Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without the traditional space race for festive sandwich Valhalla. Here, Nick and Neil taste five of the best in an attempt to decide conclusively which retailer has won Christmas 2017.
The collapse of Palmer & Harvey yesterday has sent a shockwave through the convenience and wholesale channel. It is deeply distressing for the 2,500 employees whose jobs have been terminated with immediate effect and of course extremely worrying for the 90,000 outlets who rely on P&H deliveries for their very livelihoods. Sadly however the demise and failed rescue packages have been well documented, so the writing was on the wall. The final nail in the coffin was perhaps Tesco’s £3.7bn takeover of food wholesaler Booker which got the go-ahead from the competition authorities. This effectively gave the green light for Tesco Booker to take in house the valuable contracts that P&H held to supply Tesco and One Stop stores. Neil Brenson of Food and Drink Agency Jellybean Creative sums up the situation as he sees it.
As a leading foodservice agency we always keep up to date with the latest trends in the market and as part of this on-going commitment we regularly attend the MCA de-briefs. This month we were particularly interested to see that their latest event covered the contract catering sector*, as this is an area of the foodservice market which many of our clients target and one that is often overlooked by the wider world, despite being responsible for feeding us from cradle to grave. The morning briefing encompassed both the wider market, from their Eating Out Panel and a deeper delve into the contract catering sector. The complete report is very comprehensive and available to MCA Forum members or to purchase, but below are some of our key take outs to whet your appetite.
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!
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.
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.
In less than a minute, discover the industry’s most influential factors and examples of restaurants that are really hitting the mark when it comes to these foodservice mega trends.
When it comes to the eating out market there is a huge amount of research around consumer drivers and what motivates different demographics. Every aspect is analysed, from pre-visit online research, to the impact of special diets and the type of cuisine and format consumers are looking for.
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.
According to newspaper reports Sainsbury’s has entered into exclusive discussions with Nisa about a potential acquisition of the retail business for a reported £130m.
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.
Shopper marketing and shopper loyalty in convenience can sometimes be unnecessarily over-complicated and over-thought. That’s the positive conclusion I came to after attending the him! Convenience Tracker Programme (CTP) Unveil event. The headline findings show it’s all pretty simple stuff as to why convenience shoppers shop and what needs to be done to keep them coming back and spending more.
This year the Arena summer event headlined Mark Fox, CEO of Bill’s Restaurants, along with a panel discussion around the importance of the supplier/operator relationship, chaired by Peter Martin VP of CGA. As a leading food and drink agency we were of course in attendance at the Jumeirah Carlton Tower to hear what everyone had to say. The panel discussion featured representatives from operator-side M&B and Gaucho, and supplier-side Reynolds and Brakes. M&B cited the challenge of Brexit as a key issue for the business having put a £12m hole in their forecasts back on June 24th when the referendum result was announced. Of course operators are keen to get the best commercials out of suppliers, but they also appreciate that if they want good reliable suppliers that the relationship needs to be a sustainable one, whether that is guaranteeing volumes or other reassurances of commitment. The frustration of suppliers coming to operators with ‘solutions in search of a problem’ was highlighted by Chris Hopkins of M&B who urged suppliers to focus on the right innovation, i.e. innovation that shows how they can meet the needs of their customers better than they do currently. This of course requires suppliers to understand the customer mind-set and need states, so with this in mind it would serve suppliers well to do research to identify issues or opportunities to focus their innovation (something Jellybean can of course help with! – plug over).
At the annual Association of Convenience Stores Summit we heard from a host of speakers about their perspectives on the convenience market. One key recurring theme throughout the event was food-to-go, which is perhaps unsurprising given a third of delegates in the room said it was the no.1 priority focus for their business. So with the IGD predicting that food-to-go will be worth over £21bn by 2021, here are seven key take-outs. Neil Brenson of leading food and drink agency Jellybean reports.
The annual National Convenience Show and Farm Shop and Deli Show have just taken place at the NEC in Birmingham. Around 600 food and drink brands across a huge variety of different categories were there in all their glory, trying to capture the attention of what was a record attendance of retailers and operators this year. As you’d expect from a leading integrated agency that specialises in all things food and drink, we were there taking in everything that these great shows have to offer.
As the leading foodservice agency we make it our business to stay abreast of the latest trends and developments in the eating out market. To that end we always make sure we attend the MCA forum debriefs to get the latest market insight. This week we joined the great and the good of the world of operators and manufacturers to hear the latest news on market dynamics, menu trends and consumer demand in the eating out market. As ever there was a huge amount of great information, but here are our top ten take outs…
Food is an incredibly important part of Easter traditions for families up and down the country and as a nation we spend millions of pounds on food at Easter every year. This is something that hasn’t escaped the attention of the supermarkets and out of home operators who continue to pull out all the stops to cash in. It’s a real battleground. Whether it’s hot cross buns for Good Friday, Easter eggs for gifting, a pub lunch, an evening meal out, or the traditional Lamb and trimmings to cook at home for the family – our nation’s appetite for food continues to grow.
The food industry has just been served with a healthy spoonful of bitter sweet sugar guidance from Public Health England. The new voluntary guidelines will limit the amount of sugar found in products across nine food groups. If you work in food and think this doesn’t apply to you then think again. It’s going to impact on all corners of our industry, from retailers to manufacturers, QSR’s to coffee shops. The word is, if food companies don’t follow the advice, then it could signal full-on regulation in the future and you know what that means…. sugar tax! Yes, just like we’re about to see introduced on soft drinks. So, it’s time to take action on sugar.
The annual Arena Savoy Lecture is the jewel in the crown of the Arena foodservice networking calendar, with the great and the good of the industry in attendance. This year the line-up included the traditional key note speech, as well as a panel debate on the hot topic of Brexit, entitled Challenges and Opportunities. With representatives from finance – Bob Silk from Barclays Hospitality and Leisure team, law – Sebastian Calnan from EMW Law and crucially operator side – Jason Myers of Busaba Eathai, chaired by Vernon Hunte of the BHA, there was a good balance of viewpoints to inform the discussion. Each voiced their informed views on Brexit and what is certainly a hugely complex and challenging process.
Yes folks, it’s that time of year again when the convenience trade show season kicks off. From Nisa Stoneleigh to the National Convenience Show and P&H’s Pro Retail, the calendar is certainly chock-a-block. Over the coming weeks and months, suppliers big and small will be investing hundreds of thousands of pounds in these shows, from stand builds, staffing, promotional materials, travel, accommodation, PR, marketing and of course that bar bill. With so much outlay, are these shows really cost effective? And what are the best ways to really guarantee sales success and ROI? Trust Jellybean, your retail trade marketing to take you though the top tips…
