Inspiration from Retail
10-12-2014
What could the hospitality industry learn from the ‘Future of Retail 2015’ report of PSFK? Rehab Studio Ltd. has made a video with a number of recommendations from the report. The recommendations include:
- Retailers will be challenged to create custom tailored experience for every shopper.
- They need to create the technical ability to embrace this personal experience.
- The stores will increasingly need to focus on the fact that they need to be a hub for community involvement. That’s one of their benefits over online shops.
- Checkout must be faster and more easy; paying mobile could just bring that!
Inspiration from retail to the hospitality industry
Especially for larger catering and fastfood companies there are a number of recommendations in the movie of the rehabstudio Ltd. that can be inspiring for the future. Could it work for you if you would receive personalized lunch suggestions by ‘La Place’ if you regularly eat there?
For restaurants in smaller villages, it is important to be the community hub. More and more services disappear from the smaller villages, so you could start operating as collect point for the mail, the dry cleaners and so on. As long as a large part of your potential guests does visit your restaurant on a regular base!
The catering is of course faced with new payment methods, such as paying by mobile. However, many bar, restaurants and café still only accept cash payments! The video ends with a hospitable gesture: home delivery of the groceries! Why doesn’t the hospitality industry turn this around… Why don’t they deliver a custom-made meal at the home of their guest?
Doritos Crunchy Crust Pizza
9-12-2014
Pizza Hut Launches Doritos Crunchy Crust Pizza In Australia.
A lot of pizza inspiration
This Doritos Crunchy Crust Pizza is a great addition to our article: 10 times pizza inspiration and inspiration for Dutch pizza makers. On the other hand the pizza makers from Australia could be inspired by the pizza from Domino’s Pizza with sausage in the crust and with sauerkraut. Recently, we also spotted a pizza with 99 cheeses. The inspiration for this pizza comes from the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ movie where they try to seduce a Ninja Turtle with a fictional pizza with 99 cheeses, although described in the movie as a ‘culinary impossibility’. World champion pizza maker, Johnny di Francesco from Melbourne proved them wrong and made one.
Doritos Crunchy Crust Pizza
The pizza crust is made of melted mozzarella cheese layered with smashed Doritos and sprinkled with cheddar cheese. So kind of like a pizza meets nachos! Another example of combining everyone’s favorite fastfood items! Pizza hut serves this crunch at different pizza’s. Would you like to taste a Doritos crunchy crust pizza? Or should we start a social media campaign to bring this crust to the rest of the world?
Storytelling about going green
8-12-2014
The Beech Hill hotel provides us with inspiration about telling (future) guests about the efforts they have taken to cherish their location. The hotel is located at the beautiful Lake Windermere in the Lake District in the United Kingdom.
The Beech Hill hotel
At Twitter we spotted this great storytelling about going green. We notice that more and more hotels are going green. The owners of the Beech Hill hotel realize that their guests are coming to enjoy their surroundings and their hospitality. The last couple of years they made changes in the operations of the hotel and reduced the carbon foot print by approximately 463 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide per year. A great example of running the hotel in a sustainable way.
Storytelling about going green
The hotel had a video made about the efforts they have taken to reduce their carbon foot print. The video shows all the details and tells how they carefully run the hotel in a sustainable way. Of course they show the surroundings of their hotel as well.
They installed a Biomass Boiler instead of the previously used 4 large boilers with kerosene as fuel. Replaced their lights with LED lights. In order to reduce waste they reuse and recycle, paper, carboard, glass and furniture. They have been awarded by Trip Advisor with a Bronze Level Green Leader.
Self-skimming beer glass
8-12-2014
The innovative self-skimming beer glass from FndF is marketed by Triple S International. The self-skimming beer glass has a slightly bevelled edge, resulting in skimming being unnecessary and the lager always gets a firm head of foam. The design can be delivered in glass as well as in plastic.
The benefits of the self-skimming beer glass
The company explains the benefits of their innovative glass on their website. They created a list of benefits for the consumer, catering and the breweries. The main reason to start using this glass for your guests is the fewer hygiene risks due to a skimmer in stagnant water. For the hospitality industry the biggest advantage is that anyone can tap well in this glass, especially during peak hours. You also have less loss caused by bad tapping.
Nominated for the Horecava Innovation Award 2015
Like the Breathometer Breeze, these glasses are also nominated for the Horecava Innovation Award 2015 (The Netherlands). The glasses are just like the Breathometer nominated in the category ‘Equipment and Services’. Voting is possible here.
The Tree Lighting Party by The Pierre New York
5-12-2014
Last weekend I happened to see a tweet of hotel The Pierre New York which invited its followers to The Pierre’s Holiday Tree Lighting Party. The Pierre New York, celebrates the lighting of their Christmas Tree by offering their guests a free cocktail if they take a little toy for charity!
We have recently written an article about the Christmas trees at the Claridge Hotel in London. For several years already they invite great designers to decorate their Christmas trees. They also organize a Tree Lighting Party just as the large department stores in London, New York and the ‘Bijenkorf’ in the Netherlands celebrate their ‘window lighting party’, since a couple of years.
Combine the Tree Lighting party with charity
The Pierre New York Hotel is trying to tempt guests to take along a toy for charity. A couple of years back I read about parties in Hollywood where Christmas trees decorated by celebrities were auctioned for charity. Nice idea to create a similar auction with your local celebrities!
