Pinch yourself – this time next week we will be free of restrictions in England. We have been working closely with the government for some time to press home the importance to our sector of no more work from home guidance, no more covid passes and no more masks. And, when the prime minister announced on Wednesday that such restrictions under Plan B would be dropped, 2022 looks suddenly much more promising for the sector.

Even more positively, it’s a year of celebration that our industry can use to leverage its recovery, including HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee four-day bank holiday weekend as well as the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, the World Cup in Qatar and the UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK festival.

It won’t all be plain sailing, of course, and we are calling on the industry to contribute to a comprehensive, state-of-the-sector survey to be used to help convince government that ours is the industry to lead post-covid economic recovery in the UK. However, to achieve that, we need targeted support, because there is no doubt that huge challenges remain for our sector.

Businesses are low on cash reserves, deep in debt and under immense pressure. Costs are rising across the board, and with the increase in labour costs and a hike in business rates this spring, are set to continue to do so. That’s not to mention what we believe poses the biggest threat to our industry’s full recovery – the proposed return in April to 20% VAT for hospitality and tourism. Add to that veritable minefield the squeeze placed on consumers’ disposable income by the rising cost of living, and operators have a dangerous path to tread.

UKHospitality will be doing its best, though, to help navigate businesses to recovery and prosperity. Launched last year, our #VATsEnough campaign is being ramped-up as we urge the government to maintain VAT for the sector at 12.5% and not raise it to 20% at Easter, just as many businesses enter their critical spring and summer trading periods. By keeping VAT at 12.5%, the government will be helping our industry keep costs down and not pass huge price rises on to consumers, thus helping us remain competitive versus our international market rivals. Just as latest figures reveal that consumer confidence is returning, it would be no less than a sharp kick in the teeth if it were undermined by price rises that delay the return of more people to hospitality venues.

Many, no doubt, will remain nervous about going back to their favourite pubs, bars and restaurants for a long time to come. So, we’ll be doing all we can to make sure they come back sooner rather than later, by continuing to demonstrate how operators have invested and innovated throughout the pandemic to make their venues safe places for people to visit. Whether it’s heated and lit outdoor spaces, improved ventilation, hand sanitisation stations, fewer tables, table service or contactless order-and-pay technology, our industry has done more – and probably spent more – than most to keep customers safe.

Operators have also worked incredibly hard to keep staff safe, but we all know that thousands have left the sector since coronavirus struck. As a result, this year and beyond, UKHospitality will endeavour to help encourage those who’ve left the industry to come back, while at the same time making this sector an attractive one to join – not just a stopgap on the way to something else, but one offering long-term career prospects. After all, availability of staff is going to be vital if operators are to fully implement their recovery plans. 

UKHospitality is forging ahead with these initiatives and more, but we need your help. To ensure our messaging is effective and that we have the most comprehensive picture of the industry to present to the government we need data – hence the aforementioned comprehensive industry survey we are undertaking. This is a major piece of work, undertaken in conjunction with Christie & Co and supported by CGA Strategy, which we hope will provide significant insights into exactly how our industry works – what type of trade businesses generate, information about business models, and the sort of cost pressures operators faces. A detailed peek, if you like, into business health in the sector.

We’re urging pub, bar, restaurant, nightclub and hotel operators to contribute to the survey, linked below. All respondents will receive a summary of this ground-breaking and valuable survey when it’s published in April. This will help us collate evidence vital not only to hospitality businesses, but also in our efforts to prove to the government that ours is a sector that can be the driver for the UK’s wider economic recovery, post-covid. And if the government listens to us on the likes of VAT, business rates and rent, hospitality’s prospects for 2022 will indeed be bright. To fill in the survey, please click here.

Reading the piece by Glynn Davis in last Friday’s Propel Opinion, I was surprised at the main thread – that vegan food is, to use his words, a minority sport. The piece also implied that vegan restaurants only appeal to a committed vegan group and that vegan options are off the radar as a cuisine of choice when dining out. It suggested that people only cut their meat consumption at home and not when eating out, ergo there is not a big enough slice of the eating-out pie for vegan-only restaurants, who are going to find it hard to survive.

This has definitely not been our experience at Stem & Glory. Many of our guests are, in fact, not vegan. They mostly define as flexitarian. We do a lot of corporate dining for large companies who know that they should be making sustainable choices when it comes to their entertaining. That’s not notional, we see this 100% at both our locations, and it is on the rise.

Ultimately, I am pro-choice. I believe we are all on the spectrum regarding how justified we feel it is to continue eating animal products. For me, it was an instantaneous moment, but for others, it is a slower burn. Whatever you may feel about animals and animal welfare, the arguments for eating more plant-based from a sustainable perspective are increasingly compelling. I am surprised this message seems to pass hospitality operators by, and the penny just doesn’t seem to drop. Maybe they literally fear what will happen if they introduce changes. The Claridges example referenced in the opinion piece is an example of this.

If you look farther afield though, other old school retailers are, in fact, embracing a plant-based future. Matthew Kenney, one of the earliest plant-based pioneers, has just opened a new plant-based concept at Selfridges, and Alex Gauthier, mentioned in the opinion piece, has just opened a plant-based concept in Fenwicks. I do get how nerve wracking it must be to embrace a more plant-based future if you are a steak house or meat burger concept, but it has to be done.

I was hugely inspired to hear James Brown, from BrewDog, at the Propel marketing conference on how they grew their sales of vegan food from 1% to 39% of their total food sales through a series of inspired partnerships and innovation – including investing in some of their plant-based partners to ensure they also had the capacity to grow. In my opinion, that’s the way to do it, instead of letting fear and old patterns like ‘our customers don’t want vegan food’ dictate. Give way instead to some inspired and creative thinking. Make a series of small rather than radical sudden changes, and before you know it, you have created the demand without pissing anyone off – and become trendy and sustainable all in one fail swoop.

Every single presentation at the Propel conference had a sustainability focus in one way or another. This is not new either, it was the case in every hospitality event I attended pre-pandemic. It’s the elephant in the room for hospitality right now. Everyone knows we need to be more sustainable, but it’s not put into practice, and somehow the old narratives still exist. It’s a fact that meat and dairy foods are a huge burden in terms of emissions, and it’s the responsibility of all of us to reduce consumption. As Carolyn Ball, the sustainability officer from Compass Group, put very well at the conference, hospitality has a fantastic opportunity to be a big part of the solution, which will be a huge win for all. Hospitality is a great innovator, so take a leaf out of Brown and BrewDog’s book and get creative.

On the subject of the market and pure vegan restaurants, as a brand, Stem & Glory has seen more than 100% year-on-year increase in net sales pre/post pandemic and growing all the time. I eat out a lot in vegan restaurants, especially in London, which has some excellent fledgling vegan chains, and they are all very busy. And not a celebrity chef in sight!

At Stem & Glory, what we have is an excellent and talented executive chef who is a team player, backed up by a team of chefs with years and years of experience creating plant-based foods. And it’s the same for the many hard-working plant-based teams all over the UK. Hospitality should look to these purely plant-based brands for inspiration, skill and experience to help create better plant-based dishes which will appeal to vegans and non-vegans alike. And, while they do so, grow their businesses into more sustainable and attractive propositions for all people, and for our planet.