Captive Conversations, The Hospitality Podcast · 2026-06-19 · 1h 1m
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
39 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Max Shipman, a hospitality marketing and tech specialist, walks through his career journey from working in local sushi restaurants and early-stage delivery platforms to Just Eat, unpacking the critical channels operators overlook. The episode emphasizes that packaging and presentation aren't mere logistics - they're theater that drives virality and customer experience. Coco Nut's sliding dessert packaging, which generated tens of millions of Instagram views, exemplifies how experiential design creates shareable moments. For operators building from scratch, Max recommends three foundational technologies: a solid POS system like Square or Toast for inventory management; digital ordering via StoreKit or similar platforms for direct customer acquisition and data ownership; and a CRM/loyalty system to avoid algorithm dependence on Instagram or delivery platforms. The conversation explores AI's consumer-facing future - smart AR glasses showing live restaurant availability in Soho, AI concierge bots competing for reservations, and hyper-personalization where staff know guest preferences before they arrive. Real examples include Slow Burn, a London jeans factory that transforms into a restaurant weekends, demonstrating how hospitality can cross-pollinate with other sectors for memorable experiences.
A POS system like Square or Toast for inventory and sales management, a digital ordering platform like StoreKit for direct orders and customer data ownership, and a CRM/loyalty system to maintain direct communication and repeat customers without reliance on algorithms.
Algorithm changes and platform policy shifts can eliminate your audience overnight - Instagram audience changes mean lost communication with customers. Direct channels ensure you own customer data and can drive repeat business through loyalty schemes.
Experiential packaging like Coco Nut's sliding dessert unboxing creates shareable, viral moments; Coco Nut generated tens of millions of Instagram views because the packaging itself became theater and content.
AR glasses or AI integration could show live availability, reviews, and menus while browsing a high street; AI concierge bots could book unavailable spots; personalization systems could brief staff on guest preferences before arrival.
Max worked at Just Eat in field sales, then at Delivery.com in a commercial scale-up role, after initial experience in a local sushi restaurant and a stint in telecoms sales.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
A handful of genuinely useful reframes - packaging as a walking marketing cost, unboxing as customer acquisition for delivery brands - are buried under prolonged career biography, filler exchanges, and personal anecdotes. The useful ideas per minute ratio is low for a 61-minute episode.
I kind of reframe it because essentially what we're trying to get customers to come around to is accept that the difference you're paying for a plain bag and an unbranded bag is your marketing cost
It's almost like a customer acquisition cost. If you've never ordered from them and you're ordering it from the same first time. And they have this amazing box. You're going to think if they put that much stuff into the packaging. The food's got to be good.
The 'pay customers 5p to advertise your brand' reframe and the push for founder-led B2B content in a traditionally old-school sector are mildly contrarian, but most of the episode recycles well-worn ideas about loyalty, delivery platform dependency, and experiential hospitality without adding a genuinely new angle.
Would you pay your customers 5p to walk around and advertise your brand to everyone in the area? And I personally, I probably would.
I think there's generally a bit of a misconception with B2B content that because you're not selling directly to the casino, you don't need to be in front of the camera
Max Shipman is a genuine practitioner - 3 years in the field at Just Eat including managing McDonald's franchise accounts during launch, now leading partnerships at a small packaging startup - but he is a mid-level sales operator, not a founder or C-suite executive who has built or scaled anything significant, which limits the depth of lessons available.
I was managing a few of the franchisees and working with them on their operations
one of my franchisees had their third, uh, busiest McDonald's on the restaurants on the platform. And it was in Chatham and Kent. And they were doing 4,000 orders a week
There are real numbers and named examples scattered through the episode - 4,000 orders/week in Chatham, 4,500 at the Bow 'Delivery of the Future' site, named brands like Watch House, Little Bronco Deli, Coco Nut, Nicholas Russard at the Connaught - but these sit alongside long stretches of vague chat about trends and AI speculation with no supporting data.
they were doing 4,000 orders a week on McDonald's... doing something like 800 to 1,000 delivery orders just on Just Eat that night
one of them was out in Bowen, East London, and that one was doing about four and a half thousand orders a week
The host rarely follows up with a probing question, frequently interrupts to share his own lengthy anecdotes, and tends to validate rather than challenge; questions are soft and open-ended throughout, producing a meandering chat rather than a structured extraction of the guest's expertise.
What trends have you seen like that or that you can share? Because people want to do different stuff the whole time. Right.
I went to New York. There was an awesome place called Beauty in Essex. And you go through his point. It's a pawn shop...
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Most hospitality operators think about packaging as something functional. Max Shipman thinks about it differently. In this episode of Captive Conversations, Adam sits down with Max Shipman from Brand Your to explore how packaging has evolved from a simple operational necessity into a powerful part of the guest experience. Max shares his journey through hospitality technology, delivery, Just Eat and McDonald’s before discussing how Brand Your is helping hospitality businesses rethink packaging, branding and customer engagement. The conversation explores customer ownership, loyalty, direct ordering, founder-led content and why hospitality brands should view bags, cups and boxes as more than just packaging. Adam and Max discuss how memorable unboxing experiences, thoughtful design and simple branding can turn everyday touchpoints into marketing opportunities that guests remember and share. Along the way, they explore the future of hospitality technology, AI, delivery, guest relationships and why the most successful brands focus on creating experiences rather than transactions.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: Like with a dessert brand in Soho called Coco Nut. We've been working there for a long time, and their whole thing was we want to create an unboxing, sliding experience where our desserts slide out on top.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: And they've got tens of millions of views on their. On their Instagram.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: The packaging of the.
Speaker B: It's the experience. I think you're. I think the interesting conversation here is, is you're not just a, uh, it's. It's not literally just a packaging. It's experiential. And if you take it into that way of thinking, the old guard who are just making you a coffee cup is very different to like, can you imagine getting coffee cup? And then you just peel it out and something. I don't know, it's something underneath, you know, like those hidden things or even like, you know, as you mentioned in the bakery stuff.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: You know, getting that. You're right. It's a theater. I think that's a really interesting conversation, is the theater. The theater of food. Welcome to Captive Conversations, brought to you by Captive Wi Fi. I'm your host, Adam Forman. This podcast brings you the best stories from suppliers, market and operators from our beloved hospitality sector. Now let's get on with the show. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Captive Conversations, episode 95. Yes, nearly 100. We're getting there. And, um, we have Max from Brand here. Thank you for coming. Um, we met a couple weeks ago, I think more like a couple of months ago now, probably. We keep sort of intersecting.
Speaker A: We have very brief exchanges and I felt like we needed to actually sit down and have a chat.
Speaker B: This is nice. This is nice. So, uh, the last. These are the opening questions, uh, from Charlie from Pop Menu and called Clausberger, uh, which I haven't yet to get to try, but I'm desperate to go down there. So he said his first question was if you could have three bits of tech in your hospitality business or a hospitality business, uh, or recommend three bits of tech that you could sacrifice. Um, maybe, he said maybe a rotor system and so on. What three bits of tech would you rely on?
Speaker A: Yeah. Now I will caveat this and say, um, I've not come from an operator background. I do speak to a lot of operators and I hear about a lot of different things. But I actually did this exercise last night as if I was an operator opening that site for the first time. And what would be my sort of three go tos. So I think you've got to cover the basics. Have a great pos System Square. A toast that covers you for the basics. Stock management, inventory, sales. Now, I'm a huge fan of growth. Um, anything to drive orders. So I think I would go down the digital ordering route, work with like a store kit, get those direct deliveries, click and collects maybe QR code ordering at the table, make it a nice frictionless process as possible.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Ah, direct ordering. So we're owning the customer data. Which leads me on to number three, which I think ties in nicely, is around the CRM and loyalty piece. And you know what I was fascinated about with Charlie's episode last time was around talking about how, you know, you could have an audience on Instagram, not have a direct channel. Yeah. Algorithm changes and all of a sudden you've lost communication.
Speaker B: It's insane from him.
