I hadn’t heard of a concept called WIYO (What Is Your Order?) – England’s first-Chinese drive-thru, which has just opened in Warrington – until earlier this week. Here, diners get a choice of ordering three different meal options – a single dish and drink costing £7, two and a drink priced at £9, and three with a drink going for £11. It sounds like a concept perfectly in tune with today’s eating out trends.

I heard about WIYO at a conference held this week, and hearing about new concepts like this is one of the main reasons for me to go to these events. It’s brilliant to be able to hear so many stories from speakers I don’t always get to spend time with on a one-to-one basis. Different speakers, varied experiences and new ways of thinking always spark thoughts and creativity. The two Propel conferences coming up look particularly interesting in this context.

At this week’s event, I learnt a lot about a wide range of hospitality subjects – from the growth of tinned fish on menus to the exponential rise in the bakery and coffee market; from the growth in staycations (41% of holidays were taken in the UK this year) to the decline in the gap between inflation and wage growth; and from the growth in the number of people going out to the flattening of frequency.

Growth in the market is being driven by fast food, sandwich and bakery and coffee shops and cafes – not so much by hotels and pubs, and certainly not by service-led restaurants. Street food and food halls play a real role in this movement. This growth would seem to be reflected in the fact that value is taking priority in customer decisions. A year ago, “very quality led” was level in decision-making with “very value led”, but now the latter is leading the way.

Dinner occasions are in decline while breakfast, snacking and drinks-only occasions are in growth. Delivery share of the market has stabilised. The influence of dogs in our market continues to grow, with one million more dogs around than there was pre-pandemic. Canny operators (particularly in the pub market) have already sorted this, with “dog friendly” well noted on their websites and dog menus in their sites.

While eating out is seen as more of a treat and less of a “I can’t be bothered to cook” occasion than it was a year ago, it’s still used as part of a shopping visit, to spend time with family and to unwind and relax. Perhaps customers are just becoming more aware of price increases in the sector, and along with this, the amount they are spending on eating out, which is up by 6% (from memory) versus a year ago.

From a marketer’s perspective, gamification and digital personalisation are pivotal from the big quick service restaurant brands to individual outlets. Having said that, what really struck me from the presentation was the decline in 11 to 15-year-old school attendance forecast to 2030, and the increase in the percentage of the population of pensionable age by 2040. Undoubtedly some of the bigger hospitality businesses will be thinking now about the bearing of these figures on their own future forecasts. In some instances, the impacts will be truly significant.

Operators are prioritising their initiatives – more emphasis on processes and less on sustainability, diversity, digitalisation, employee mental well-being and training. All of that was a surprise to me. It’s not the sense I get speaking to businesses, but the figures pointed to a different story in reality.

I came away buzzing, considering the opportunities (and the threats) for the businesses where I am a non-executive director. Some of these trends are not particularly seismic in and of themselves, but they do provide real food for thought in terms of brand innovation, development and diversification. Others are more concerning and require deep-dive strategic assessment. Roll on the Propel events.

When I ran All Bar One, one of the disciplines instilled in us was to send out a weekly email to our team. We did it on a Sunday to show to our teams that they weren’t alone on the day, even if we weren’t there in person.

 

It was hard. Firstly, thinking of something to say that was either relevant, profound or uplifting. Something that rallied the team but also made them better; something that highlighted different members of the team every week so that over time, everyone felt special and important. And let us not forget the many from head office also copied in, who were probably more eager to criticise than to praise. 

 

But we all knew the value of some well-chosen words, kindly meant, to everyone’s spirit and enthusiasm. I have no clue how many times I failed or succeeded, or indeed how many times I annoyed my wife by heading off to the study for an hour every Sunday morning.

 

Anyway, I have now volunteered to do the same thing in Propel. Every (other) week, I hope to share something that will hopefully help lift people’s spirits, improve their skill or make them more determined.

 

Since running All Bar One, I have become a bit of a labour management anorak. I see most of the world through a labour management lens. I look at team productivity wherever I go – whether I am on holiday, at a railway station or an airport, in a supermarket checkout or, of course, in a hospitality venue.

 

And what do I see? Often people with not enough to do; people who don’t know what else to do; people who are bored; people who just want the day to pass before they can go home.

