I was recently interviewed by The Grocer magazine for its feature on “how to get in front of a food and drink buyer”(The Grocer 27th April 2019). You can find a link to the full article here.
In honour of Jellybean’s Retail and Consumer Team recently being appointed consumer and trade PR agency for popular London doughnut chain, Doughnut Time, I’ve decided to explore the history of the much loved doughnut.
Last month I travelled across the globe to the culinary mecca that is Vietnam, home to thousands of independent street vendors, bars and restaurants. I started off my trip in the bustling and vibrant capital of Hanoi. Hanoi is known for its busy streets of cars, mopeds and motorbikes (which can sometimes be spotted carrying a family of four!). You soon get used to the bustling streets and the process of crossing the road (you just walk, and the traffic will weave around you). As with all our adventures, we take our findings back to Leatherhead and use it to inform what we do as a food service agency.
Progressive, outward looking and dedicated to quality at every turn; just some of the ways in which you can characterise the modern face of one of our industry’s most vast dining fraternities, the cost sector.
I am delighted to report that Jellybean’s School initiative with Plan International progresses apace. The construction materials and contractors have been secured, and construction was scheduled to begin this month – we look forward to a further update soon.But let’s be honest no one wants to look at photos of a building site, so I thought I would share with you some inspiring images from a neighbouring project in the Gambella region in Ethiopa so you can see the vision rather than the current reality.
Helping challenger brands to explode onto the market
A prestigious food and drink award, particularly one that is voted for independently by consumers and or industry professionals has the power to help a challenger brand explode onto the market and unlock huge sales growth.
Rome brought together two of my favourite things – history and gelato! In six days, we got to see all the famous sights from the Colosseum and Roman Forum to the Trevi Fountain and the breathtaking Sistine Chapel. What made our historical visits complete was taking it all in with a couple scoops of gelato. All in a day’s work for someone from a foodservice pr agency.
Despite the pun, surprisingly our social media campaign this Easter wasn’t Easter egg based, but rather hot cross bun themed. As a specialist food and drink agency, we get more than a little egg-cited about Easter and all its foodie treats. This year we were impressed to see a number of food brands inspired to create hot cross bun themed products and saw fit to offer a hamper of these delights as the prize in our Easter competition. The hamper included: hot cross bun truffles, hot cross bun biscuits, hot cross bun chocolate and a range of actual hot cross buns, along with a nice bottle of red to help wash down your Easter Sunday Roast. It would seem this seasonal hamper didn’t just appeal to us, it had quite the draw on social media, as we offered up a chance to win it by simply retweeting and @ mentioning a friend on Twitter, or commenting and tagging a friend on Instagram. Along with a short and sweet homegrown video to promote the competition (which to date has clocked up over 4,000 views across Twitter and Instagram), all it took was our talented social media team and a ‘Twittersphere’ and ‘Instasphere’ hungry for some hot cross bun action!
Hello and welcome to the very first edition of the Digital Download from jellybean. My name is Andy Wickes and the idea here is hopefully a pretty simple one. Each week we plan to cut through the white noise of digital marketing advice, tools, technologies, apps, platforms, acronyms and jargon, and to provide you our audience with an executive summary of what we think you need to know each week. Time is of the essence so we plan to keep things short. Very short! The plan is give you what you need to know in under two minutes. This is a quick espresso shot of digital that you can fit in between meetings or phonecalls or checking your email. Quick, smart and succinct.
If you didn’t happen to be one of the 81 million pairs of eyes that saw our fantastically tongue-in-cheek integrated Food PR & Social Media campaign for family-run Surrey sausage manufacturer, Porky Whites, then perhaps ‘the SAUSIES’ is a new term to you…
Five weeks in and I’m attending my first industry event as a new bean; H2O’s B&I StrEATfood Awards. An opportunity to try different street food concepts, alongside meeting likeminded people within the foodservice industry, whilst also witnessing the creativity of the UK’s best street food chefs in contract catering. H2O Publishing organised an amazing event which did not disappoint.
The annual Arena Savoy Lecture is one of the most hotly anticipated events of our industry. 12 months on from her last lecture Kate Nicholls, CEO of UK Hospitality – which represents 70,000 outlets – was back to share her thoughts on Brexit and what it means for the food and drink industry and food and drink agencies.
As a relatively new bean, this month’s MCA Food Concept Study Tour was a brilliant opportunity for me to gain some great insight into growing food trends, try some delicious food and feed my findings back to the food service design team.
Britain is a nation of animal lovers. The PDSA estimates that 24% of the UK adult population own a dog with an estimated population of 8.9 million pet dogs in the UK. So with so many of us devoted to our furry friends it makes good business sense to pander to our pets and offer dog friendly dining and accommodation. Once the domain of the country pub, fine dining restaurants and hotels across the UK are embracing the ‘hound pound’ as a valuable revenue stream.
I have always loved cooking. I find the whole process relaxing and very rewarding. But throw a new baby into the mix and suddenly our fridge was looking rather sparse and the idea of heading down to the supermarket with an ever-so screamy little one was too anxiety-inducing to handle.
Chr. Hansen is a leading, global bioscience company delivering natural innovative solutions that address global challenges by advancing food, health and productivity. We have been working with their Food Cultures & Enzymes (FC&E) division which develops and produces cultures and enzymes for the food industry.
In today’s society, food is no longer a way to feed yourself. It has now become a lifestyle, which many millennials call being a ‘foodie’. A person who has a passion or refined interest in food, who eats food not out of hunger, but due to their interest or hobby. A ‘foodie’ is constantly in search of the perfect photograph, consisting of perfectly composed food on a perfect plate, in a perfect setting. ‘Foodies’ will do whatever it takes to capture their desired shot, whether that means standing on a chair or table in the middle of a busy restaurant to get the ideal angle.
Every year, millions of pictures of food are posted on social media with Instagram being the pivotal platform for a picture of the perfect pastry, or two. As it stands, there are currently 188 million hashtag mentions on Instagram under #Foodporn. A recent study from YPulse shows 63% of people between thirteen and thirty-two years old post their food pictures on social networking sites while they are still eating. Moreover, 57% of people in the same age range posted a description of the food they were eating at that time – it is no wonder that the #FoodPorn trend has exploded. Food on social media is a key trend to watch and using the hashtag #FoodPorn means the food industry can easily track audiences on social networking services to see what’s hot!
As a leading food and drink agency, the eating out market is our bread and butter (so to speak) which is why we are MCA Insight’s Forum members. One of the benefits of membership is access to their regular debriefs ensuring we are completely up to date on market trends and dynamics, so here are our top ten take-outs from the latest on the eating out market from MCA:
We recently attended the annual MCA Food to Go Conference at Ham Yard Hotel, London. With the MCA forecasting that the Food to Go market is set to reach a value of £21.2bn in 2019 and continue outperforming growth from the wider eating out market, it therefore represents a vital area of growth for operators. We heard from an array of fantastic speakers including Welcome Break, Sustainable Restaurant Association, LEON, Pret A Manger, Yo! Sushi, Eat and many more.
Here are 5 Food to Go Trends arising from the day that we think will impact and drive Food to Go growth in 2019.
The way we eat is changing and choice is becoming more important than ever. Consumers want the opportunity to try new things and street food markets are providing a world of exciting opportunities right at their fingertips.