Speaker A: I know.
Speaker B: Insane. I know that. And then it just like tilted off.
Speaker A: I know. And it's kind of scary.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And, you know, so many of the brands we work with solely use the deliveries of this world and don't have that direct channel. And you're at the mercy of them. And also, how do you. Some of our brands use stamp loyalty cards, paper cards. And it's like you need their customers on board to speak to them, to get them to come back. So I think there's a mistrick there about not having that, uh, CRM, that loyalty schemes keep them coming back. So those would be my three.
Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah, I like them. Good three. Good three. Okay. Uh, where do you see, uh, in ten years time, people using AI, uh, or consumers using AI? Um, we know how it works in business. But he says, uh, how is a consumer going to be using AI and hospitality in the future? And where do you see that going?
Speaker A: Yeah, I, I, uh, was laughing because I was like this. What route do we go down with this one?
Speaker B: Yeah. There's so many different. Right.
Speaker A: I imagined the world like. Yeah, the Adam Formal world. Everyone's wearing their meta glasses.
Speaker B: Absolutely.
Speaker A: Where we're walking down a high street and we can scan a restaurant. It will tell you the live availability, the menu, the reviews. Um, because I still find it a bit challenging when it comes to going out spontaneously and finding out where can I go on a busy Friday or Saturday night milling around Soho. And I think if you could have access to all that live reporting at once, whether it's meta glasses or incorporating Google Street View into your phone with AI and you know, like a seven room. So it plugs it all in.
Speaker B: Can you imagine? Just like I want to, I fancy tacos and then just pops up with the seven best taco places that have
Speaker A: got availability and it just takes you straight there.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: So I think that could be a cool world and endless possibilities and then another one around. AI bots getting an army of them getting you the best reservations out there. M booking your favorite spots because I think it's hard to get good spots these days.
Speaker B: Do you think that it's going to be a bit like Ticketmaster? They're going to be like. The agents are going to be like taking some of the best spots out there.
Speaker A: I think we might get a. Well get to a place where it's a bit of a war bookings and you'll have AI agents on the other end accepting bookings and it would just be a bunch of AI bots speaking to each other. So I would hazard a guess that that's a word we might get to as well.
Speaker B: I'm quite up for like an AI concierge, something like that that has access, like backend access to concierge. Because with OpenTable and seven rooms and others there is like a concierge login. The concierge is using hotels. So theoretically you could. If someone built it, it wouldn't be like an open for everyone. You'd have it like in a system that people could use or I don't know that hidden concierge and trying to get tables. But, um, yeah, it's interesting when I think the. I do like the option of. Of consumers doing that. I think I had. We had someone ask the other day. Their question was, um, how do you see. What do you see hospitality, uh, using AI for. I think it was in five years or I think it was bearing in mind it's probably going to be in six months because it's way it's going. But she was like, I've come out of my taxi and, uh, the waiter knows exactly who I am, what my preferences are.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And then all the information about my profiles there. And she said, she, she was like, this is how I think the, the it could benefit. Like imagine you come out, you come out taxi, someone comes out to greet you. Whether it's a hotel or a restaurant, they know exactly who you are, what time you're coming, what your preferences are. All this information that's sort of there at the moment, but just tying it in together.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I think the level of personalization can really just be taken up a lot.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm hoping that will happen. Okay, standard questions. Uh, best hospitality experience you've ever had.
Speaker A: Hard question to answer. Really hard Question to answer. And I actually was thinking about this, um, earlier, and I'm going to draw on a recent experience I've had a unique experience. Yeah. And, uh, there's a lovely girl, Elliot Toast, who was telling me about this restaurant in Wolfestow. And it is, by day, a jeans factory. It's called Slow Burn. If I don't. If people have heard of it.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And Monday to Friday, it's just London's only craft gene factory. And from Friday night through to the weekend, it turns into this incredible restaurant. So it's insane. It's insane. You walk in and it's just benches full of people who have literally been there early that day.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: With all their equipment laid out, all of this fabric everywhere. Jeans.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And you go through and it's this restaurant that's just been put in the. In the middle of it all.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: A, uh, working restaurant. And before you wait for your table, you're literally sitting at a bench where someone's sewing machine is having a drink. And that's insane. Insane. And the staff were all incredible. And the food, importantly, was incredible as well. It's not just because it was. We're having dinner in a factory, but the food was absolutely amazing. Um, Middle Eastern sort of flavors, black bean tacos. I think I had roast rotisserie chicken mussels. It was a serious experience. Um, and I think there was a lot of good restaurants. And, you know, hospitality is all about that feeling, like, and the memory that you have. And that was just really in the forefront of my mind because it's just so unique.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Uh, yeah. I think I love the things that will stay in your mind of some experience that you've had that just is different than the rest. You can go out to a restaurant in central London, for sure. There's hundreds of different restaurants, all are very different. If you can go to have an experience. Yeah, it just change and it's on top of mind. So when you speak to someone, they go, oh, where have you been recently? It's the first thing that comes out.
Speaker A: For sure. For sure. And I think there's big opportunity for hospitality to cross over with other weird and funky sectors, like retail, like fashion, and have these cool, intimate popups. Um, and have these really unique experiences. Yeah, it was cool.
Speaker B: Yeah, that is. That sounds very cool. I. I like it.
Speaker A: We.
Speaker B: I went. When years ago, I went to New York. There was an awesome place called Beauty in Essex. And you go through his point. It's a pawn shop. So you walk in, it's Just a pawn shop. There's like trinkets and the guys behind the counter. And then you walk up and you're like, this is like, why am I here? This is weird. Yeah, I've got a booking. And then he opens this massive door and this is like super sleek restaurant. And then you go downstairs.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: It's a bit like Lady Garo. When it was in Soho, they were meant to have, uh, on the one side that sex shop.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And, um.
Speaker A: Oh, yeah, they could.
Speaker B: They could never have, um. They can. They were meant to be able to put items on the menu, like, you know, naughty things on the menu. Uh, but the neighbors didn't want another sex shop. But they tried to explain to them, it's not a sex shop, it's a, uh, open of the restaurant. So all you really had when you walked in was a mannequin. And then it was like this dark room that you walk in and you go downstairs. And they wanted to adjust. Everybody walked up was like, why are
Speaker A: you taking me here?
Speaker B: Like, I don't want to. We're in Soho. I don't want to go here. Because the other side was the cafe.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: And unfortunately it's now closed. But it got a lot of people freaked out walking into this because literally the front door you had like a mannequin with like, you know, stuff on basically. And um. And you had a very eccentric door host in the beginning.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: And, uh, it was hilarious. I mean, I remember taking friends then they're like, no, no, no, this isn't. No, no. Yeah.
Speaker A: What do. You wrote me?
Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not, I didn't say I'm not up for this. And then we walk in and like, okay, yeah. So that sort of experience I think is quite cool. But yeah, I think there's. It's nice to see more. There's lots of competitive socializing places now. I think they're quite cool as well. Yeah. Um, best hospitality tech. We talked about tech earlier, but what's something that you have really enjoyed using or have? Uh, top of mind only because I
Speaker A: went to their launch party recently. In fairness, we look, I think love, you know, the best in class and a lot of the brands and operators we use, you know, we work with, use the lights of store kit and from my time at Just Eat, knowing how important a good menu is. Well laid out, well presented. The impact it can have on driving your average order spend, menu conversion and using it As a customer at ah, Rogs Arnie's recently, I'm so impressed about the whole order flow, customer experience. They've done a really nice job and on that. And then with the app. Ah to come as well and I got the Sushi dog app on my phone and it's really nice and it's nice.
Speaker B: It's not clunky. It's quite nice.
Speaker A: It's not clunky.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And considering how um, I'm sure you appreciate the development world is it's a really labor intensive thing and the fact that they can make that whole process somewhat shorter.
