Lunch business

There are no boundaries when it comes to breakfast. As more people skip this meal at home, it offers operators the perfect chance to offer anything from a full breakfast to a cup of coffee or tea with a sweet treat to fill the gap. It is now one of the most lucrative and competitive sectors for operators and can even boost lunchtime sales as time-pressed consumers kill two birds with one stone and pick up their lunch at the same time.

Customers in 23 countries across Europe are now served in a total of 13,826 coffee chain outlets with turnover topping E15 billion. And the UK is seen as the flagship of this burgeoning market. The impressive figures were revealed in Allegra Strategies’ Project 12 Cafe Europe report presented by managing director Jeffrey Young at the fifth annual Coffee Symposium in Amsterdam.

With the Earth’s resources rapidly depleting, combined with an ever-increasing consumer demand to know where and how our food is sourced, dialogue between consumers, businesses and farms has never been more important. By offering a sustainable option on the beverage menu – be it coffee, tea or hot chocolate – baristas can not only address their own social responsibilities, learning about how, where and why sustainable farming is important, but also take this to their customers.

Protection of equipment is paramount to ensure that the machine is protected from the daily elements and to ensure that the vending drink exceeds the customer’s perception of what they expect to receive, achieved through improvements of the mains feed water by removing contaminants, poor taste and smell.

Greggs is very forward thinking and continues to grow. Do you also remember your roots? Included in our 1,641 shops is the original one that goes back to 1951. Some doors down from the original site is our new concept shop, branded Greggs the Bakery, where there is a symbolic bike on a wall as a reminder of our roots. What is the difference between Greggs the Bakery and your traditional high street shops?

From the growth of independent coffee shops and rise of affordable gourmet foods, the street food revolution and on-going popularity of TV chefs and The Great British Bake Off, ‘Foodie’ culture is truly booming. Ten years ago you certainly wouldn’t have seen artisanal products used in supermarket in-store bakeries but now they are commonplace as rustic homemade loaves of all shapes, flavours and toppings line the shelves.

“We need to display a wide range of foods and produce including meats, fruit, vegetables and cakes. Different units from different manufacturers would make the store look untidy so we looked everywhere for someone who could supply exactly what we wanted. Then I discovered TFSE Products and they did a beautiful job,” Salman said.  

You have been with Yum! Restaurants since 2004 in a variety of senior roles, but joined KFC as vice president just over six months ago. How are you enjoying your role so far?

It seems as though QR codes have been heralded as the next frontier of marketing for years. But research from Canadean Consumer showed that they are still barely used. Despite nine in 10 having noticed them – and 22% of consumers claiming to see them on packaging “regularly” – fewer than one in five has ever scanned them using their phone.