PizzaExpress is to begin rolling out its new generation of restaurants, following its experiment with the format in its "Living Lab" in Richmond (pictured).
The Richmond site opened in autumn last year and tested new features including acoustic panels and domes above tables to make holding a conversation easier, iPod docks at the tables, and a kiosk serving coffee, breakfast and snacks.
Today PizzaExpress reported that like-for-like sales at the site had risen 15% overall, and by 20% in the evenings. The company also claimed that 93% of customers who dined at the "Living Lab" enjoyed their experience.
As a result, PizzaExpress will introduce the new concept - or elements of it - to three restaurants in London in March and April: Balham; Fulham, 895 Fulham Road; and Brent Cross (which is a new site). Three nationwide sites will also benefit from the treatment: Newbury; Glasgow, Queen Street; and Brighton, Prince Albert Street.
Each of the sites will feature several if not all of what the company calls its new "brand signatures". These new features are:
1) A new layout designed by Ab Rogers, which will involve turning the kitchen into a more prominent "performance area" for pizzaiolos, who can show off pizza-making and ingredients.
2) Noise reduction through acoustic panels which have been developed with Sergio Luzzi, a professor of acoustics.
3) A calendar of events which will involve treating the restaurant as a venue which will host events appealing to different audiences such as a live music night or playdough hour.
4) An attempt to "feed great conversations" among customers through the restaurants service and design.
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Best Western reports record breaking sales
Best Western has reported a busy start to the year, recording its busiest day in the company's 32 year history on 10 January.
Sales into the group's York reservations centre, which handles calls for the group's 270 independently-owned UK Hotels, increased during January by 45%, compared with the same month in 2010. Calls taken on 10 January rose 103% year-on-year.
Keith Pope, director of Best Western, said January is usually a quiet month for bookings, especially last year when the UK was hit by bad weather, but that this year the phone had been ringing non-stop.
"Due to increase in enquiries to our contact centre we had to embark on a recruitment drive to make sure that we continue to deliver the fast and professional booking service that we pride ourselves on," he said.
Source: http://www.catersearch.com/ 1 March 2011
Sales into the group's York reservations centre, which handles calls for the group's 270 independently-owned UK Hotels, increased during January by 45%, compared with the same month in 2010. Calls taken on 10 January rose 103% year-on-year.
Keith Pope, director of Best Western, said January is usually a quiet month for bookings, especially last year when the UK was hit by bad weather, but that this year the phone had been ringing non-stop.
"Due to increase in enquiries to our contact centre we had to embark on a recruitment drive to make sure that we continue to deliver the fast and professional booking service that we pride ourselves on," he said.
Source: http://www.catersearch.com/ 1 March 2011
Costa owner Whitbread buys Coffee Nation for £60m
The news comes as Whitbread unveiled a 6.7% rise in like-for-like sales for the 50 weeks to 17 February 2011. Premier Inn contributed strongly to the growth with an 8.8% uplift in like-for-like sales over the period, while its restaurant brands, which include Beefeater, Table Table and Brewers Fayre, saw like-for-likes climb 3.3%.
Meanwhile Costa, which is the UK's largest coffee shop brand with 1,850 stores, 1,200 of which are in the UK, saw like-for-like sales up by 7.9%.
Whitbread said the deal with Coffee Nation would provide Costa with access to new types of location in an "emerging" sector. There are currently around 2,000 self-service coffee bars in the UK, of which Coffee Nation operates 900. Whitbread said it wanted to see 3,000 Costa Express bars across the UK over the next five years, capable of quadrupling its profit contribution. Self-service coffee bars differ from vending machines in that they use fresh milk and freshly-ground coffee.
Commenting on the acquisition, Whitbread chief executive Andy Harrison said: "Customers increasingly want great tasting coffee on the go, which makes the self-serve coffee market very attractive. This acquisition provides an exciting launch pad to develop 3,000 Costa Express bars across the UK, providing an additional growth lever for the Costa brand and making Costa available to more customers in more locations."