Speaker B: Yeah. I think about back in the day when you go to an app, right. It would be nice I speak 20 grand or 50 grand or grand you know or whatever or a massive sassy like back in the day. It would be crazy people asking for development to build stuff. Uh, I think we've had a cl. We had a uh, sort of. We're helping out a client in, in Tenerife and Yeah. And uh, they uh. Well we're not a client, we just. We're sort of helping them and I was just advising and they've got the app and trying to you know, plug it into a new new system, a new res system. It's all very difficult because it's a custom, it's custom built but there's other stuff out there now, you know, uh, and. Or they can just go build it themselves. Right. Nowadays you can theoretically.
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And I think there are, myself included, a bunch of operators out there who just don't have that know how or time more importantly to be investing in building apps.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: So I thought that was really cool and I think you can roll it out at scale and it could be super impactful for operators. So. Yeah, I love anything to do with driving growth and I think that looks cool.
Speaker B: Yeah, no it was cool. I thought I was there too obviously. Uh, and it was, it was really interesting to see actually. It's very light and it's easy to use. So I think uh, they've done a very good job on it and it's not too clunky like in the past. Other big operators, like hundreds operators will have their app and it's clunky and it doesn't feel right. It's not in keeping to the design. They've just had to take something that the others have for sure. Uh, or they had to take it and use into the guidelines of what they've been given rather than this which is. It's modular.
Speaker A: So uh.
Speaker B: But yeah. Okay, so we're gonna go back in time.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Uh, to, to before Before. So where did your journey start? So uni.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Where were you at?
Speaker A: Uni was in Nottingham.
Speaker B: Nottingham. What did you do in uni?
Speaker A: Uh, uni was. It was a fun experience.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Learned a lot about nothing. So I wasn't really sure I loved, uh. Was I really sure what I wanted to do? So I love geography and I love business.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: I found a course which is Geography in business.
Speaker B: Nice.
Speaker A: And it was, um, quite a broad covering, which is what. Geography is kind of tied to space and place. But it was quite a lot of different subjects within. Within geographies. The geographies you learn about history, art, economics, social patterns combined with the commerce, business side. Um, it goes.
Speaker B: I didn't really. How far it goes.
Speaker A: It's unbelievable.
Speaker B: The human side, the learning. The learning on. It goes into so many different facets that you. That you can use in a real. In real life in like in. In daily use.
Speaker A: Right. For sure. So I knew it would kind of set me up into quite nice. Into whatever I wanted to go in.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Go into.
Speaker B: And back to one more question. Yeah.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: I was uni as well. So question. The question that, uh. I've got a hilarious story, but we'll talk about another time. Um, it's. It's hilarious, but, um. Did it change? So I find that people I've spoken to went to uni. Yeah. It changes. It changes you. It changes the way you work. It changes the way that you live because obviously you're not away from home. It changes the way. It changes the way you communicate with people because you have to. You're thrown into a different environment. Did you come back with the different mindsets?
Speaker A: Most likely. We're probably out realizing it.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Yeah, you are. You are thrown into the defense. Like all the, uh, all of the home comforts are completely gone. And in. In our second year, when we moved into this house, our flat, our flatmates came back up for a New Year's party. And the, um, one of them had left the shower running when they went out and come back and completely flooded the bathroom.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And the whole of the kitchen, uh, ceiling had to be removed out. We, uh, came back and we're like, what do we do here?
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: So it's stuff like that, which is really good. It's a bit of a fall from grace. You know, what enough do we do?
Speaker B: It's all about the stories, though, isn't it?
Speaker A: About the stories. You have to learn up and learn up. Huh.
Speaker B: So where was your. What was your first journey after. After uni?
Speaker A: So that Was sick. That was, ah, eight weeks.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: In uh, Sushi, my local sushi restaurant.
Speaker B: Okay. Awesome.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Which was cool. Which was um. So I did get some hands on work in the hospitality world and that was serving.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: It was like me and one other person. It was a really tiny shop.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Hands on experience with customers taking orders and getting a feel for the hospitality world. Loved it. And, and then straight after that went to delivery for six months.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: This is my, this is my gap state.
Speaker B: What stage would delivery in at that point?
Speaker A: It was, it was, it was hilarious. It was 20 end of 2016.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And they were quite early on still m. And definitely raising money at the time. And in a six month period we'd moved office. We've gone from small office, 20 of us in Kings Cross.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Hiring couriers, um, mentally fast pace. Trying to, you know, we had about a target of 30 couriers per day per person all across the UK.
Speaker B: Yeah. Because Uber and delivery were quite similar at the same time.
Speaker A: Right. I think so it was, I think
Speaker B: it was maybe Uber first and then delivery just after I got, I don't remember.
Speaker A: I think they both came into the market.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Very.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: So it was very, very early on. Fairly early on. And um, yeah, it was, it was super fast paced and loved the tech hospitality world and I knew it was something I wanted to dip myself back into. So. Yeah. Worked there for six months. Really fast paced, uh, super fun.
Speaker B: Sort of in a scale up as well I guess at that point.
Speaker A: Right. Because there was, it was a scale up and then we all moved to a big office out in Poplar. Uh, yeah, the whole sort of commercial team came under one roof there. Um, inbound sales, outbound, hiring, all under one.
Speaker B: Massive learning. Like going into an environment like that.
Speaker A: It was massive learning. I um, think you don't realize it at the time that those kind of learnings, the fast paced KPIs the brutal reality of the startup world when you're raising money as well. Cuts, growth cuts.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. Everyone there was in my team. Aussie, New Zealand. It's just there to have a fun time. But it was good. And then went traveling for five months.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Came back and I was like, what on earth? Uh, where, where do we go from here? And I thought I wanted to go into recruitment. Had a few interviews and felt like that's probably not going to be the place for me. And ended up in the telecoms world because I saw the uh, on target earnings were Absolutely gargantuan at the time.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: I thought as a 23 year old,
Speaker B: you massive boom as well. It was huge, huge. Everyone now everyone's buying everyone else out. But back then there were loads, right? Loads of. Loads of businesses out there for sure.
Speaker A: For sure. And, um, so when it's the Telecoms world for 18 months not knowing a single thing about telecoms, it was a real learning curve, the whole technicalities of it all, you know, the amount of acronyms that you had to learn. And I ended up, when I left, everything I didn't know I was writing down.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: So I'd written this basically a new dissertation called the Communication Guide for Dummies.
Speaker B: I love that.
Speaker A: Yeah, it was cool. And everyone else in the business who was a new starter got it.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, but I could just feel like it was great money but the passion just wasn't there.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, and again, it's kind of scratching my head thinking, what is going to come next? And then someone reached out and said, what about, you know, recruiter saying what about just eat? And immediately I knew. This is super interesting. Um, I loved my time at delivery.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Love food, love tech. It seems like a natural fit for me. And yeah, I spoke to them
Speaker B: and
Speaker A: yeah, it was, uh, it was going to be a completely different environment. I was very much before in an office in Moorgate.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Stuck at my desk and I had really itchy feet. I wanted to kind of get back out there. M. So Justy was very much in the field.
Speaker B: I was in the field. Okay, nice.
Speaker A: It was in the field. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: Was this when they had the big devices or they. Are they the smaller ones? Yeah. Were they like the giant.
Speaker A: It was like the, um, free flat screen tv.
Speaker B: The tv. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: And you're like, bloody hell, what's that? It's adjusting tablet.
Speaker B: Yeah. And did you remember, do you end it? Do you end up going into venues where they had like. So I called it Starship Enterprise. But then because you had delivery uber henchmen, you had, uh, There was six or seven others. It was so. Yeah, it was like loads. And I remember going into a client of ours and literally this before integrations, right. It was like the tier was here and there were just shelves of things beeping and flashing.
Speaker A: Was mad. And then the people with the virtual brands.
Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
Speaker A: And you're like, you've got about 20 tablets. You're like walking into a curries.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And you're like, the amount of hardware you've got in here is insane.
