As a leading foodservice agency, the food-to-go market, which is predicted to grow to £23.5bn by 2022* has been top of mind at Jellybean Creative for some time (as you can see from our previous blogs: here, here, and here), so it was with great interest I sat down to hear about this unabating trend from a global perspective when I visited Lunch!
The Arena Face2Face with Alastair Stewart is a key date in the hospitality diary and has seen some of the most influential figures in the industry put through their paces by one of ITV’s most highly regarded newsreaders. This year it was the turn of Matthew Brabin, CEO of ISS UK & Ireland. Held at The Berkeley; a stunning new venue for Arena; the proceedings began with the obligatory bubbles (along with samples from sponsors Costa Coffee and Britvic) and networking, followed by a delicious three course menu from the team at The Berkeley. Then it was onto the main event, the ‘Face2Face’ interview.
Last week, I had the pleasure of going to the Universal Cookery & Food Festival. The show is unique in the fact that it is held in a different location each year – a location chosen on its ‘cheffy’ merits, with this year’s being held in Padstow on the Cornish coast, famous for its sensational seafood which came through in the central themes of the show.
Convenience retailers rely on, trust and act on the advice of other retailers. Ask any convenience retailer and they will tell you the same. As a marketer specialising in convenience retail trade and category communications for leading food and drinks brands, reaching and influencing convenience retailers is what myself and the Jellybean team do day in and day out. Now I could write a few thousand words here in this blog and take up a lot of your valuable time labouring the point about the rise of influencer marketing, the power of peer to peer endorsement and the role of ambassadors, but I won’t. The simple fact is… and I’ll say it again… convenience retailers, rely on, trust and act on the advice of other retailers. So, it stands to reason that food and drink brands should be really collaborating with convenience retailers and making damn sure they get retailers to be the champions of their brands.
Tuesday night saw the great and the good of the sports and leisure catering world gather at Bafta to see who would be walking away with…no, not a Bafta, but one of the highly coveted Sports and Leisure Catering Awards. As the leading foodservice agency we were of course in attendance to hear from editor of SLC Magazine, Joe Bill and enjoy the comic musings of TV’s Mark Durden-Smith, as well as a surprise interview with Roy Westwood from Levy Restaurants (who run the catering at the O2). With sponsors set-up around the reception room, guests mingled whilst trying everything from pastries to pizza, washed down with some cold brew coffee cocktails – delicious!
Yesterday evening I was delighted to attend Arena’s latest event which strayed from the norm, being based in the informal setting of Mercato Metropolitano. Andrea Rasca, the founder opened up the event explaining his vision and hopes of creating a sustainable ‘shopping mall’ with a strong community feel.
Convenience is going through an unprecedented level of change and competition is tougher than perhaps ever before. This really does go to show just how important and relevant convenience has become and will continue to be in all of our lives.
Keeping up to speed with this ever-changing market is no easy feat. At Jellybean our food and drink clients rely on us to help them understand, interpret and navigate this complex market so that together we can fully maximise their trade marketing and sales potential.
So what better time and place to share some convenience retail truths that give us and our food and drink clients reasons to be cheerful and further confidence to continue to focus and invest in this highly entrepreneurial, buoyant and people-centric channel.
Here are our top 10 Convenience Retail Truths (inspired by the ACS Local Shop Report 2017):
1. Sales in convenience have risen by £500m in the past year alone to £38bn – which makes this sector of the economy comparable in scale to other large UK sectors like recruitment, defence, oil and gas 2. Convenience sales make up over one fifth of the total grocery market 3. By the end of 2017, sales in convenience are predicted to reach £40bn 4. Convenience store retailers have invested over £858m in the last year on improving their stores, extending their range of services available to customers and making their businesses more efficient 5. Independent convenience retailers run 74% of convenience stores in the UK. Not only are they putting their hand in their pocket to invest in their stores they are also putting in long hours, with 20% working more than 70 hours a week and 19% not taking any holiday 6. The average sales of an unaffiliated independent store is £339,685 per year and they rely on working in partnership with food and drink brands to survive and thrive 7. The average shopper visits their convenience store 3.47 times per week and their average spend is £6.28. Proximity of store, friendly & helpful staff, supporting local and long opening hours are the top four key drivers for visiting local stores 8. Food and drink products are essential to convenience shopper missions – top-up (32%), food to go (15%) and meal occasions (8%) are key reasons to visit convenience and retailers want help from suppliers to get them right 9. Chilled Foods (17.2%), Alcohol (14.3%), Canned & Packaged Grocery (7.3%) are three of the biggest categories driving sales in Symbol and Multiple convenience stores – but other categories are also critically important to ensure shopper needs are met. These include: Fruit & Veg (6.4%), Soft Drinks (5.9%), Savoury Snacks (3%) and Frozen Food (2.1%) 10. Convenience stores are offering a greater number of services which gives shoppers more reasons to shop – mobile phone top-up (83%), Lottery (79%), Post Office (21%) and even local grocery delivery (16%) show how stores are changing with the times and listening to what shoppers want
To discuss how Jellybean can help you maximise the potential of your trade marketing and grow sales in convenience then please get in touch with our Group Account Director Neil Brenson on 01372 220 814 or email neil@jellybeancreative.co.uk
You can download a full copy of the ACS Local Shop Report 2017 here.