^ Marjolein van Spronsen
The Frozen Butcher
4-12-2014
Last weekend we’ve tasted two new hamburgers from The Frozen Butcher, the Iberico Burger and the Angus certified Burger. We really loved their taste! On their website we learned that The Frozen Butcher has a whole range of burgers aside from the Iberico and Angus burgers; a Wagyu burger, a US beef burger, a lamb burger and an organic burger.
Frozen in time… Fresh on your plate
The burgers are immediately frozen after production by using special freezers to guarantee the true butcher’s quality. This technology enables them to produce without artificial preservatives, colouring agents or other additives.
SIAL Innovation Award 2014
At SIAL Innovation 2014 the Frozen Butcher won the award in the category Meat Products. The jury, made up of independent experts, selected the concept as winner because of the premium meat quality, the clean design of the packaging and the valorization of the country of origin.
Serve your guest a burger to their liking
Great way to use these burgers in a burgerbar; your guests can pick their own meat, each with another taste, another origin and another story! Give your guests a choice in buns and ingredients and let them design their favorite burger at your restaurant. ^Marjolein
Flying robotic waiters
2-12-2014
By end-2015 autonomous flying robotic waiters will be deployed at 5 outlets of the Timbre Group in Singapore. Infinium Robotics Pte Ltd chief executive officer Woon Junyang signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Edward Chia, managing director of Timbre Group, on 31 October this year.
Prototype
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong observed an autonomous flying robotic waiter serving food during a demonstration at Singapore’s National Productivity Month 2014 Launch Event at Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre.
Seeking productivity-related government grants
The costs are high but the flying robotic waiters could be a solution for the labour-crunch in Singapore and the robotic waiters do allow human waiters to focus on higher-value tasks such as explaining the menu, upselling and getting feedback from customers. At this moment both Infinium Robotics and the Timbre Group are seeking productivity-related government grants to help offset deployment costs.
The flying robotic waiters at work
Do you want to know more about these robots? CNBC did an interview with the owner of Infinium-Serve and had a demonstration in the studio.
Designer table StayAwesome No.1
1-12-2014
StayAwesome is a young company that is constantly searching for original products to produce and to launch on the market. In this way they would like to create an awesome lifestyle for people.
Designer table StayAwesome No.1
StayAwesome No.1 is a designer table that people can use at the park, in the garden but especially on the beach. For the design of the table, StayAwesome joined forces with designer Rogier Daamen. The designer table looks like there is a shovel stabbed in the sand. Besides that, the table looks original, the table saves a lot of space and makes sure that food and drinks do not end up in the sand.
Production
StayAwesome works together with Inmade, that is a producer within the prison system in the Netherlands. It is a factory located in Alphen a/d Rijn where prisoners are responsible for the production of StayAwesome No.1. The prisoners are given the opportunity to improve their lives. StayAwesome No.1 is currently the only one of its kind and soon available in their webshop.
Free pizza slide with A-grades
1-12-2014
The Greenville House of Pizza in New Hampshire is offering its young customers the chance to earn free slices with homework and good grades. The strangest marketing actions are organized to inspire young people to earn a free meal at a fast food restaurant. Last year for example, we read in an article that girls could get a free slice of pizza if they showed their “boobs” in a Pizza Place in Illinois. (Not) a good example of trying to get more guests through community involvement. 😉
Stimulate students with pizza slices
The owner of the Greenville House of Pizza, a 28-year war veteran helps young people with their homework and treats free pizza slices if they get an ‘A’. In addition, students can do their homework in his “Study Hall Special“ until five o’clock in the afternoon and in the meantime enjoy a slice of pizza for only 35 dollar cents. The owner even helps with the homework, if he understands the subject!
Social commitment
My youngest daughter is currently in high school and sometimes I hear that she didn’t consume her lunch but ordered a pizza with friends instead. Knowing this makes the action above much more sympathetic and that occasional pizza slice is eaten anyway! ^Marjolein
Dutch Coffee Makers back in The Netherlands
28-11-2014
Coffee has gained a more exclusive status over the past years and there are a lot of connoisseurs nowadays. That said, most of the coffees are brewed hot and the (re)introduction of a cold brew method might bump into some doubts.
Dutch Coffee
The classical Dutch brewing method dates back to the Dutch East India Company period. With this method cold (ice) water drips through the ground bean reservoir. Making a pot of coffee takes four to six hours, the result is a less bitter and less acid coffee. The cold coffee barely oxidates and therefore has a longer shelve time. The Dutch Coffee contains zero calories because the fat in the beans doesn’t dissolve in cold water.
Design
The design of the classical Dutch Coffee machines, or installations, dates back to the trade of the Dutch East India Company. The elegant design is a fusion between Dutch stolidity and Asian craftsmanship.
Taste
The various tastes of the coffee bean are well preserved by the cold brew method. The founders of the ‘Dutch Coffee’ company, Jits Krol and Robert Nijhof, say it’s even strange that we’re brewing coffee hot. This tradition probably started back in the days when it was more hygienic and healthier to brew coffee with boiled water. It does have a negative impact on the taste though.
The website www.dutch-coffee.nl/en shows a variety of serving methods, brew-experiments and the machines of course.