Speaker B: I remember, I think Tossed before they uh, they got an investment. Investment before the owner left. Um, uh, he. I remember going into the one because they bought Vital Ingredient.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And I went to the one in Mayfair here and I went downstairs and the same thing. They had like seven brands all running. It's before. I mean people do it now. Right. But before it was quite unique. There weren't that many virtual brands.
Speaker A: No.
Speaker B: Until they really fig what to like they could do it and literally like 8, 8, 10 tablets all just beeping in like in a kitchen in the basement.
Speaker A: Yeah. Because, um, it got to a point
Speaker B: where
Speaker A: I started in the acquisition world. Bring on new, new um, platforms, new brands onto just eat and two in ones were a bit of a thing where you could kind of get an extra commission for a sign up if you put on their second brand as your brand once the pipeline started getting dry.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um. But, yeah.
Speaker B: So was that a conversation to someone maybe going, you know, you've got, you know, you do wings. Why don't you just, you know, launch a Wings brand.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And then we'll just. And you'll make more money because you'll have something else. Is that like a phone call? You may have had to some brands
Speaker A: to, you know, in fairness to just the compliance was quite hot.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Like, let's make sure it's Japanese and pizza.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Let's get them super, super different here.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But I was a just eat when Covid kicked off. And um, so the first six months, 20 I joined in May 2019 and then 12 months later we're bang in the middle of COVID and it went. Delivery went absolutely.
Speaker B: Yeah. Insane.
Speaker A: It went insane. And I'm a twin and my brother is at the time was in recruitment in pharmaceuticals.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: So he was a recruit of AstraZeneca Pfizer. All of our friends were laid off.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: We are absolutely both flat out in our bedrooms.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, and it was, it was a uh, strange time because I couldn't have been busier.
Speaker B: Yeah. And just we keep getting phone calls from your friends going, let's go for a walk. I'm on furlough. Do you want to come for a walk?
Speaker A: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker B: Are you free? Like we won't be near each other, but we can sort of talk to each other.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Uh, I, I'm with you. Like, I was. We were flat out too because we had brands were still open.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: On the IT site. And uh, my friends were just taking for walks like straight, you know. Oh, uh, we're. I'm being paid. It's fine. I'm on furlough. It's all good. Coming back like, no, I'm working.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It was a weird, it was a strange time and because probably, it probably
Speaker B: went from that up like the director must have been insane.
Speaker A: It was, it was insane because you
Speaker B: must have like grocery companies, everything everyone wanted to try and like the whole of Marylebone turned into like a. Even like some of the high end restaurants turned into like belongeries and stuff like that.
Speaker A: Yeah, it's insane. It was, it was, it was mental.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: It was also a challenging time because people were thinking you were going to be the saving grace as well and keep their businesses going. And it was kind of a lot of them the only option they had at the time and no one really knew what was going on. So tough conversations at the same time. And you were kind of doing well in the company but also working with an industry that was just on its knees. But it was um, an amazing experience. And also the second half of the time a just E was sitting on the account management side and also McDonald's as well. And McDonald's, ah, had just launched onto Justy at the time.
Speaker B: Yeah. And that was insane.
Speaker A: That was, I was insane. And I was managing a few of the franchisees and working with them on their operations and they had basically didn't want to go full throttle from day one because they weren't sure how the network was going to handle it. Which is totally fair enough. So um, it was a kind of those first few months when the partnership was up and running, it was a bit of like a huge learning curve for everyone. Uh, the franchise franchisees who had been on Ubereats before being were sort of saying, why aren't we doing the same volume? Yeah, we're sort of there saying, well, let's not break the system first. Yeah. So managing expectations, but a lot of
Speaker B: different people to speak to.
Speaker A: A lot of different people to speak to and learning about a business like McDonald's which is one of the most insanely protest run driven business. You walk into their kitchens and it's like this most insane convert about.
Speaker B: Yeah, a lot of businesses can learn from them. I mean I found that when William Connors was on a while back, he was one that told me that McDonald's were the people that created the kitchen display screen. Yeah, uh, they designed and created it and then they led the way for that kitchen display, the bump screen that you see in every quick service, fast service, uh, business in the world. Yeah, you know, it's like process driven
Speaker A: and you can understand why every McDonald's you go to, there's such a level of consistency. M Because they've nailed the processes. So just understanding that from an operational viewpoint was really interesting.
Speaker B: M so some of the timings as well. Right. Getting that driver in at the right time, my mind goes, now it's easier because you can manage it. There's clever, smart tools to manage it.
Speaker A: But back then it was a bit hairy.
Speaker B: Yeah, it's ready in two minutes.
Speaker A: Yeah. They, um, were working on sort of geotags to understand when the driver was in a certain distance from the restaurant. It would trigger when to cook, send the orders to the kitchen. And yeah, we had so many issues with the breakfast cut over period to lunch where they have a 15 minute window. You can't take your orders for breakfast at 10:45 in there.
Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
Speaker A: And then, um, sometimes the system.
Speaker B: That's tricky, isn't it?
Speaker A: M Would get it not quite right and there's a ping into the system for breakfast at 11:05 and like, we can't do this.
Speaker B: I had a. I spoke to a guy, he used to work at Deliveroo. And, uh, because of the whole, the driver thing was meant to be automated on the, on the driver. He would be on early days on the back end just submitting.
Speaker A: He.
Speaker B: They knew in the reporting that those venues would always be slammed.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: And they'd always be slammed and the drivers would never get there in time. Yeah. So he was in the back end dispatching drivers even before they said it was ready.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Because he knew. Not that you're allowed to do that because you're not allowed to. Yeah, right. But he was telling me, uh, a while ago, I was at an event. He's like, yeah, we just, I was just sitting there pressing the button. I was like, dispatch order ready, ready, ready. So they literally, they turn up and the drivers would be like, I'm here to collect this order number. They're like, it just came through.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Then they were, they would, he would have done it would. It was, it would put together in like a minute and then they were out.
Speaker A: But, you know, it was, it was insane. So there was, I remember this story about one of my franchisees had their third, uh, busiest McDonald's on the restaurants on the platform. And it was in Chatham and Kent. And they were doing 4,000 orders a week on McDonald's.
Speaker B: Wow.
Speaker A: And they wanted me to go there on a Friday night just to see how the operations worked. I think they were doing something like 800 to 1,000 delivery orders just on Just Eat that night. And the systems they were having in place and the confusion with the couriers, it was just.
Speaker B: Yeah. Was it fully integrated at that point or was it still the.
Speaker A: No. So they had. At that time, it wasn't integrated. And then they eventually.
Speaker B: Yeah, they did it.
Speaker A: Moved it all over to, uh, integration.
Speaker B: Nice. So they had. So they were doing the printouts, then
Speaker A: sending into the kitchen. My gosh, 8,000 orders, 4,000 a week. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, it was a mess.
Speaker B: What was it like when you were there on a Friday? Eyes are opened.
Speaker A: I was like, where'd you even look? Yeah, where do you even look? Because the McDonald's manager of the store had basically got this blue board.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And had been like standing at the front running the tickets over while all the drivers waiting there.
Speaker B: Oh, wow.
Speaker A: And it was the most. It kind of worked. Yeah, it was all kind of mad, but somehow sort of worked. And it was. They also said to me, when you go, don't wear anything from Just Eat because the couriers might want to see it. They won't want to see it. Um, and there was a big issue at the time with ghosting on the apps where couriers were saying they were going to be at.
Speaker B: Oh, yeah, Yeah. I hate that.
Speaker A: And, uh, that. Yeah, it was, it was all.
Speaker B: I think that still happens with delivery now, to be honest with you.
Speaker A: I think so.
Speaker B: It's just, you know, drivers or, you know, or. Or it's the app trying to get it in the background, but trying to show you, like, the Uber version of taxis Ready is coming.
Speaker A: But it's coming. Yeah. So there was a lot of things to iron out.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And, um, it was interesting, though, to be part of it all.
Speaker B: Um, because that's super interesting. Especially during that period, like getting. Getting 4, 000 orders a week. That's mad.