Other trading highlights for Whitbread included:
Hotels
● Total room nights sold in the 50 weeks have risen by 13.9% to 11 million
● Premier Inn like-for-like occupancy for the year to week 50 was 76.3% (Full year 2009/10: 70.2%)
● Premier Inn like-for-like revpar growth of 8.5%
● Restaurants have delivered year to date total covers growth of 5.6% and have "recovered well" from the difficult trading before Christmas
● During the year Whitbread has opened 22 hotels, 2,138 rooms and 8 restaurants
Costa
● Total system sales up 31.1% to £630m and total franchise system sales up 34.3% to £268m
● Like for like sales in the last 11 weeks are up 3% against a strong final quarter last year
● Year to date like-for-likes have grown 8.6%. By the end of 2010/11 will have 1,200 UK stores and 650 internationally
Source: http://www.catersearch.com/ 2 March 2011
Government faces calls to define 'local' food'
The Government is facing renewed calls to create a stronger definition for "local" food, after it emerged that one in five restaurants, pubs and hotels in England and Wales have made false claims about the provenance of their produce.
A survey of 33 local authorities released by Local Government Regulation (LGR) last week showed that 19% of restaurants misdescribed food as "local" when it fact it came from as far away as New Zealand (see "Telling porkies" below).
A spokesman for the LGR said: "We are not calling for statutory regulation but some sort of informal agreement between the Department for Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the industry that defines what localism and regionalism are in terms of food sourcing. This would, from our point of view, be a very useful step."
Henrietta Green, founder of Food Lovers Britain, echoed the call for a stronger definition. "I have been saying for years that the whole area of using 'local' as a description is a complete minefield," she said.
And Mark Linehan, managing director of the Sustainable Restaurant Association, added: "It makes sense for restaurants to promote their sustainable activity, like using locally produced or sourced food, but these claims must be backed up by evidence, or customers will see through them."
However there was less agreement on how "local" ought to be defined. The LGR said it would be happy with food being sold within a 30-mile radius of where it was produced.
But Green argued that it ought to be defined by more than just the distance of a supplier from a retailer. "When consumers buy into local foods, they are not only buying geographically but they are buying into what they think of as a set of values that would encompass 'localness'.
"Everyone is local to someone. Coca-Cola, if you live five minutes down from the factory, is a local producer. Obviously, emotionally and contextually, you do not think of Coca-Cola as being local, so there has to be a set of standards that are involved in what your sourcing policies are, what your welfare policies are and so on," she said.
Green's organisation has recently started recognising Food Lovers Approved producers, where accredited suppliers have to show not only that their product is produced locally, but that a proportion of the ingredients they use to make it is also local.
Despite the calls though, Defra told Caterer it had no plans to strengthen the definition. "Labelling on the origin of food may not be used to mislead consumers. Although there's no agreed definition for the term 'local', any business using the term should be able to explain what it means," a spokesperson said.
While there is no definition of "local" in food labelling legislation, the Food Law Code of Practice does tell food authorities to interpret local as "sales within the supplying establishment's own county plus the greater of either the neighbouring county or counties or 30 miles from the boundary of the supplying establishment's county."
Telling porkies - misleading menus
Misleading claims on restaurants' menus included:
● "Welsh lamb" that came from New Zealand
● "Local Devon chicken" that had been imported
● "Fresh local cream" that was cream substitute containing vegetable fat
● "Somerset butter" that came from Scotland
● "West Country fish fillets" that came from the West Country but were filleted in China
common confusion
The LGR found that meat and dairy products were the most frequently misdescribed, including:
● 50% of poultry
● 29% of sausages
● 27% of both beef and lamb
● 24% of dairy products
Source: http://www.catersearch.com/ 3 Mar 2011
A survey of 33 local authorities released by Local Government Regulation (LGR) last week showed that 19% of restaurants misdescribed food as "local" when it fact it came from as far away as New Zealand (see "Telling porkies" below).
A spokesman for the LGR said: "We are not calling for statutory regulation but some sort of informal agreement between the Department for Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the industry that defines what localism and regionalism are in terms of food sourcing. This would, from our point of view, be a very useful step."
Henrietta Green, founder of Food Lovers Britain, echoed the call for a stronger definition. "I have been saying for years that the whole area of using 'local' as a description is a complete minefield," she said.
And Mark Linehan, managing director of the Sustainable Restaurant Association, added: "It makes sense for restaurants to promote their sustainable activity, like using locally produced or sourced food, but these claims must be backed up by evidence, or customers will see through them."
However there was less agreement on how "local" ought to be defined. The LGR said it would be happy with food being sold within a 30-mile radius of where it was produced.
But Green argued that it ought to be defined by more than just the distance of a supplier from a retailer. "When consumers buy into local foods, they are not only buying geographically but they are buying into what they think of as a set of values that would encompass 'localness'.
