KFC’s 11 Herbs & Spices Firelogs | KFC ignites their fans Holiday Season
27-10-2020
After selling out two years in a row, KFC’s 11 Herbs & Spices Firelogs are back exclusively in select Walmart stores and on Walmart.com. Forget chestnuts roasting over an open fire, because KFC’s famous fried chicken-scented 11 Herbs & Spices Firelog is back for its third consecutive holiday season. Created once again in partnership with Enviro-Log®, the famous fried chicken-scented firelog is available while supplies last exclusively in the U.S. at select Walmart stores and on Walmart.com.
We recently wrote about a Christmas scented hand sanitizer that recently hit the market in the U.S., we wonder when a European restaurant or fast service chain will follow with a scented product! It looks like it’s very popular in the U.S. and KFC will even be available at the Canadian market as well. The big question is whether you want your home to smell like fried chicken?
On Air Beauty Co. launched unique Christmas scented hand sanitizers
27-10-2020
On Air Beauty Co. kicked the hand washing game up a notch by launching Christmas scented hand sanitizers on ‘Global Hand Washing Day’ that took place on the 15th of October. Washing your hands is one of the most important things people can do to protect their health, but a Global Hand Washing Day? Well if COVID-19 learned us anything, it’s the importance of just that! On the other hand and compared to ‘World Happiness Day’ or ‘National Unicorn Day’, ‘Global Hand Washing Day’ seems a bit boring. That’s all changed this year, because the Pumpkin Spice and Hallmark Christmas Movie Revolutions just elevated the global holiday.
Although we Dutchies weren’t aware of a Global Hand Washing Day, we most certainly realize the importance of it and if a product like Christmas scented hand sanitizers make more people clean their hands, we love to be able to buy it here as well!
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Cabin | Hotel on wheels between Los Angeles and San Francisco
8-10-2020
Cabin, a USA based company, provides travellers with a new way of travelling between San Francisco and Los Angeles. This concept was first executed in 2016 under the name SleepBus as a pilot, where tickets were sold-out in three days and the waiting list contained more than 20,000 people who liked the idea of being transported in a bus with sleeping pods. The same concept continued under the name of Cabin, providing services between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
One of our colleagues came across these services and really liked the idea of travelling by night while having a pod to sleep in. Currently the staff of Cabin is closely monitoring the Covid-19 situations but still continues to provide their services. At their new initiative you can order a Cabin or ‘Hotel on wheels’ for private events as well. Wouldn’t it be great to travel while sleeping between big cities in Europe? Kind of a rolling hotel!
The TABASCO X Seoul Bird Collaboration | Limited edition dishes
29-9-2020
Recently opened Seoul Bird, West London’s Korean fried chicken specialists, are pleased to announce their exclusive eight-week collaboration with TABASCO® Brand from the 1st October, called The TABASCO X Seoul Bird Collaboration. Korean-American founder, Judy Joo, has created three limited edition dishes that will join the menu, for a short time only, featuring her ‘Chilli Chicken & Wicked Waffles’, ‘Burnin’ Bird Burger’ and ‘Tater Tots with TABASCO® Sriracha Sauce’.
A great example of working together during the COVID-19 pandemic. This initiative in London shows a supplier supporting a restaurant but it might as well be a local supermarket creating a collaboration with a local restaurant. Especially during the rapidly changing (stricter) measurements by the government a collaboration with either suppliers or supermarkets might be the reason a restaurant can survive.
Trends we spotted | Week 35
28-8-2020
At horecatrends.com or hospitalitytrends.eu we spot many national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write about, the other trends we use in our weekly column ‘Trends we spotted this week’.
With this week, a link to an article about the changing view on hospitality due to the pandemic, apps are getting more and more important. But also a campaign by Airbnb in the USA to offer online experiences at home, led by artists around the world.
Great design for the new Starbucks location in the Circles Ginza Building in Tokyo, it features a ‘Smart Lounge’ to work in! And are you a member of a book club that had to stop meeting because of the pandemic? Check out the online ‘Words & Wines’ book club!
Just Salad is the first U.S. restaurant chain that carbon labelled its menu. London has a the first float-in cinema in the UK and in the V&A museum an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ exhibit will open March 2021, fall down the rabbit hole!
A glimpse inside the new Felix Roasting Co., known for its specialty coffee (like the ‘espresso tonic’ and the hickory-smoked s’mores latte), at 104 Green Street in SoHo!
THE TOKYO TOILET Project | Transforming 17 public toilets in Shibuya
27-8-2020
The Nippon Foundation has launched THE TOKYO TOILET project to build public toilets that can be used by anyone. The project will build new toilets at 17 locations in Shibuya, Tokyo, as a way of moving toward the realization of a society that embraces diversity. Some toilets have been available for use by the general public since August 5.