Speaker A: It's mad. And I was working with m. Some Sigma Copco. 5% of the McDonald's sides are owned in house.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Uh, okay. Franchise.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And so one of the groups I worked with were, uh, part of my Copco group.
Speaker B: Mhm.
Speaker A: And they had got this model called Delivery Convenience of the Future or Delivery of the Future, where they were formatting their stores purely for delivery.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And one of them was out in Bowen, East London, and that one was doing about four and a half thousand orders a week. And they built a separate whole delivery channel and they wanted me to go there and see. Yeah, it worked. And it was. Yeah, it was really interesting.
Speaker B: I've seen some of the other McDonald's where it's downstairs and it comes up on the bags. Have you seen them? With the Travelator thing? That's insane. There's some other brands that are doing that now when you go in and the kitchen's downstairs. And this is the thing that comes up with a. With a bag.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And then gets popped up. Up just for deliveries.
Speaker A: The McDonald's were launching dark kitchens at the time as well, and one of my franchisees had one.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And it was weird because that was in 2021 and Covid was slowly kind of normal. Life was slowly coming back. And yeah, they were kind of asking me, are we still going to do these order volumes? And I honestly said, I have no idea. Yeah, I have no idea. I think delivery is now going to be a completely permanent fixture to people's lives. To what extent, you know, people go back out, are they still going to live, you know, get delivery as much? Who knows? But it's going to be a bigger part of people's lives than it once was. The whole digitization.
Speaker B: Oh, it's so different. I mean, I live in. I live in Hartfordshire. Like, can you imagine? Like, there would be like three Chinese places I could get. I mean, Just Eat was always the place that had every. Every Chinese restaurant in the world. Wasn't Just Eat originally.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You know, and then m. More came on and then more brands. Covid accelerated for everyone.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: To try and get. To try and get more business out there. I remember in the, in the past where the clinicians weren't so bad. No, no, no. You know, and they were. Okay. And now it's like a, you know, wild west. Right.
Speaker A: Like, it's tough, but yeah. Um, yeah, Just Eat kind of was always like the ebay of food. It was just basically a marketplace.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And delivery was the opposite model where the brands came and independence followed and Just Eat was the independence and then the brands followed. But yeah, those outer skirts out areas of London was like the Just Eat heartlands.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they really were. Originally. They were like, before they. They were never on delivery. When Uber, they were always, you know, you go, I don't. I mean, I'd had Just Eat way before those other brands.
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker B: So, uh, they've done a good job of getting. Getting them on board because I think the delivery piece was just there done by them. It was never done by Just Eat Driver. All right, so. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A: So Money maker.
Speaker B: Yeah. And. And it wasn't too bad. I remember early, uh, early doors, the delivery, the just like One of the fur, uh, I'm older than you so I've seen the older Just Eat devices and there was this like box about this big.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And you'd have to take a green tick.
Speaker A: Yeah. Ah.
Speaker B: To accept the order and then it would print out the order.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Obviously now it's different because it just you know auto accepts. But um. Yeah it's kind of a long way. But um. So how long were you at Just Eat for?
Speaker A: Three years.
Speaker B: Okay. Wow.
Speaker A: Three years. And um. Yeah it was, it was interesting. I am um, very much out on the field. I honestly probably cover most areas of London. At the start was North London. Went as far up as uh Tottenham Edmonton, Wood Green, Turnpike Lane down there went west. And then um, the last few months the South London TM had gone towards a vacancy and I was living fairly centrally at the time. So I was covering basically from Southwark down to Norwood and Streatham.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Saw it all.
Speaker B: So it's awesome. Uh, because not many. I had someone a little while ago who used to work for. Oh it was a magazine and they would go every day out to different uh restaurants, different areas. Normally people would have done that. They'll. They'll get to that. That part of it you managed to like spread all out.
Speaker A: I've seen all.
Speaker B: I'm sure, I'm sure you've seen interesting operations as well. Open that door. Someone's back garden of like.
Speaker A: Honestly a big thing was um, we had non standard signups and um, it would always require an in person visit.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And I had like people's flats I was going into.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: I was made. They were making me tea and biscuits while we signed them up.
Speaker B: Yeah. As long as they were. As long as they're past free standard. The food standards agent doesn't make difference. Right. There were loads. We were doing pizzas and burgers and.
Speaker A: Amazing.
Speaker B: Yeah. It's insane.
Speaker A: Quite amazing. So. Yeah. So yeah.
Speaker B: So then we move on to. Is it. Was that the last move before you were now.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Okay. So how did that come about?
Speaker A: So I always kind of looked ahead and thought what does life potentially look like after just eat. And I wanted to be somewhere where just a great company but also massive. I want to be way more hands on. Being a smaller company. Didn't really think it'd be as small as like three or four. Three or four of us. Yeah. Really the other, other way. Um. Yeah. An opportunity came, came my way and it's funny I, I've wrote about it today I've just hit four years and I was reminiscing about the message I got.
Speaker B: I saw the photo of you on LinkedIn. That was nice.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like. And Will, uh, reached out to me and he's like, packaging. I was like, okay. But we went over these brands.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: I was like, okay, all right. I'm very open to this.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But it was so early stage. And he kind of told me about the vision of the company and about how the space was so, so much innovation that could be done and it could be so much cooler than it already is. And we've only just touched the tip of what's possible and we have all these plans and I thought, you know what, let's give it a go. And all I wanted to do was work with the best brands in the sector. And I love brands. I love everything to do with branding. Um, and this opportunity came about and I thought, let's give it a go and see what happens. And working in the brand and packaging world is very eye opening.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: It teaches you a lot about supply chain restaurant operations, forecasting sales, how you order, uh, um, what makes a successful business just based on the amount of packaging they order, who isn't run well, who is run well. So m. It's been cool. Um, and it's given me opportunity to work with, uh, you guys have some
Speaker B: really cool brands, to be fair. Like, it's like what I've seen. And the weird thing is, is you're the silent hero behind it.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: So it's not like you turn upside down. Then your little logo is in the back. Right. It's not there.
Speaker A: So it's all thinking about doing that
Speaker B: on the little barcode on the inside of the coffee cup.
Speaker A: Right?
Speaker B: Yeah. But give them a little bit discount and have a. Have you have it on there.
Speaker A: So, um, it's a good idea. Yeah. We've been, we've been talking about. We are doing more partnerships with, with other brands and that is going to be a little thing that we do.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: More cross collab stuff.
Speaker B: I think the other thing as well is, is that you're the. Just before. If people don't. Well, for people who don't know, you can explain to them what the brand is like. Well, let's start with that first and then we can. Yeah, I'm going to tell people, go for it.
Speaker A: Grandeur is we are a branded packaging company. So we make branded packaging accessible to small independent brands. And this industry historically was always very clunky. You would have to order huge volumes of packaging from the far east, it would take months to arrive. And unless you were, uh, a Costa. Ah, Starbucks. A Cafe Nero. That was always a bit of a challenge. So we kind of flipped that model on its head and produce everything locally. You can get a thousand coffee cups, a thousand bags to your front door and you know, three weeks. And if you're a small business, you can now get your brand out there.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, and make it really easy.
Speaker B: Back in the day, it was just. They would have a stamp, right. They'd go on the stamp and then on the little bag or the stamp on the coffee guy. It kills me to this day.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Just like you get a coffee before they just do that on it. And it just looks.
Speaker A: It's one of my pet peeves.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And like, I just feel like it's authentic.
Speaker B: You need to give me some business cards when I pop in. But yeah, it just, it doesn't. It's not hard nowadays. Yes. That great, great series. Great content. Series Stopwatch.
Speaker A: Um, so, yeah, the packaging world, it's, um. We just want to make that whole customer experience way more straightforward, way more easy.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: So I think about 30% of our business at the moment just comes from people going online, ordering a few clicks. Um, and we, yeah, we just want to make it a really easy place
Speaker B: to be because you make it more accessible. Right.
Speaker A: Accessible. Old websites, you know, fill out a form, get a quote. In a week, someone might call you back.