"Everyone is local to someone. Coca-Cola, if you live five minutes down from the factory, is a local producer. Obviously, emotionally and contextually, you do not think of Coca-Cola as being local, so there has to be a set of standards that are involved in what your sourcing policies are, what your welfare policies are and so on," she said.
Green's organisation has recently started recognising Food Lovers Approved producers, where accredited suppliers have to show not only that their product is produced locally, but that a proportion of the ingredients they use to make it is also local.
Despite the calls though, Defra told Caterer it had no plans to strengthen the definition. "Labelling on the origin of food may not be used to mislead consumers. Although there's no agreed definition for the term 'local', any business using the term should be able to explain what it means," a spokesperson said.
While there is no definition of "local" in food labelling legislation, the Food Law Code of Practice does tell food authorities to interpret local as "sales within the supplying establishment's own county plus the greater of either the neighbouring county or counties or 30 miles from the boundary of the supplying establishment's county."
Telling porkies - misleading menus
Misleading claims on restaurants' menus included:
● "Welsh lamb" that came from New Zealand
● "Local Devon chicken" that had been imported
● "Fresh local cream" that was cream substitute containing vegetable fat
● "Somerset butter" that came from Scotland
● "West Country fish fillets" that came from the West Country but were filleted in China
common confusion
The LGR found that meat and dairy products were the most frequently misdescribed, including:
● 50% of poultry
● 29% of sausages
● 27% of both beef and lamb
● 24% of dairy products
Source: http://www.catersearch.com/ 3 Mar 2011
Hospital food needs urgent treatment
Hospitals deserve their reputations for serving unhealthy, badly cooked food, a report out this week claims. More than two-thirds of people surveyed took their own food into hospital, because the meals served up were inedible, while more than half the patients asked said that they would not be happy serving the food to a child, and more than a third believed hospital food was "unacceptable".
The report, First Aid for Hospital Food, warns the NHS is wasting millions of pounds by failing to source fresh produce from local suppliers. The Soil Association, which commissioned the survey of 1,000 people, said it was "staggering" that hospitals continue to serve poor quality meals to patients.
Peter Melchett, the Soil Association's policy director said: "It's clear there are people running hospitals who don't think what they feed patients matters, hence these extraordinary appalling figures of people going into hospital and coming out more malnourished. Things you really couldn't quite believe could be true. Every hospital that hasn't got decent food should visit one that has. It's the best way to learn."
The report points out that every survey of hospital food since 1963 has concluded that meals given to recuperating patients are unhealthy and barely edible.
It says a handful of hospitals are finding that, in addition to the health benefits, investing in good food saves them millions annually as well as stimulating the local economy. Nottingham City Hospital, for example, saved £6m last year by buying produce locally instead of sourcing its food from expensive multinationals. It buys pork from a local pig farmer, allowing him to make a profit for the first time in 10 years and saving jobs on the farm.
The Cornwall Hospital Food Programme showed that hospitals spending with local suppliers pumped an additional £900,000 into the local economy. Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust gets yoghurt from a local supplier for two-thirds of the price of the nationally approved supplier.
Despite such savings, the NHS currently sources less of its food from UK producers, the proportion dropping to 64.5 per cent in 2008-09 from 70 per cent the year before. The NHS Supply Chain, which buys food for many hospitals, brought just a third of its processed potatoes from British suppliers compared with two-thirds bought by UK families. Only 5 per cent of fish served up by the NHS comes from UK fishermen, compared with 50 per cent served up in domestic households.
Figures released in December by the NHS Information Centre show a record 13,500 patients became malnourished during their hospital stay last year, while a report from within the Department of Health suggests almost 50,000 people could be suffering from malnutrition or conditions complicated by malnutrition in English hospitals.
"It is appalling to know that in this day and age in the UK a third of all adults admitted to hospital and similar care settings are already suffering from malnutrition," said Helen Davidson, the chairman of the British Dietetic Association.
"Without question, this reduces quality of life, leads to longer hospital stays and, in some circumstances, can lead to death for some of our most vulnerable citizens. In addition to the severe health impact, it is estimated that this costs the UK economy £13bn each year."
A spokesman for the Department of Health, said: "It is important that patients are given good quality food to improve their health and overall experience of being in hospital.
"Individual hospitals make independent decisions about what and how food is provided. Since April 2010, it has been a requirement of a hospital's continuing registration with the Care Quality Commission, that patients are protected from the risks of dehydration and inadequate nutrition. The commission assesses trusts against this requirement and has tough enforcement powers for cases where proper standards are not being met."
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/, 6 February 2011
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