12 Oct 2018 by Charles Manners

The panellists were:

Richard Downes from Causal Dining Group, Jon Yantin from Stake Concepts; Tom Chalmers from Saco Group, David Taylor from Principal Hotels and the key themes from the Food Envy panel were;

• Need to align the vision for F&B, and through analysis of the local market Clarify the vision for the F&B offer amenity, destination or neighbourhood 
• Finding partners will involve developing a hybrid concession/lease agreement, there is no single template in use
• The profile of hotel will drive the opportunity, city centre iconic to an out of town mid-range budget hotel, where a hard brand will drive footfall and customer demand
• Poor coffee is too often driven by driving down the quality and cost of the coffee, and above all staff training and coffee understanding are key

Trends to look for in 2019 include the separation of evening and breakfast spaces, and the introduction of grab and go offers, which could lead to the elimination of the formal breakfast offering

I enjoyed the panel, an interesting discussion and the whole event was very well organised;