Speaker B: I literally. So my friend of mine does promo. Just like promo stuff for like the Warner and other bits and Bobs.
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker B: Um, I said really, really that that side of the business is so tough. Like it's. Everyone's against each other for the best deal. And uh, I remember going online looking for some like, bags for, for what we wanted. Yeah. And I must have gone to three websites and at one company. Email me back. I just think it's crazy, but all their websites are so big of everything they do, uh, with like promotional merchandise, you sort of get lost. And out of those three brands that what I was looking for, like three days later, that one website in my me back. Which is insane. Like, how do people.
Speaker A: Yeah, it's not, it's not good enough. And I, I think the founders Will and David recognize that. And actually Randall came into existence as a bit of a side hustle because David, our founder, uh, at the time was going to go to New York Covid hit.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And his dad prints adverts onto, uh, packaging, pharmacy bags, beer mats, uh, coffee
Speaker B: cups, uh, together he had the back end.
Speaker A: Huge at home business. And he was like, well, the factories are here if you want to have a go. We have the relationships. Get a website and running. Walk down, you know, Paul Smeller Road. Ask coffee shops. They need their cups branded and they kind of did. And then it kind of built up from there.
Speaker B: And I love that.
Speaker A: That's kind of the story of brand your.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: We actually used to be called brand draw cups.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Because it's just, it was just coffee cups. And then we realized, okay, bit of a market here to do a bit more than cups.
Speaker B: Yeah. To make it look cool and different. That's the thing. And I think the challenge out there nowadays is, is that like I went to like a place around the corner from my office to get like a falafel salad, whatever. Right. Just that it was a cheapo, like throwaway thing. Like it could have been. I, I would have walked out even with a bag. I would have walked out with a branded bag. Walk into my office, 10 minutes.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: With that bag.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Ah, you know, I wish grab a bag. I love, I love, I love a paper bag that's got. And it was just like they, yes. They're a single site.
Speaker A: Great.
Speaker B: But they must go through 700 to 800, maybe a thousand wrap thingies. You know, it's insane.
Speaker A: I am, I take naturally a bit of a bias viewpoint where I kind of reframe it because essentially what we're trying to get customers to come around to is accept that the difference you're paying for a plain bag and an unbranded bag is your marketing cost. You understand more. And I kind of flip and say, would you Pay your customers 5p to walk around and advertise your brand to everyone in the area? And I personally, I probably would.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And we're actually building an ROI calculator now that kind of shows the impact of brand of packaging. Because I think out of time marketing, like how many people look at that billboard or how many people look at a brand of bags has always been a bit of a tricky one to m. Um measure. But I think, you know, put Your prices up by 5p and you know, for a marketing cost, get people to walk around and advertise your brand.
Speaker B: Yeah. Um, I feel like you, I feel like you, you could take, you could end up taking it to the next level and, and doing like nfc. Nfc. Because I met a company on the day that built like a reusable coffee cup.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: With an NFC at the bottom.
Speaker A: Oh yeah.
Speaker B: Um, um, called Topple. Really cool. And so they haven't done anything really with it. As in like you can. You can't tap it and do anything yet. But it's nfc. But you can get really cheap NFC now. Like super cheap.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You can get a thousand stickers. So think about. I can really imagine maybe the bottom of your coffee cup or underneath the. The packaging, making it. Turning uh, it into something else, like gamifying the coffee cups. I think I spoke. I saw something on this other day. I saw it, uh, was Instagram reel. They were. They were doing every. It was basically an advert for a stamp card. Instead what they were doing is every fifth coffee cup they wrote free at the bottom. Yeah, we've got them. Nothing got them. No return visits except giving away free coffee. And maybe, maybe the visibility of. Oh, they're g. Free coffee.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: But uh, if you turn it into like a game.
Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker B: It means. So I mean, you know, you could have brand your games.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Right.
Speaker B: And then they tuck the coffee cup and they can spin the wheel and then they could do stuff like that. You turn it into a bit more. Something bit more engaging.
Speaker A: So I think, I think there's low hanging through there and I think, um,
Speaker B: I don't think enough people use it. Is it. Is it. As long as it's. As long as it's combustible. I guess with the sticker, which I'm sure it would be. But, um, this. Yeah, I think that would be pretty cool.
Speaker A: For sure. For sure. I think, um, you can get more ROI out of your packaging if you link into your loyalty scheme or if you add to your point Gamify and we'll turn it into a cool landing page or whatever it might be. There's definitely stuff that we can speak to more customers about, especially the account management team or we can take your packaging one step further by doing such and such.
Speaker B: Yeah, I think the other thing as well is that people are usually, uh, going for it, looking for themselves and if they don't get that response on that website, for example. Yeah, but you're able to give them the guide. Is that something that you guys work on as well? So the challenge some brands have is that. And you're saying you were. It's interesting because you probably. You are working with some cool brands. I'm sure you work with loads. But the, the nice thing is is that the younger brands, as you mentioned, are, uh, up for doing. Having their brand visible. It's the visibility of it of out there, whether it's the sandwich paper, whether it's a coffee cup, whether it's the bowl, uh, and so on, it's. It's super important. And I think, um, we speak to our clients all the time when we look at that sort of stuff, to put QR on it or something. Make it relative.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: You know, so is that something you help guiding the clients with as well
Speaker A: on the design side?
Speaker B: Yeah, but always it might. How to utilize it in the best way, because obviously you. I'm sure you've come through with some sick designs that you're like. That's amazing.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You know, and, um, yeah, I'd say we take a little bit of a consultative view on that one and see what works. See what works best.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But I would say, actually, when people ask us for branding advice, our general view is keep it very simple from a. Purely from a branding perspective. One or two colors.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Do not overcrowd the space on the cut, because ultimately your print area is quite primary. So you don't want to have the whole menu printed on. On your coffee car, but have it so it's super recognizable. And if you're walking down the high street. Yeah. Make it really visible. Um. And bright. Yeah, and bright. I like. I like a black and white. You can't go too wrong there. But our biggest. A bit of advice to people is get it as big and bold as possible and simple.
Speaker B: Um, I really like the vibrant colors, like Sourdough Sophia, for example. You know, the pink. I just. I just love it. I love the whole. Even the logo on it, it just looks.
Speaker A: I think. Yeah, yeah. I think they've done a good job. And I think the best brands out there, most recognizable ones, if you. I think if you go. Go home and check out all the best brands out there, they don't really do more than two colors.
Speaker B: And they know this. No.
Speaker A: You think about, like Farmer J and
Speaker B: it's just a logo. No, no. If they do it well, it's because I was. I was in Holborn earlier, working past a prep. The word pretty gone. It was just a star.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And very. And, uh, you obviously knew exactly who it was. Right? Yeah, you can get to that. But if you can get to that stage.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: Or McDonald's, the Golden Arches. Right. Yeah, yeah. You know, that sort of stuff. Like same Heinz.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: So if you can. I think if you can elevate yourself to, like, Farmer J, you would know their logo without even saying Farmer J. Right.
Speaker A: Because.
Speaker B: And same probably Salad Project and an Attis and artists have got the name in it. But those sort of, uh, those sort of brands, they all seem to be like, trailblazing into. Trailblazing into. Into what they're doing.
Speaker A: It's a brand new. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I think we always say just keep it simple. M. There's, there's, there's cool stuff you can do, and we encourage people to do that as well. Um, whether it, whether it is a QR code or whether it is arranging, um, a new thing that people are doing at the moment is on coffee cups, especially arranging their branding around the rim of the cup.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Watch House do it. We work with the brand. It's cool. Little Bronco Deli, Notting Hill.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Things that just look smart.
Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, yeah. And clean.
Speaker A: Clean.
Speaker B: It's interesting because I remember years ago, we worked blacks of coffee, and I remember some guy coming in and basically saying, because the coffee cups changed, that you had the, you had like the Costa style, which is still sort of
Speaker A: there with the ribbon.
Speaker B: It was really difficult. Old school.