Jellybean Creative is a leading convenience retail marketing agency. We help top brands with convenience marketing, strategy and design. If you feel we could help you with your brand then drop us a line today.
As the leading foodservice agency, we had the pleasure of attending the 2017 Eating Out Market Data Briefing at the prestigious M by Montcalm in Shoreditch. These MCA events provide a wealth of insightful information about the foodservice industry, such as market forecasts, menu analysis, consumer activity and current trends. It’s a great way to stay on top of what’s going on in the market – which is why Jellybean is always there.
Soaring temperatures can mean soaring sales for convenience stores. Key categories like soft drinks, ice cream, BBQ food and booze see huge spikes in sales as shoppers spend lots of time in the sunshine. However during long spells of hot weather there’s a danger that demand can out strip supply and that can be a big problem.
At Jellybean, we’re always on top of the latest goings on in the world of food and drink marketing, indeed we thrive on knowing what’s happening in the foodservice industry. To see all the latest food trends in action, a few of us Beans decided to get out there and experience for ourselves exactly what’s going on. Well… any excuse for some good food!
Although conferences, seminars, briefings and alike are all crucial to help keep us up to date with the latest in the food and drink market – be it foodservice, convenience or retail – as with many things, you can’t beat some real life experience. Often in the world of foodservice marketing we can become obsessed with trends and statistics, but we really need to be out there living and breathing the market to properly understand some of the dynamics and trends at play.
Earlier this year we launched our Jellybean showreel. As part of the launch we ran a competition for foodie start-ups to win the chance to work with us for free to develop their brand story via video. Foodservice PR is an ever moving feast and video ought to be an essential part of your PR toolkit by now.
Approximately one third of children in the UK are now classified as overweight and the government are working hard to reduce this in order to save lives and prevent health conditions later in life. Plans set out over the next ten years include clearer food labelling, a soft drinks industry levy, reducing sugar by 20% in products and improving physical activity programmes in schools. Our very own Neil Brenson recently blogged on the Public Health England guidelines around this sugar reduction plan, read it here.
The MAA run monthly events called #GreenJam which are designed to get account handlers together with industry experts to knowledge share, with the topics changing each month. I personally find them really interesting and inspiring as the insights can be applied directly to our work here at Jellybean. You even get a free glass of wine on arrival – bonus.
The cost sector is often seen as the somewhat unglamorous slide of the catering world, but if you were lucky enough to be at the Hilton Metropole on Thursday night it certainly didn’t look that way. The annual Cost Sector Catering awards from Cost Sector Catering Magazine celebrate the amazing work across contract catering, education, healthcare and much more and it has to be said everyone scrubbed up rather well for the night.
Around 2.5 billion people worldwide consume street food on a daily basis* and over the past few years the popularity of street food in the UK has grown enormously. This has been fuelled by the often prohibitive rents and rates of high footfall city-centre sites, the increasingly time poor consumer looking for ‘food on the go’ and an ever growing demand for new and exciting world cuisines.
As a leading food and drink agency we are well aware of the importance of good food hygiene. In fact we even did a trade press campaign for the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health some time ago on the subject. In recent years, however, food hygiene has hit the headlines with the FSA’s ‘Scores on the Doors’ initiative, resulting in high profile legal cases and even restaurant closures following poor ratings. With consumers checking the Scores on the Doors app to see what local eateries are up to scratch it’s very much top of mind for caterers and restaurateurs.
Having always been a chocoholic, I was very excited when I was given a gift to attend a 1 day chocolate class at Mark Tilling’s Squires Kitchen International School, in Farnham. Naturally I thought Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory here we come! The day began with a quick meet and greet with a few of my fellow students over some tea and biscuits, shortly after Mark introduced himself and gave us a quick overview of his work and what we could expect from the day.
The lines between retailing, wholesale and foodservice just got even more blurred with the recent controversial announcement of the proposed merger between the UK’s biggest retailer Tesco and one of the UK’s biggest wholesalers Booker. Opinions on the merger differ widely and depending on your view point, this could either be a big opportunity or a big threat.
Following on from the success of Tilda Together 2016, an integrated campaign targeting the education sector, our long-standing client, Tilda, was keen to build on last year’s success and the growing popularity for Brown & White rice, by refreshing the campaign for 2017.