A great project concerning public toilets which most people always try to avoid using! We wonder whether this project can make a difference and if it does, who’s going to create ‘Toilet projects’ in the rest of the world? It might be a great sponsoring project for design and architectural firms in collaboration with city councils and a cleaning company.
NICE DAY | A new Chinese takeout restaurant in New York
25-8-2020
The restaurant group behind the Chinese fast-casual mini-chain Junzi Kitchen is launching a new Chinese takeout restaurant NICE DAY at 170 Bleecker St, New York City, bringing beloved American-Chinese food back from their modern kitchen and with an easy online ordering system. Nested within junzi kitchen’s Greenwich Village location, NICE DAY will serve as a pop-up and act as an updated model of traditional Chinese takeout restaurants, where the dishes such as Kung Pao Chicken and Mapo Tofu will pay homage to the classic American-Chinese flavours that have earned rave reviews for generations.
Great initiative by the Junzi restaurant group to revitalize the American – Chinese dining. As the traditional Chinese restaurants in the Netherlands are facing exactly the same problem, NICE DAY might be an inspiration for those Chinese entrepreneurs who are willing to adapt to a more modern concept of the Chinese cuisine.
Trends we spotted | Week 31
30-7-2020
At horecatrends.com or hospitalitytrends.eu we spot many national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write about, the other trends we use in our weekly column ‘Trends we spotted this week’.
This week, among other links to articles about the Robot Rosé that delivers wine to your room at hotel Trio in California and about a sustainable wine bottle made for 94% out of paper.
Select Palladium Hotel Group properties in the U.S.A. offer free medical insurance to guests and The new Tony’s Chocolonely Super Store is located in the heart of Amsterdam at the Beurs Building. With a video of the theme park they’re developing!
Pentatonic is a design and technology company that makes purpose from waste, they created furniture and textiles out of store waste for Starbucks and last year they created the Burger King Meltdown in the UK.
We spotted a new hotel brand: the LyvInn, an extended-stay and transient hospitality concept and initial locations for this brand include Amsterdam. And an interesting read about apps trying to solve the surplus, here in the Netherlands we know ‘Too good to go’ but for example the app Karma makes an extra effort to prevent products going to waste.
For those living in London: there are about 45 Michelin star restaurants where you can eat out and pay partly with the ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ discount.
The Upside Down Amsterdam | The largest ‘Instagram museum’ in Europe
7-7-2020
On the third of July Anna Nooshin opened the doors of her own completely new Instagram museum: The Upside Down Amsterdam. After a year and a half of brainstorming, planning and searching for the perfect location, this dream has come true in collaboration with entrepreneur Hans Plesman. Visitors can immerse themselves in a completely new museum experience. The Upside Down Amsterdam also wants to activate social involvement and bring a deeper message. Attention is asked for ‘forgotten children’, among other things, with which they support the foundation ‘Het vergeten Kind’ (the Forgotten Child). The initiators believe that everyone has the right to play and that’s why they are opening up the experience to this target group in cooperation with the foundation.
“It’s great that after years this dream can finally be realised. With The Upside Down Amsterdam we want to create so much more than just an Instagram worthy museum. We want to tell a story about the Netherlands of today and give visitors and creatives the opportunity to fully develop themselves in our museum. In addition, one of our most important pillars besides entertainment is education and we will focus on lectures and master classes where experienced content creators and influencers share their creative passion with our visitors”, says Anna Nooshin.
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The World’s 50 Best Restaurants | Bid for Recovery
6-7-2020
Until this Sunday (July twelfth) all food and travel enthusiasts have the opportunity to bid for out-of-this-world gastronomic experiences with the world’s best chefs. The ‘Bid for Recovery’ Auction is organized by the organisation behind The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. The 50 Best ‘Bid for Recovery’ Auction is the largest global event of its kind, aiming to raise funds that will provide direct and tangible financial relief for restaurants worldwide as they emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. The auction is a key fund-raising element of the 50 Best for Recovery programme, announced last month, in partnership with founding donor S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna.
The 50 Best ‘Bid for Recovery’ Auction does feature more than 100 lots, providing the opportunity for bidders to select from an array of the most extraordinary global gastronomic experiences imaginable, as well as rare and limited-edition items. For example the Dutch restaurant De Librije (***), offers a package that includes a food-and-wine pairing with Jonnie and Thérèse Boer, a dinner at their new Brass Boer Thuis restaurant, an overnight stay at Librije hotel including breakfast and a lunch at De Librije. Until now they’ve received 6 bids and the price is now 1.350,= pounds. Many more bid possibilities in the vicinity of the Netherlands! They also launched an e-cookbook with simple lockdown recipes by chefs, in exchange for an eight pound minimum donation. The proceeds of this e-cookbook will also go to the 50 Best Recovery Fund.