The UK’s restaurant, hotel and pub operators are using an imaginative range of marketing techniques to keep the nation’s diners eating out.
Tactics employed include variations on “meal deal” offers, ensuring they offer something for everyone, exotic-sounding dishes, familiar retail brands and by labelling more dishes with health claims and details of food provenance, according to research from foodservice analyst Horizons.
The research reveals deals such as “Italian car owners eat for free on Thursdays” at Revolution, “curry and pint night for £4.99’” at Hungry Horse, and “all you can eat” for £7.75 at Whitbread’s Table Table have triggered a strengthening in the catering trade, which has suffered since the recession hit in 2008.
The research shows that retail brands are becoming more commonplace on menus, particularly in pubs, as operators seek to sell familiar products that give consumers quality assurance.
Operators are also making more use of provenance-related labelling, while terms such as “farm assured” and “locally grown” as well as health-related claims such as "nutritional balance" and 5 A DAY are becoming more common.
Chef & Brewer trumpets the healthy nature of its meals and its menu has a “superfood salad” dressed with pumpkin seeds and a beetroot or pomegranate dressing.
The research, unveiled this week at Horizons’ first annual briefing at Coutts & Co in London, found that while menus may be getting more adventurous, prices are rising. Over the past 12 months, the average cost of a starter has risen eight per cent to £5.27, a main course has increased 1.4 per cent to £8.98 and the price of a dessert has gone up 11.9 per cent to £4.53.
Horizons’ managing director Peter Backman forecast that the eating-out market would grow over the next 18 months, but only modestly, rising an estimated £850 million to a new value of £42.8 billion, and that it was unlikely to reach levels of 2008 until the end of 2011.
“Despite uncertainty about the economy and the election outcome, consumers are still eating out, although they are clearly spending less than they did. Operators are going to have to perform better than customers expect in order to improve trading.
“However, the Olympic Games in 2012 could bring an additional £145m in revenue to the hospitality sector," he added.
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