YtheWait app | ‘Smart Restaurant’ app or digital waiter

12-5-2020

Dirty menus, unhygienic order kiosks and the many separate apps will be a thing of the past, according to the developers of the ‘YtheWait’ app. Their innovative all-in-one Hospitality & Retail App, already helps hundreds of partners to efficiently manage and increase their sales. Your guests can make contactless reservations, order in advance, pay and rate via their mobile. To support the hospitality businesses, the use of the all-in-one application and all the services around it are free of charge until 1 July 2020. ‘YtheWait’ has a user-friendly module that also simplifies booking and table management.

We’re spotting more and more technical developments that will replace parts of the staff’s tasks. This YtheWait app can be a lot more effective, contactless capturing everything via the guests own mobile; from booking, to ordering, paying and rating afterwards. Still we get the sense that human service will be missed but right now the app is useful as your guest only has to touch her or his mobile. Once we go back to maximum occupation with a lack of good catering staff, this app could also be very useful.  read more

Restaurants Culina Hortus and Vanilla Black | The world’s Best Vegetarian and Vegan Restaurants 2020

4-5-2020

In Brussels the ‘We’re Smart®’ movement, the undisputed reference in the culinary world of vegetables, revealed the new online Green Guide today and the winners of this year’s Best Vegetarian and Best Vegan Restaurants: Culina Hortus (Lyon, France) and Vanilla Black (London, UK).

The announcement was made by the renowned Vegetables Chef®, Frank Fol, during the official release of the We’re Smart® Green Guide 2020, comprising reviews and ratings of nearly 1000 restaurants worldwide ranked from 1 to 5 radishes, according to the amount of vegetables they use in their dishes. read more

What does the catering industry do in the context of the COVID-19 virus | Inspiration March 27

27-3-2020

Our perspective on the world has completely changed during the past couple of weeks, a true paradigm shift! At this very moment it’s important to constantly fact check all the news about the Coronavirus, a lot of fake and scary news has been spotted at the social media. For example at a website in the U.S. we came across a question whether or not food could be a source of the virus. Fortunately they also gave the official answer of the CDC (Centers of Disease Control and Protection) but please don’t believe strange advices!

We also spotted a lot of positive inspiration. So, we want to show you some small positive gestures and inspiration during these anxious times.
Stay healthy and take care of each other! ^Team Horecatrends

Very positive news is that we see a lot of people unite and not only in the health care. We even spotted an online game in which gamers can help the university of Washington’s Center for Game Science to create a medicine.

In France the Accor Group, a hotel chain, opened the CEDA (Coronavirus Emergency Desk Accor) telephone helpdesk. They help to accommodate homeless people trough France in conjunction with the government.

We spot a lot of positive initiatives by restaurants, like for example #JREwhatsinthefridge and other ones to keep in touch with their guests. In the Netherlands, one of our chefs with two Michelin stars started a video making a delicious daily meal. And many more individuals give tutorials, which made us laugh is the reaction of a famous chef in an Instagram story: “After two days in quarantine and watching many cooking videos, I understand why so many of you come to restaurants” ?

In most languages there is a saying like ‘money can’t buy happiness’ but if you’re very rich you can buy a ‘Covid-19 themed exclusive package’ at Le Bijou Hotels & Resorts in Switzerland. But if you’re entertaining your kids at home, you could make them happy with a ‘toilet paper’ cake!

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Trends we spotted | Week 12

20-3-2020

Our perspective on the world has completely changed in the past week, what a paradigm shift! I personally thought that we would no longer post trends and inspiration on Horecatrends. It seems of no importance right now but we also spotted a lot of positive inspiration. So, we have written a ‘trends we spotted this week’ with small positive gestures and inspiration in these anxious times.
Stay healthy and take care of each other! ^Marjolein van Spronsen

This week, among other links to articles about a hand wash tutorial by Gordon Ramsey and the Cheese trucks of the London based The Cheese Bar.

McDonald’s in the U.S. and Canada are considering rent deferrals for its franchisees and Uber Eats is introducing a new support package that includes a waiving of delivery fees on all orders from independent restaurants across U.S. & Canada and dedicated marketing campaigns.

And an article at Eater about what restaurants need right now to actually survive in the USA. Here in the Netherlands, the government is taking all the necessary measures at this moment and even banks are helping. We wish all restaurant owners worldwide will be able to find a way to stay in business.

Chipotle tackles social distancing with virtual hangouts on Zoom, interesting inspiration if you try to reach young people. And upscale restaurant Canlis in Seattle finds new business model in the Covid-19 crisis.

In the Netherlands we spotted free e-learning programs for people working in the hospitality industry and many restaurants offer gift vouchers with benefits. One of them doesn’t give vouchers but gift plates!

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Winners of the 1st ProVeg Vegan Cheese Awards I Max & Bien and Petit Vegann

13-3-2020

The Amsterdam vegan cheese maker Max & Bien won the audience award of the ProVeg Vegan Cheese Awards 2020 with their blue cheese. The Petit Lorrain, a vegan brie from Petit Veganne from France, was the favourite of the jury. The awards were presented during the well-attended sixth edition of VeggieWorld in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Although a news from a week ago, we still love to mention it! There is currently an increasing demand for high-quality vegan products with which you can make a difference in the catering industry. For example, we recently wrote about camembert made from cauliflower and hemp seeds from Grounded Foods in New York.

