I took my first solo trip to ‘the big apple’ a few weeks ago to meet a friend on secondment and was blown away by this city. Not only due to the vast skyscrapers juxtaposed by the beautiful residential areas and tranquil water, but also down to the fact that New York is the perfect place to visit for a foodie like me. Carry on reading for my top picks!
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.
We Brits take our pubs and bars seriously, from our beloved locals to splashy one-off ventures, right through to the well-known group operators that are always a safe bet. Heading to the pub for ‘one’, or perhaps a few more, as often ends up being the case, is a pastime so embedded within our culture that it’s practically in our DNA.
Each quarter, two lucky beans get the chance to go to the Lumina Intelligence Food Strategy Forum to gain fresh new data, have a peek into upcoming trends and take a dive into sector performance. The insightful debrief is then followed by the mouth-watering Food Study Tour which takes us on a round trip, first-hand experience of the latest trends and food crazes.
Hosted for the first time at St James’ Sofitel, Arena’s most recent event centred around arguably the most pressing issue facing the industry and the world at large: how can we all work to create a more sustainable future? With a key insight address from CGA and a dedicated panel discussion from some of the industry’s most senior leaders, it was an event not to be missed and so of course, as the leading foodservice agency, we were there in force.
The traditional sales funnel marketing model is giving way to more sophisticated marketing approaches that prioritise integrated customer journeys and long-term relationships over one-time transactions. We’ve entered the age of the “Infinity Loop.” As a leading food and drink marketing agency we always ensure we are on top of trends be they food and drink or marketing theory.
Here at jellybean, we are always staying on top of consumer food and drink trends to ensure all our projects are insight-driven and in line with current trends and market demands. So, we take every opportunity to attend webinars to learn what consumers are enjoying in the food and drink sector, hence why a few weeks ago I attended a webinar run by The Food People and Good Sense Research which looked at the Q4 trends from 2023 in Out of Home (OOH) and eating out.
It’s wedding season! And, as an incoming Bridesmaid, ‘wedding trends’, ‘hen party ideas’ and ‘wedding reception décor’ are all my Google account has seen recently.
Each year sees new trends in the wedding industry – child-free celebrations, unplugged ceremonies, live painting and even holiday hen dos.
But, as a perpetually hungry individual, there’s one thing on my mind when it comes to weddings – the food. So, what better pastime than to explore the biggest food and drink trends inspiring brides and grooms to be, so, join me as I delve into what wedding planners are committing to this year.
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.
Here at jellybean, we’re passionate about the environment, and making small, everyday changes that can help make a difference towards fighting climate change.
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.
HRC, (Hotel, Restaurant & Catering) was back at ExCel for 2024 as part of Food, Drink and Hospitality Week which also hosts IFE Manufactoring, IFE, The Pub Show and International Salon Culinaire. And as the leading food and drink agency we were there in force, exploring the exhibition hall and supporting our wonderful clients.
It’s that time of year when you log onto Instagram and your feed is flooded with the latest NPD food and drink the world has to offer… but all is not as it seems.
We’ve collated some of our favourite April Fool’s pranks we saw this year – and honestly, some aren’t too bad!
As a leading food and drink agency, insights and data are at the heart of our marketing campaigns. So, understandably, we make a point of keeping our finger on the pulse by attending Lumina Intelligence’s Food Strategy Forum.
With working life increasingly dominated by virtual meetings, the opportunity to step away from the screen and engage in face-to-face interactions is a refreshing change of pace, so it was an absolute pleasure to attend the Arena event ‘An Audience with Tom Aitkens’ on Friday 15 March, held at the esteemed Rosewood Hotel in London.
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.
