’s Savoy Lecture was a must-attend date in the foodservice calendar. Of course, as the leading foodservice agency we were there to hear what these leading lights of the industry had to say and enjoy the wonderful hospitality of The Savoy, whilst also getting to catch-up with contacts new and old.
I recently attended the Bread & Jam Foodservice Summit, which aims to help start-up food and drink brands navigate their way through the somewhat daunting foodservice sector. Sometimes referred to as out of home or away from home, or even HORECA, it offers start-ups a huge opportunity outside of traditional grocery retail. As the leading foodservice agency, we sponsored the inaugural event last year (read more here), whilst this year I could relax and enjoy the excellent line-up of speakers and panel discussions as a delegate.
The Public Sector Catering Awards were held last week at the Hilton London Metropole and as a leading foodservice agency we were of course there to celebrate these amazing caterers. These awards are the benchmark for excellence in public sector catering, a sector which, despite its size, can often be overlooked in favour of the more glamourous profit sector. Be it catering in education, hospital catering, care home catering and even catering for the military and the prison service, public sector catering is the oft-unseen force that keeps Britain running.
As a leading food and drink marketing agency with a passion for foodservice and eating out, we make it our business to keep on top of all the latest trends in the food and drink arena. The world of food to go, or quick service restaurants as it’s sometimes referred to, is a hotbed of innovation and has proved to be one of the most resilient sectors of the eating out market, both during Covid more recently the cost-of-living crisis. So, we hot-footed it along to The Ham Yard Hotel last week to hear from some of the key players in the food to go market at MCA’s Food to Go Conference.
As a leading food and drink agency, it is fair to say we think about food 365 days a year, but this year we’ll be adding an extra day as it is a leap year. Every four years, February boasts an extra day, a curious anomaly in our calendars known as ‘leap day’. While some see it merely as an additional date on the calendar and possibly the chance for women to propose (more of this later!), others view it as an opportunity to create customs, including those surrounding food and feasting. From Greek feasts to Chinese banquets, we take a look at how leap day is marked across the world…
If you are an avid follower of our socials, you may have noticed recent posts featuring an animation of care, expertise & collaboration. These are the values which underpin jellybean as a brand and that we live by and do business by.
As a leading marketing agency, we are always on the look-out for opportunities to help the hospitality industry. This year, we are thrilled to be partnering up with The Restaurant Show for its ground-breaking initiative to raise money for Hospitality Action.
As the leading food and drink agency with 36 years’ experience in foodservice, we know a thing or two about eating out. But as they say, every day is a school day and what better kind of school day than a trip out in the sunshine to see what culinary delights Kings Cross has to offer?
It is fair to say that I had never thought about taking a trip the Channel Islands until, that was, it was suggested to me by two fabulous friends as a girls’ bank holiday get-away. As one had come all the way from Australia and all three of us love our food and drink, we were keen to make the most of our three days in Jersey and of course restaurants came top of our priority list. So here are some of our highlights, bearing in mind we only really managed to explore Gorey Point, Grouville and a tiny bit of St Helier.
If you have ever wondered how to brief your marketing agency to get the very best work out of them then here’s a cheat sheet to help focus your thinking and inspire your next great campaign. It all comes down to the why, how, what & when…
As the leading food and drink agency dedicated to doing good, we’re delighted to be working with FareShare – the charity on a mission to fight hunger and combat food waste. Led by the mantra “no good food goes to waste” FareShare is all about redistributing surplus food to a vast network of nearly 8,500 charities and community organisations that use it to feed those in need across the country.
The Cateys is known in the industry as the Oscars of the hospitality world, and I was hugely honoured to be invited this year to it’s 40th anniversary event. As a leading food and drink agency with over 36 years in foodservice and hospitality we have been proud to work with a number of Catey’s award winners and sponsors over the years. This year they really pushed the boat out to mark this momentous milestone for the awards with a special Ruby Catey awarded to Raymond Blanc who spoke on the importance of coming together to make hospitality a destination career choice.