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First edition of the Gin & Rum Festival in the Netherlands

9-3-2020

First edition of the Gin & Rum Festival at seven different locations throughout the Netherlands. Unlimited tasting of more than 100 different gin and rum brands. From the Piña Colada to the now indispensable Gin & Tonic. At the first edition of the Gin & Rum Festival everything revolves around these two distillates. Seven Dutch cities are taking part in the new festival this year and each location will be transformed into a true gin & rum paradise. Upon arrival, gourmets receive a full-fledged tasting glass with which they can taste more than 100 different types of gin and rum unlimited at the stands of well-known and emerging new brands. In addition to these tastings, visitors gain knowledge during substantive workshops, make their own cocktails and dance on fine tunes in the silent disco. Smell, taste and enjoy while being inspired by the stories of passionate distillers and bartenders.

This festival makes it possible to try the tastiest gins and rums with your friends at various unique locations in the Netherlands. Do not miss it!

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The city of Igualada & Airbnb | ‘Healthy Destinations Lab’

14-2-2020

A healthy tourism project between the city of Igualada (Spain) and Airbnb provides a blueprint to promote lesser-known destinations across the world. As told by Airbnb the number of arrivals of guests to the region increased 50% in one year propelled by domestic travelers. In late 2018, Igualada City Council and Airbnb announced the creation of the “Healthy Destinations Lab”. The innovative project brought together industry, policymakers and locals to explore, generate ideas and collaborate on building a healthy and sustainable tourism model for the municipality of Igualada, located within the L’Anoia region in Catalonia (Spain).

We wrote about the ‘Global Office of Healthy Tourism’ by Airbnb back in 2018 and recently they published a whitepaper on New Sustainable Tourism Destinations in which they, amongst other topics about sustainable tourism, subscribe the project with the city of Igualada in the Anoia region in Spain. The effect of the project: Guests arrivals in the Anoia region grew by almost 50% in 2019, 71% growth of domestic travel in the Anoia region in 2019, 16 of the 35 municipalities in the Anoia region received travelers through Airbnb.

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Trends we spotted | Week 5

3-2-2020

At hospitalitytrends.eu we spot many national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write about, the smaller trends we use in our weekly column ‘Trends we spotted this week’.

This week, among other links to articles about ‘Truth & Tonic, the first plant-based café on the Strip in Las Vegas and at an ATM outside of the new Vagabond venue in London, dispensing a glass of prosecco!

Other articles are about CHEW, another personal and reusable straw and an eco-friendly chocolate bar by Kit Kat, flavoured and sweetened with cacao fruit!

The Mandarin Oriental Ritz, Madrid will reopen its doors in the summer of 2020 and Beyond Meat had another collaboration with Dunkin’ this time! A limited edition of the Beyond D-O-Double G Sandwich with Beyond Sausage!

And a very important development in Spain  Aqua Abib created a solar-powered system that turns salt water into drinking water and commercial salt. Big, bigger, biggest – At the Lamanna’s Bakery in Scaborough Canada they created very big pizza slices and even sweet ones like The Donut Slice!

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The BrewDog AF Bar, the alcohol free beer bar & BrewDog’ ‘Drink All You Can Jan’

9-1-2020

‘The BrewDog AF Bar’ is the brewery’s first fully alcohol-free bar. Independent Scottish craft brewer BrewDog have opened their first bar dedicated to alcohol-free. The BrewDog AF Bar is the world’s first alcohol free beer bar and will offer 15 taps of draft alcohol-free craft beer. The bar has opened in central London and will be the first of the company’s global bars to feature a line-up solely devoted to drinks without alcohol. In addition to this, BrewDog will be running ‘Drink All You Can Jan’ across all bars. The initiative offers drinkers unlimited refills of BrewDog alcohol-free beers in all bars for the entire month. And with 24% of beer drinkers choosing more low or no-alcohol options (according to the Mintel, UK Beer Market Report 2018), the brewery are piloting a new concept for their bar division, with a view to rolling it out across the UK and into Europe.

It’s the time for alcohol free drinks: in the Netherlands we spotted amongst others the first pop-up Bar 0.020 in Amsterdam and the new menu for alcohol free drinks at NRC café in Rotterdam. With Dry January it’s wise to serve your guests at least the possibility to drink alcohol free. Our colleagues Robin, Nick and Leonie tried some drinks last week and they were kind of surprised on the sweetness of most mocktails! So if you’re buying or creating alcohol free drinks, not everybody has a sweet tooth!  

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Trends we spotted | Week 48

29-11-2019

At hospitalitytrends.eu we spot many national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write about, the smaller trends we use in our weekly column ‘Trends we spotted this week’.

This week, among other links to articles about a snowman sculpture trail you can walk in London Bridge this Christmas and start-up Air Protein creates ‘air meat’ using protein-producing microbes discovered by NASA.

Gucci and Massimo Bottura will open the second Gucci Osteria at a rooftop in Beverly Hills and we found an adorable package deal: last summer you could enjoy a ‘puppies & prosecco’ package at the Kimpton Hotel Monaco in Denver.

US-based Sweetgreen is using Artificial Intelligence tech and personalised service to attract customers to its latest restaurant in New York. And a link to the full list of the 100 Best chefs in the world 2020 according to the French restaurant Le Chef, with 6 Dutch chefs!

Tokyo’s 13th Michelin Guide has been released last week and KFC also tested plant-based chicken in Canada for one-day. They want to introduce plant-based chicken in 2020.

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