This year we have had the privilege to provide food consultancy for some of Australia’s best fresh-food markets; both existing and under redevelopment. Our exposure to projects such as the new Sydney Fish Market, Adelaide Central Market (both under redevelopment), plus Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Market and Camberwell Market have provided us with contemporary insight and research into the opportunities, challenges, management and direction of large and small footprint, fresh food and specialty produce market-retail.

As the cost of living pressures continue to bite in Australia, consumers are becoming increasingly discerning about where, when and how much of their disposable income they spend on eating out. For shopping centre management and F&B operators, this scenario presents a partnership opportunity to plan and implement strategies to adapt to new consumer F&B spending patterns and continue to drive visitation, overall spend and maintain or increase asset value. In this article, we delve into practical strategies that shopping centres and F&B operators can employ, considering the specific needs of different customer segments, to maximize visitation frequency and spending in a time of escalating cost of living.

Future Food has long been recognised as a leader in Food & Hospitality Master Planning. However, in the past 5 years, we have assembled a new specialist skill set that involves actively managing expressions of interest (EOI) and tender campaigns for a wide range of companies and sectors. This niche service is gaining popularity in the food and hospitality industry, and at Future Food, we have revolutionised the methodology of connecting our clients with the talent they have been seeking for the betterment of their assets, precincts, and venues.

Across Australia in a diversity of sectors, employees that have live-in accommodation and food provided by their employer, as part of their working life, experience a gap in living standards. The gap in expectations is continuously fluctuating with everyday home life, no more so than from the perspective of millennials and Gen Z who have high expectations…

The topic of this blog is one that many will be glad to have personally overcome. It has tested the strongest of families at the best of times, and is pertinent to my family right now, yet had previously acquired very little of my attention: ‘Conquering the challenges of ‘Family Dining’

As Australia’s top food and hospitality consultants, Future Food work with and travel to, many of the leading Clubs in Australia who have already made food, beverage, and hospitality a central focus of their strategy. In doing so they continue to differentiate themselves in the market, providing their members and visitors with multiple reasons to engage, of which gaming is but one element.

As a Food Consultant working with shopping centres and mixed-use development clients in Australia, New Zealand and globally, I share with you the changes I see across various industry sectors regarding the diversity of food, hospitality and entertainment as the future for maximising market share, sales, rental growth and asset value.

The ups and down of the past 24 months has; and is continuing to batter the food and hospitality industry from every angle. It is hard to plot a road map for the industry’s short and medium terms due to the non-stop challenges that face each specific sector, none bigger than the shortage of trained staff, increased operating costs, rent, and fitout costs.

Australia’s food and beverage operators have been striving to return their businesses to some degree of normality in order to drive sales, stabilise costs and prepare themselves for the imminent financial obstacle of Job keeper payments ceasing in three weeks’ time. It is clear from the ABS that the future is bright for food and beverage operations, however, operators need to be creative, flexible and innovative in order to comply with the remaining Covdid-19 restrictions around social distancing and the control in patron numbers in any one enclosed space.