Speaker A: Yeah. Ah, yeah.
Speaker B: Hard to do branding. And then all of a sudden, things changed. You weren't given two, two coffee cups because it was too hot, obviously.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: It's changed, like, the whole aspect of, like, the, the thickness. It just feels a lot more premium in most places now than it used to.
Speaker A: For sure. For sure. I think since we've. Since I've been over four years, we've actually swapped our main coffee factory into a new one that's just more premium.
Speaker B: Uh, it feels like different. I don't know. I don't know what it is.
Speaker A: I think ergonomically.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Feels nice on the hat.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: We, um, we think double wall cups feel. Feel better. And I think sometimes if you put a sleeve over a single cup, it just removes the branding.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Defeats the point.
Speaker B: I agree.
Speaker A: So double ball.
Speaker B: Okay. Um. All right, so this is one of them towards. We're coming towards the end, so, um. Oh, actually, before we do that, is there anything new happening? Like, what do you see in, in obviously the coffee cups. There's the packaging and so on.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: What trends have you seen like that or that you can share? Because people want to do different stuff the whole time. Right. They want to change and iterate and make things cool.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: What have you seen that is anything you can share?
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, there is some stuff. We've actually just hired a new head of supply chain who is, um, looking at cool stuff happening in China and there's huge amounts of innovation happening there. Um, so we got our finger on the Pulse. There, there was. There was um, something I saw actually on Instagram the other day that I thought was mental, which was super cool. There was this bun shop in Shoreditch.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And they've designed their, ah, packaging like a handbag.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And this girl did this video. It's got millions of views on it about. And making the whole experience fun.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And different. And it's functional, but also looks cool that she turned this bun box into a handbag. Um, so I think you can have. There will be more opportunities to have fun with the packaging. I think from a new product development. On a more technical side of things, sustainability. There are more companies out there, like not plug. Who've just raised a bunch of money and make packaging out seaweed. And I think we'll get to a place where far more sustainable materials come onto the market and be far more accessible. Um, so I think from that side of it it'll get kind of interesting. But I think I'll go back to the point on how packaging can be used for more than just packaging. And it can be seen as a channel to build loyalty to
Speaker B: the Happy Meals. Like the original Happy Meal. When you could rip stuff off that as a kid, you can make it into anything.
Speaker A: Or Monopoly. Yeah.
Speaker B: Like. Yes.
Speaker A: And I think that's so cool.
Speaker B: Yeah, I think that would be. I think that would be awesome. I think, I think if people could take that opportunity of making it into something else. You know what I mean? Like I, you know, I. The cafman was always the easy. Like it was.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Just something you could. I remember there was a couple of other brands that did it as well where you could take what you've got and, uh, so on. I think one, one memory I have of about five years ago was getting a burger and I lifted it up and the thing just sort of like opened like a puzzle. You'd lift the top up and the whole thing sort of like the burger was perfectly fit in the middle.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: It wasn't like in a. It wasn't wrapped up so that when I opened it, the cheese sort of like screwed out. Yeah, yeah, it was. It had these really like, like pins that were like perfect. And the burger was slightly raised so that it didn't dribble off. And it was just. I opened up. It was like a masterpiece. I was like, it's the first time I had a burger with a bun. Bottom isn't soggy.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Or it wasn't wrapped in a patty and bun style thing where you just open it and everything just gets you that your cheese is gone. So, uh, I challenge you for the best burger, uh, that keeps a burger.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. We, we got signed off a marketing budget to go try the most expensive pastries in London. And I was like, well, people are spending a lot of money on their pastries. How are they going to be packaged?
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: So naturally you're like, let's see what the creme de la creme packaging looked like. So we went to a place called Nicholas Russard, which is in the Connaught Hotel. And Cedric Grolette, who's huge on Instagram, sells outrageously insane looking cakes for a lot of money, but tastes great. And um, one of the most interesting things about the whole experience was the actual unboxing, um, experience. Oh. And the amount of thought that needs to go into the packaging needs to match the product as well. And I think if you look at other sectors like retail, especially high end purchases, you get the most amazing boxes.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: So why can't you keep them? And you keep them like, this is
Speaker B: as cool in some instances as shoeboxes for women. You know, literally we have lots in my house.
Speaker A: Can't we get ready?
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, literally.
Speaker A: Um, so I think more can be done on the whole, um, unboxing experience. We work with a dessert brand in a Soho Coco now. We've been working for a long time and their whole thing was we want to create an unboxing sliding experience where our desserts slide out on top.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: And they've got tens of millions of views on their, on their Instagram of the packaging of the.
Speaker B: It's the experience. I think you're, I think the interesting conversation here is, is you're not just a, uh, it's, it's not literally just a packaging. It's experiential for sure. And if you take it into that way of thinking, the old, the old guard who were just making you a coffee cup, uh, it's very different to like imagine getting coffee cup and then you just peel it off and it's something, I don't know, it's something underneath, you know, like those hidden things or even like, you know, as you mentioned in the bakery stuff.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You know, getting that. You're right. It's a theater. Is it? I think that's a really interesting conversation is the theater, the theater of food. And you get that when you're in a high end restaurant. You get that when you're in that restaurant you went to with a gene factory.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: It's the theater. If you can try and Turn it on its head and get the theater then. Yeah. Like Millie, you'll get. Your people will be going to their back to their desk rather than just opening up a pret sandwich or whatever.
Speaker A: Sure.
Speaker B: They get to open this and, and it's an experience. I think that's definitely. It's uh, a theater. Right.
Speaker A: I think especially on delivery brands. M. It's like almost like a customer acquisition cost. If you've never ordered from them and you're ordering it from the same first time.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And they have this amazing box. You're going to think if they put that much stuff into the packaging. Yeah.
Speaker B: The food's got to be good.
Speaker A: It's got to be good.
Speaker B: We hope. But yeah. Okay. Um, so before, before we finish, I just wanted to sort of chat about your um, content. So uh, through the brand, your series.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Um, and uh, and getting out there. What's made you decide to actually get in front of the camera and how do you, how do you think? Founder led and personality led.
Speaker A: Because it works for you.
Speaker B: Uh, and for the brand. Content, um, has become. Has become. When a growing business to business hospitality brand.
Speaker A: Like so what made me do it? Like I am someone who will try everything once. Yeah. And I think to your point that we sit in an industry that's quite old school. There's, you know, no one's really doing founder led content. And I think there's generally a bit of a misconception with B2B content that because you're not selling directly to the casino, you don't need to be in front of the camera. And I've got some friends who have a matchup. Right. Perfect Ted. And they instill into everyone in the business, get in front of the camera.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Buy into you.
Speaker B: And I thought it's a British thing. Right.
Speaker A: It's the thing.
Speaker B: It's a British thing. It's the cringe factor. It's the worry about trying to do it. Took me a little bit of time to get there, but I think we are. It's.
Speaker A: It's too harsh on each other.
Speaker B: You get Americans, colleagues of mine and friends of mine in the US will literally whip out the camera and off they go, no problem at all. And it's that little. I think.
Speaker A: Do you think it's a cultural thing here?
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's uh, everything's fine. We don't talk about it. It's okay. You know, everything's. Yeah, everything's on the up and up. Then we don't need to talk about it. So what was it? Like getting into the first, like doing it.
Speaker A: So the first videos we didn't have microphones.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And it was just uh, us going around and I, I thought it was fun. Whatever. But I want people to hear what we're saying because I actually think Matt, the guy I do it with, he um, he's very good at social media as well. And yeah. I watch so many videos where I'm just listening to people chat.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And I'm buying into these, these people because it's genuine.
Speaker B: It feels genuine. Right.
Speaker A: Feels genuine. And um, the amount of times I'm sitting watching a video being like, it's not that interesting. I'm just enjoying watching.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, and I think going into like the B2B side of things. You know, as I'm sure you appreciate in your world, a lot of business is about social selling, buying from other people. M. So why wouldn't you be selling people you as a person?
