In the current business environment, securing the best F&B operators within your project, development or institution, can be challenging. This may be compounded, by shifting operator demands, (complicated lease conditions, staged incentives, abatement clauses, etc) and a new expectation of rental revenue models, what is the rental return that can realistically be achieved?

Building Loyalty and Maximising Sales by leveraging unique Points of Difference (PODs)

Maintaining a loyal and diverse customer base has never been more important in a time when most consumers are scrutinising how and where they spend their disposable income. In the last six months priorities and spending habits have shifted for consumers, while some customer segments have continued to purchase, in one form or another, there will also be a need to re-establish or reconnect with others in order to begin the journey back to previous levels of revenue and eventual profitability.

The food, hospitality and broader retail landscape is currently facing unprecedented challenges that will undoubtedly reshape it for years to come.

‘Out of adversity comes opportunity’ and it is Future Food’s belief that opportunity now exists to challenge the status quo, do things differently and employ a more holistic approach when attracting and engaging food and hospitality operators for your project.

People love eating and drinking outside. Such is the deep, almost primal, desire for outside hospitality that every time a sandwich/milk bar puts out a couple of tables and chairs on the footpath right next to the parked cars, they are always being used.

Food Beverage Strategy - Future Focused Part 2

Building great places and creating exceptional experiences for your 'Non-Online' purchases

In part one, I wrote about how flexibility must be the foundation from which to develop future-focused food and beverage strategies (F&B Strategy). Insights from our projects around the world confirm time and time again, flexibility is the key to future planning. Whilst the pandemic has driven substantial growth in on-line purchases; future spending on food and hospitality will ALWAYS be about the built environment and its uniqueness as a lifestyle destination. New Zealand’s post-pandemic immediate return to eating out and drinking in bars re-confirms customers still demand a unique physical restaurant or bar especially at malls that show intrinsic value as beautiful and hygienic socialising places.

Food Beverage Strategy - Future Focused

In this two-part blog, I will share with you why change is good when it comes to food and hospitality planning and how new opportunities must harnessed in order to think differently and to future-focus food and beverage strategies (F&B Strategy). One that complements the vision for the project; including the built environment, placemaking, lifestyle attributes, anchors and entertainment features, to name a few.

Future Food, as specialist food advisors to architects and designers, have long promoted the idea that good food and good design are intertwined in a harmonious relationship that provides an essential platform for success in any food & hospitality business. Now more than ever as hospitality pivots due to unpredictable and pervasive external factors, design and food will need to evolve to create experiences that adapt to meet the ‘new’ needs of customers and ensure satisfaction is maintained in order to retain as many customers as possible in the coming months and years.

The craft beverage movement has been building significant momentum over the past 10 years and has subsequently reshaped the liquor industry as we know it. With craft brewing, small scale local distilleries and small batch wine production capturing greater market share year on year, we are seeing a shift in the market towards quality over quantity and experiential over mainstream.

Retail Relationships Rewarding Foodies

As we witness the gradual relaxing of restrictions placed on food operators state by state and an uncertain return to trading, one thing is certain – the Food & Hospitality will inevitably recover. In fact, the latest credit card data from both the ANZ and CBA shows that spending on F&B is coming up from its lows.

People are social creatures by nature, with hospitality ingrained in our way of life - albeit it to differing degrees from person to person granted! Moreover, there is still a considerable amount of latent demand: Pre-COVID levels of demand for F&B were not a fad as consumers’ interaction with Hospitality is a practice that has been building over the last two decades.

We as an industry are back and open for dine-in business. The profound power of the anticipation and excitement these simple words hold is balanced by the weight of a new normal for food and hospitality operators. This Monday has seen every state government now relax restrictions sufficiently to reopen our dine-in service – albeit in differing degrees from state to state. If reports of Monday night covers around Melbourne are anything to go by, diners are quite literally salivating at the chance to return to their favourite venue; as competitive as this has become as the reality of seating limitations make this once relatively simple pleasure, not quite so simple.

Future Food recently conducted Assessments of Centre-wide food & hospitality capability across five Shopping Centres in Melbourne.

Future Food’s most requested services during the lockdown period have been focussed on assisting Centre Management and Landlords to provide independent, solutions-based strategies, via our expertise in development of both commercial and food strategies.