 

But when I see people who are engaged, working hard, who know what their purpose is and who seek work and see the customer, service is a joy to watch. This summer I have been so impressed by the Jet2 team, who are always happy to sort your problems out. This is in stark contrast to the train teams at so many stations, who don’t seem to have any work today and god forbid try to help a customer. 

 

I have been impressed by Greek waiters making roses out of napkins. I have been really impressed by the people working hard in the security section at airports, who seem to be more helpful and constructive than I remember. It has been a great reminder that we should always pay attention to other industries and other countries, observing their best and noting their worst, and resolving to raise our own standards where we can.

Our only success in hospitality is when we offer great value to our customers. The value of some carefully selected words, a friendly smile and some small elements of attention are as important as the food and drink that go with it. And we forget or ignore these things at our peril.

 

Paul Charity has kindly agreed to let me write a fortnightly column on labour management in Propel. Labour management is not just about cost control, although it is one of the critical elements of the job. Increasingly, labour management is about setting the right environment for our people to thrive. Not bored but focused, energised and loving their jobs. That is my purpose.

Hearing that the world’s best pizza maker runs a restaurant in west London got me thinking about how such a scenario occurs. The fact Michele Pascarella, head chef and founder of Napoli on the Road, has been crowned Global Pizza Maker of the Year, which brings the title to the UK for the first time and wrests it away from the regular winners from Italy and the US, seems incredible.

 

It highlights just how subjective judging food can be, and this is especially the case when it comes to pizza, because everybody has their favourite pizza makers and, to my taste, the differences between them are invariably pretty marginal.

This is certainly the view of Graziano Parletta, the owner of renowned family run Italian restaurant San Marco, which has been a north London feature for more than 50 years, and who reckons it’s really all about using the right flour and the correct oven. He has a gas-fired, domed brick set-up. Every extra aspect above this in terms of ingredients only adds modest incremental enhancements to the quality and taste of the pizza. It’s the law of diminishing returns, he tells me.

 

This is not to say there hasn’t been plenty of study on the subject of the perfect pizza. One such student of the dish is Nathan Myhrvold, co-founder of Intellectual Ventures, who spent more than a decade working at Microsoft as its chief technology officer, during which time he enjoyed a period of taking a day off each week to apprentice at a top restaurant in Seattle with the okay from his boss, Bill Gates.

 

He regards food as simply one area of research, and he has a lab kitted out with an array of high-end gizmos including industrial grade homogenizers, freeze-driers and vacuum distillation machines. This set-up helped him produce the 1,708-page Modernist Pizza book, which sells for £295. Among many other things, it contains more than 1,000 traditional and avant-garde recipes to make pizza from around the globe.

 

Like Graziano at San Marco, he has concluded that the fundamental difference in the quality of pizza is down to the oven. He says traditional Neopolitan pizza needs a very high heat; that gas works just as well as wood; and that the key point is that pizza is cooked by light. “Radiant heat is transmitted by light. When there is a shadow cast over a pizza, then it spoils it. This is why most professional ovens have no door, it’s to let the light in as well as the oxygen,” says Myhrvold.

 

Okay, this is all getting rather technical. The reality is that beyond all this complexity, the real beauty of pizza is two-fold. Firstly, it’s a real winner for the hospitality industry because it is one of the simplest foods to produce. The chefs only require modest training (I’m sure I’m now public enemy number one among many Italians) – along with a decent oven – and the margins are also incredibly healthy, which allows it to be sold at a very competitive price. 

 

This is no doubt why Franco Manca owner Fulham Shore was purchased for £93m earlier this year by Japanese owners, who recognise the opportunity to grow it beyond its current 70 sites. Such is the ongoing appetite and appealing business model for pizza that chains continue to emerge such as Pizza Pilgrims, Rudy’s, Rossopomodoro and Yard Sale Pizza.

 

Secondly, pizza is great for the consumer because it is adored by everybody the world over. A recent survey from Peckwater Brands conducted research to identify the UK’s favourite takeaway, and out on top came pizza, with 50% of respondents ranking it in their top three selections when ordering from food couriers such as Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats. It sits above Chinese, Indian, burgers and fried chicken.

 

Even if it’s not arbitrarily judged to be the best in the world in a competition, I’m sure the nearest pizza maker to you – whether it’s an independent pizzeria or a branch of a global takeaway chain – tastes pretty good. It might just about be the best in the world to your tastes. How great it is that for both pizza lovers and their makers?