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, and especially on high trust purchases where someone potentially is in the long run spend thousands and thousand pounds.
Speaker B: Yeah. For a long, long period of time as well. Is that. I guess it's also building that relationship out.
Speaker A: Right. For sure. So you know, you, you're just, you're just. And to the point earlier when people haven't seen a while come up to you, it's like.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: You're building that familiarity and it sets you apart from other people that aren't. And I think if you, as long as you have the drive and fear uh, of not embarrassing yourself to go and do it, like it's a no brainer.
Speaker B: But also I think you have to embarrass yourself sometimes.
Speaker A: Right. Yeah.
Speaker B: Because it's just hilarious. Yeah. You know, I mean it's good. Like I, I was talking to a colleague of mine and we've got so many outtakes here. Our conversation when we first started, before this was recorded, before I start the thingy was quite funny. So I think um, I need to give it to someone to get some hilarious outtakes. But I think I actually something you should do is get some of those. I'm sure you've got some hilarious ones. The looper reels you're going to have to release at some point. But um. Yeah. So I think I find that, that you're being front of. Front of mind.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And how have you. What's the response you've had from, from the contents?
Speaker A: It's uh, it's generally been good and I think people just enjoy watching us and then it's kind of like oh wait, you Guys sort of do packaging as well and it kind of then sort of starts that conversation.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And, um.
Speaker B: But I think you're following up with going to those events where most people just do a bit content about this is what we do. And they'll do either do a premium plush.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: Or they'll do an advert, but they're not following up. I think the interesting thing what you're doing is, is you're making yourself known in, In. In the events. So then there's that double connection. Oh, I saw your real or I saw your post or blah, blah, blah. And you're meeting people.
Speaker A: Definitely. I think, I think you, when you commit, you have to go all in.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: You can't just be someone that sits in the room all day, doesn't see anyone, sends a perfuse video online and that's. That's it. To your point, it kind of has to go hand in hand. Um, and I think a big goal for me this year was, you know, I think the second week of January, I posted five days in a row on LinkedIn and didn't realize. And I thought, all right, let's just see how we go this year and try and keep it up. And.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And at times it's. It can be tricky.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: I think pushing yourself. A big goal for me this year, which is be uncomfortable. Um, post every day, put yourself out there, get mic'd up, and it can only be a good thing.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And if, you know, if you get no traction, pivot, move, try something different.
Speaker B: Yeah. I want it behind the scenes. I do. I want it behind the scenes. I can't. I really want to see it. I just. Because it's so interesting of how what it was to what it is or how it's. How it's done. You know what I mean? Like, I just. I think I feel like I want to behind the scenes. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll have a huddle of people in an office all up, talking to each other, and then all of a sudden it appears. It's my magic. But, yeah, it'll be cool, I think. But listen, thank you for coming. This was, this was really interesting.
Speaker A: Thank you.
Speaker B: Um, I. I love what you're doing and I really like that you're building in public and it's really hard to do that. So I give you a round of applause for that one. But it's really nice to see what you're doing and I'm really enjoying the content. Um, we. We got pushed. We were in live content with the, With a guy called Sean Wilshire who was here last week, um, for us team. And they were all very much like, build in public, you know, um, show yourself out there, be present, you know, um, and so on. And it was, it was difficult. But once you started, which you have. Yeah. There's no turning back. You've got to go do it. So. Thank you for coming. That was awesome. Um, let's start with, uh, last questions.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Uh, so this is the best restaurant.
Speaker A: Best restaurant. I didn't write this down. What was my best restaurant? Come back to me on that one.
Speaker B: Okay. Best burger.
Speaker A: Best burger. So I had a bit of a backstory. I was at a school reunion the other day in $7 and got. Had a few drinks. I, uh, was walking past Bleeca and I've never been to Bleeca. Never been to Bleeca, never been to Bleeker. And I kind of walked past and thought, this is my time. Yeah, I'm gonna go try. And I, I got, I got the burger and I was kind of was. Took my first bite. I thought, this is, this is it for me.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And I was, I was so impressed. Like, the simplicity, but all. Yeah. The ingredients. And I've tried a few burgers in my time. I think that one just took it.
Speaker B: It just works, isn't it?
Speaker A: It just works.
Speaker B: Yeah. I think the nice thing about them is as well is that it's just three or four things on the menu and that's it.
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker B: Those are the shakes and other bits and bobs. But literally it's so, so simple.
Speaker A: Like they've nailed it. They've nailed it. I love it.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: I can't wait to go back.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: I have remembered my best restaurant.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Which was, uh, Oma in Barra.
Speaker B: Amazing.
Speaker A: Uh, above Agora.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: I went last year. We're sitting at the counter and, uh.
Speaker B: It's insane, isn't it?
Speaker A: The scallop, the steak.
Speaker B: I think they have it so well done.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: All just feeds in nicely.
Speaker A: And I love Greek food.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And I could eat it every day, I reckon. And I love cooking on over cold the grill.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And I think they've knocked out the park.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And I could probably shows it.
Speaker B: I mean, the bit. They're so busy.
Speaker A: They're so busy.
Speaker B: But I also. You have the opportunity to go downstairs to Agora if you can't get upstairs. And Agora is still awesome.
Speaker A: I reckon it's a very close second. Yeah. I can't wait to try it. So definitely number one for Me.
Speaker B: Nice go back. Best hotel.
Speaker A: So yeah, it is a little group but the pig.
Speaker B: Yeah,
Speaker A: I've been twice we went recently in January and I think the whole concept's brilliant and I'm a huge foodie and their whole thing is about having a 25 mile menu where everything is source. I love that. Um, and oh, the food, the teas they do every day, they have like, you know, the farm animals all there, the gardens where they're growing everything and the quality of accommodation is so nice as well. Um, so for me, if you want to treat yourself and go for a long weekend away. The pig, the smash test.
Speaker B: Perfect. Okay, two questions for the next guest. Could be operator, could be tech, could be anything.
Speaker A: Yeah. So my first question is there's a lot of chat at the moment around VAT and the welcome relief that dropping the VAT in line with other countries in Europe would bring and hopefully would be much needed. Now my question is if you can wave your magic wand and bring in one initiative, could be absolutely anything.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: I can make hospitality a better, more positive place. What would that initiative?
Speaker B: That's a good question. That's a really good question.
Speaker A: So that uh, is my first question and uh, my second question is what is one bit of advice you would give someone who's opening their first site?
Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good one too.
Speaker A: So I'd be interested to hear what they say.
Speaker B: Yeah, that's a really good questions actually. It's really good questions. I literally saw a post before I came in here of uh, a hospitality ops guy went to pray and just did a picture of a 4.99 sandwich. Uh, yeah. With eating at 5.99 because of VAT. VAT. It's just insane. It's just, it's. I think I feel like someone needs to put a giant poster on a bus or every bus.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And just say this is what's happening. No one sees it.
Speaker A: It's so confusing. The whole thing is so confusing.
Speaker B: That's what Greg's have always made their money. I think Greg's is such a clever business because nothing's hot in Greg's. If you get, if you're lucky to get hot pizza. Yeah, yeah. Then you get a hot pizza. But it's still no Vietnovat because it's not, it's not um, on the shelves and it's not to order.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: So, uh, I think it's a, it's a clever way of doing it.
Speaker A: So, um, yeah, ah, bakery businesses, cookie
Speaker B: businesses, they're just being killed. Right. It's just insane.
Speaker A: So, uh.
Speaker B: But yeah, I'm. I'm. There's definitely a need for something to happen. I'm hoping it will. It will happen. There's. I think that the. That's a problem is the, is the thing that's out there at the moment.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And, uh, I think, I think I. I think they're going to be up to a minute. I reckon they'll get to a million, million, million sign ups on it.
Speaker A: Yeah, let's hope. Let's see.
Speaker B: Yeah. Listen, I'm gonna. Okay. Thank you so much for coming and, um, give them a wave goodbye.
Speaker A: There we go.
Speaker B: Nice. Thank.
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