CESA Conference 2007 in Association with FCSI

Cotswold Four Pillars Hotel in Gloucestershire was the venue for this year annual conference of CESA, the Catering Equipment Suppliers Association. The main feature of the conference was presentations from leading industry figures on what lies ahead for equipment suppliers. These were the highlights:

 

 

FOODSERVICE FUTURES

Mining on the moon, catering for starship soldiers and the prospect of food as the new tobacco. In looking into the future, the 2007 CESA conference - in association with the FCSI - provided a veritable feast of food for thought for the 180 catering equipment professionals who attended. The provocative concepts were delivered by speakers who included key public sector caterers, an ethical journalist and a futurologist.

The venue was equally stimulating. The new Cotswold Four Pillars Hotel is built alongside and over the water park near Cirencester, providing guests with suitably beautiful views to go with the luxurious facilities.

Andrew Jones, Chairman of CESA, and his FCSI counterpart Tony Galvin welcomed delegates, then handed proceedings over to the morning session MC Lee Llewellyn, managing director of Mecserflex.

All seven speakers looked into the future, and several common themes emerged. They included the economic slowdown, healthy eating leading to food as medicine, and the growing importance of Asia - not only as the main global economic driver, but also as the preferred style of food of 'Generation Y', the emerging generation who are already dictating the trends.

Foodservice Sector: Slow, Then Grow

The first speaker, Séan Rickard, is senior lecturer in business economics at the Cranfield School of Management. His wide-ranging overview of the current economic drivers - notably the sub-prime crisis - suggested that, although tighter credit controls would slow growth in 2008, the economy would pick up again in 2009.

While healthy eating and sustainability are increasingly important trends, Rickard suggested that the move towards organics could come under pressure as demand for intensive farming of non-foods such as bio fuels increases.

In the short term, he said, weakening consumer discretionary spending was bound to hit eating out. However, the UK economy's momentum would soften the impact and Séan ended on a determinedly upbeat note.

Public Sector Catering Equipment: "Five-year warranty is extending service life by 50%"

Three senior figures from public sector catering then gave delegates a real insight into the way the prison service, the MoD and the NHS will be changing in the coming years. All highlighted the need for enhanced maintenance contracts, especially as kitchen staff become 'more unskilled' while kitchen equipment gets more sophisticated.

Indeed, Alan Tuckwood, Head of Prison Catering, said figures showed that the policy of demanding a five year warranty from equipment suppliers was increasing equipment service life by 50%.

He discussed the strategy that his team had put into place to cope with the increasing prison population - which he agreed could be as high as 90,000 by 2012. £11million had been spent in the past three years, with a similar amount planned for the next three, as part of a rolling ten year 'projection'. 'Taut' budgets had led to a tightening up of procurement procedures, he added.

Tuckwood described the rise of 'Mega Kitchens', capable of serving 2,000 meals in twenty minutes. Even so, while Prison Catering is still committed to cook-serve, it is investigating the two main alternatives - cook-chill and cook-freeze - because of the pressure on kitchen capacity.

Colonel (Rtd) Duncan Robertson described the huge changes taking place in catering within the MoD. PAYD (pay as you dine) was being introduced and within a few years contract caterers will be operating throughout the MoD. In fact, contractors were already being used in front line operations. While the 'starship soldier' concept (beam in, do the job and get out) suggested that future operations would require little infrastructure, the experience of Afghanistan and Iraq shows that British forces are likely to spend years in the field, and will need full support.

The future is likely to be based around PPPs (private public partnerships) operating 25 year contracts with the caterers procuring equipment as well as supplying the foodservice offering.

The complexity of the NHS 'market' was highlighted by Neil Watson-Jones, chair of the Hospital Caterers Association. Each Trust acts on its own authority, with different methods of procurement, and there is a huge range of sizes of catering operation. For the future, Neil warned that the hospital catering market is shrinking, partly as a result of shorter hospital stays and the move towards care at home.

What's Cooking?

Dr James Bellini, whom Lee Llewellyn introduced as 'an historian of the future', cautioned that the hospitality industry is frontline when it comes to reflecting changes in society. For those who felt the future was far enough away not to worry, he reminded us just how quickly change can happen - ten years ago Kodak and Polaroid were doing very well out of the photographic film business.

