Last Tuesday we ran our latest Food-to-go Insights & Meet up session in London. Here are some of our key findings from the session.
1. Sharing insights and conversations helps us all get better
We learned a lot during the morning. We were particular inspired by our guest speakers, and the different perspectives they brought. Josh Daley from Win Win Water shared his amazing story of building a water business that’s better for the planet. Ali Lyons from Cybake gave some major pointers in how to drive better production efficiencies through technology in bakery and more broadly across food-to-go. We also heard from Romy Miller, who outlined the fantastic story of KNOOPS growth to date and its impressive ambitions to grow much further, with people, property, product and proposition at the heart. In fact these four themes provided the lens through which we shared insights across the session, all vital pillars of any successful food-to-go growth strategy.
2. You need a keen operational lens to succeed in food-to-go in 2025
It’s a classic glass half full / glass half empty situation as we look to what 2025 could bring. Opportunities are out there to be taken, but it will be hard to achieve and optimise these without having the right groundwork and framework in place. In Matt’s words on the day, you need to get your s*** together to prosper in an environment where costs feel like they’re increasing across labour, ingredients and real estate. Matt cited a few key considerations, including driving smart efficiencies over wholesale labour cuts to ensure the customer proposition is not compromised, keeping a focus on the detail around costs (with reference to some of the darker areas of the P&L) and keeping a focus on the customer experience when considering any changes. One area that came out here was technology, which is an important part of future propositions, but not the only part.
3. Technology will play an important part of this, but to win you need to combine this with great personal service
Ali’s case study of how Cybake has delivered for a range of operators provided great stimulus around this. And there are other examples here that we discussed, not least Axon Vibe (who spoke at our July session), who are doing great things around location-based customer targeting, while Vita Mojo is working with a host of operators around delivering digital ordering solutions, and, increasingly, fully integrated POS systems. Alongside this, we spoke of how people can make a huge difference – our case study around breakfast in particular being an occasion where a really positive personal interaction can literally make someone’s day. What’s clear is that technology is an increasingly core part of how many best in class food-to go businesses operate, and its influence will only grow.
4. But there are many opportunities out there
The presentations touched on several different aspects within this. One was around breakfast, which feels to be a growing focus for many this year.
More broadly Gavin spoke around the ongoing evolution and opportunity within bowls, aided by the expansion of the likes of The Salad Project and atis in the UK, but also by many others across Europe doing a range of exciting things in this area, ranging from Foodmaker and Exki in Belgium to Hawaii Poke in Sweden. In the US meanwhile, Playa Bowls is taking this into a different sphere, building a concept that may cover the increasingly popular assai bowl but one that also extends into many other types of fruit and oatmeal based bowls.
5. 2025 – from defending the core to positioning for growth
The last few years have thrown tremendous one-off challenges at businesses and individuals across the sector. But despite the numerous continuing challenges, we see at least more predictability in the trading landscape in 2025.
And the mood in the room was very positive around the future opportunity, but at the same time aware that careful planning, proposition development and understanding of the market are all key to drive success. There’s still a huge scope for growth around hot food for example, but the success stories spoken of were those that had prioritised this and sought differentiation, rather than those who’d looked to emulate others. "Healthier" is very much at the heart of a lot of opportunities this year, but fundamentally, those that have been successful here have based their core positioning around great products and menu items that are healthy rather than those specifically focused on health.
To find out more about our safaris, click here, while you can get in touch with Matt here and Gavin here.
Get in touch to find out more about and sign up to our next session in July.
Comments