Most people plan a holiday around a beach or a city. At jellybean, we plan ours around lunch. So when my friend in Basel suggested cycling the Route des Vins d’Alsace, the only real question was how much Alsace food and wine we could fit into one trip.
Although in person events are still a huge part of the foodservice, hospitality and food and drink world (we are a people business after all!), it is fair to say that post-Covid we have seen a consolidation of trade shows across the board, which is no bad thing when everyone’s time is at a premium. Read More
When the first lockdown hit in 2020, dried pasta, tinned tomatoes and blocks of Parmigiano Reggiano were among the first products to vanish from UK supermarket shelves, faster even than bread. It wasn’t panic. It was priority. Britain has been quietly obsessed with Italian food for a very long time, and in a crisis, people reach for what they trust. YouGov has named Italian cuisine the most popular in the world, with 91% of British people who have tried it saying they like it. For any Italian food brand weighing up the UK market, that’s one of the strongest tailwinds going in FMCG.
Walk into any supermarket this autumn and you’ll feel it before you even see it: a connection between brand and shopper. It’s on the pack, in the display, in the moment someone reaches for it – a moment where the shopper doesn’t think, they just instinctively reach. That instinct isn’t random. It’s been built by everything the brand has already said elsewhere, integrated long before the shopper ever gets near the shelf. When that connection is executed well, it’s rarely an accident. It’s there because the shopper marketing agency behind it worked integrated by instinct – understanding how that moment linked to everything else the brand does and stands for, even if shopper marketing was the only brief they’d actually been given.
With 87% of B2B marketers now using LinkedIn, and 76% calling it the most effective channel for thought leadership¹, it’s easy to see why so many B2B brands focus their social media strategy around the platform. But while LinkedIn is an important part of any B2B strategy, relying on one platform alone could mean missing out on where your customers, chefs, operators and decision-makers are actually spending their time online. The short answer: LinkedIn is essential for B2B, but it shouldn’t be the only platform carrying your strategy.
For years, food and drink marketers have had a blind spot. You could see exactly how your website ranked on Google. You had no idea how a viral TikTok or a scroll stopping Reel showed up in someone’s search results. That gap has just started to close.
As planning for 2027 comes hurtling towards us you may well be looking for an agency to support your brand or brands in foodservice. Choosing a foodservice marketing agency is however a different exercise to selecting a general marketing agency, and treating it the same way is where most agency reviews go wrong. Read More
Poutine has been around for a while now. Chips, gravy and squeaky cheese curds have been turning up on London’s late-night menus for over a decade, from the four branches of Dip & Flip to Caribou Poutine in Liverpool, the UK’s first dedicated poutine restaurant.
“It’s only good nutrition if children are eating it!”
Nine words from Arena’s Feeding the Future event that every food and drink brand selling into schools should pin above the NPD whiteboard and the Government would do well to consider. With new school food standards for England landing in September*, here’s who wins, who loses and who needs to reformulate fast.
Arena’s Summer Event took place this year at the Jumeirah Carlton Tower in Knightsbridge, a day dedicated to shaping the future of foodservice and hospitality. Arena gatherings are always a reliable barometer of industry mood, and this one delivered sharp insight, honest conversation and a wonderful lunch.
Some evenings remind you exactly why we all love this industry. The Cateys did just that on the 7th of July, when nearly a thousand hospitality professionals filled JW Marriott Grosvenor House London for the awards fondly known as the Oscars of hospitality – The Cateys. Those lucky enough to have a ticket dusted off the black tie and donned their posh frocks to catch up with familiar faces and cheered some thoroughly deserving winners.
I came back from Lisbon last month having worked my way through more than ten pastel de natas, so my standards were pretty high. I say this because the first stop on our Shoreditch food tour cleared that bar within the first 5 minutes… yum.
As a leading food and drink marketing agency, we make it our business to keep up with the latest trends and insight. Abi and I were delighted to attend Lumina Intelligence’s Q2 Food Strategy Forum on behalf of Team Bean earlier this month, and we came back with a clear picture of the foodservice trends that 2026 is being shaped by.
Seven hundred chefs, operators and industry names gathered at The Westminster Park Plaza last Wednesday evening for the Craft Guild of Chefs Awards 2026. I was lucky enough to attend with my colleague Jess Clare, as guests of Dewberry Redpoint.
One in five UK adults is currently taking, has taken, or is actively considering a GLP-1 weight loss medication. That is a significant consumer base with significantly reduced appetites. Not great news for the food and drink industry, but as ever, any challenge can be an opportunity when armed with strong insight!
In an era of endless digital noise and scroll-stopping content, immersive brand events continue to cut through – and arguably matter more than ever. By inviting consumers to step inside a brand’s world rather than simply watch from the outside, these experiences transform audiences into active participants. Read More
Marketing budgets are under more pressure than ever. Brands are being asked to achieve more, reach further and stretch campaigns without increasing spend. But a bigger food and drink marketing budget doesn’t automatically deliver better results.
We attend a lot of industry events, and Lumina Intelligence’s Food Strategy Forum is one we always make time for. Bringing together some of the sharpest minds in foodservice to share what the data is actually saying, we came away from the March session with a clear picture of where the eating out market is heading in 2026 and, just as importantly, who’s being left behind. Now that we’re deeper into 2026, it’s a good moment to reflect on how those insights are already playing out. Read More
By 2030, Gen Z will account for $12.6 trillion in global spending. That’s 18.7% of world consumer expenditure. We recently attended Lumina Intelligence’s Food Strategy Forum, where one session was devoted entirely to this generation: who they are, what they want and why so many food and drink brands are still getting them wrong. Here’s what stood out. Read More