He also underlined the growing importance of Asia - highlighting the change by asking which country was planning to start mining Helium 3 on the moon by 2015? The answer: China. As for Asia's effect on the hospitality industry, one example is that numerically India's middle class is now bigger then the entire population of the USA. China's middle class is also growing rapidly, in numbers and wealth. Tourism from these two countries is going to be huge in the coming years.

Dr Bellini also raised the spectre of 'food as the new tobacco', with food miles and food's carbon footprint - not to mention its nutritional analysis - leading to some popular meals and snacks becoming socially unacceptable.

He also had some worrying thoughts about the private equity (PE) 'crunch', given that the foodservice sector is a key target for investors, and some advice on dealing with PE companies. Like them or not, they represent a business opportunity and equipment suppliers need to be flexible and try to understand their needs and priorities.

A Quick Guide To Planet-Saving

Journalist and broadcaster Lucy Siegle rounded off the morning session with an entertaining take on enviro-chic that raised several serious issues - such as how 'relocalisation' will affect the industry, as groups look to source their foodservice supplies locally. She also underlined the need to be able to prove eco-claims: customers are looking for change, but they wouldn't forgive companies that tried to fudge green credentials.

As consumers rebel against the disposable society waste is going to be an even bigger issue. Companies will need to be able to provide information and certification about their waste disposal practices.

Foodservice Megatrends

After lunch the MC for the afternoon, Victor Manufacturing's managing director Mick Shaddock, introduced the final speaker. If anyone knows about global 'Foodservice Megatrands' it's Mike Hohnen. A Danish-speaking Englishman, he has offices in France, Copenhagen, Marseilles and Cape Town. Coach, adviser, teacher and lecturer, he's famous for his 'urban safaris', showing executive chefs the latest and most interesting developments in foodservice.

What is coming, says Hohnen, is a battle between retail and foodservice. That's because foodservice is growing and retail food purchases are shrinking. One driver here is that there are more women in the workplace with no time to cook.

Meanwhile, the market is polarising in what Hohnen called 'Lido vs. Lidl', that is, experience vs. execution or, put another way, expensive vs. cheap. Which means that the mid-market - where the supermarkets are - is under pressure.

The result? Supermarkets will start to fight back by developing upmarket foodservice offerings.

At the same time, new trends include 'meal shops', a foodservice/retail crossover where consumers can buy meals and ingredients to take away or eat in.

Whole Foods, the USA chain that has recently opened its first UK shop in Kensington, brings these trends together, with both an upmarket grocery and an innovative range of foodservice offerings.

As for what we'll be eating in the future, Hohnen told us it would be Asian-based. The baby boomers went American, with spare ribs and burgers, Generation X went Italian, with pizza, pasta and espresso, and Generation Y has gone Asian: they want fresh ginger in the fridge and they eat sushi.

He concluded with the thought that our increasingly flexible lifestyles will demand increasingly flexible foodservice offerings. There's no doubt that consumers will have more and more meals prepared for them by others. The main question is: who will be doing the preparation?

Andrew Jones and Tony Galvin took to the stage a last time to call the conference to an end, thanking the speakers for "one hell of an insight into the future."

 

Award for "Industry guru on all matters technical"

CESA Chairman Andrew Jones and Mark Lewis, Caterer’s Managing Editor, presented Bryan Whittaker MBE with the Caterer and Hotelkeeper/CESA Outstanding Service to the Catering Equipment Industry Award for 2007 at the Gala Dinner, saying his influence will have touched upon everyone in the equipment industry. "An engineer by training, Bryan's skills were never better utilised than in the 1990s following the immersion of the UK into the affairs of the EEC," said Jones. "His stalwart defence managed the expectation of a new and forceful legislative regime that was not always in accordance with the views of our sector."

"Before he retired in 2001 Bryan had been an advisor to the government and the DTI, and a CESA Director for 11 years. He still travels extensively representing our industry at the highest levels. He is Technical Consultant to both CESA and EFCEM (the European Federation of Catering Equipment Manufacturers), he sits on over 22 committees and is truly our industry guru on all matters technical," he added.