Brand activation using innovation centres W/ Ian Toal (Oscar Mayer)

Speaker A: Welcome back to the CX Insider podcast. Uh, on today's episode, we'll be talking to the CEO of Oscar Mayo uk, Ian Toll. We'll dive into the fascinating world of food innovation and discover how choreography within innovation centers creates tailored experiences for customers. Plus, we're spilling some top notch tips on running and delivering successful projects. Also joining us is David Martin, partner and co founder of mWorldwide, a brand experience design consultancy, and has been working closely with Ian Tull and the Oscar Mayer team to create their innovation hub. So sit back and enjoy the episode and if you love what you hear, don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more. This episode has been brought to you by mWorldwide, leading global experts, uh, in brand and experience. Now let's get into the episode.

Speaker B: Welcome back to another episode of CX Insider. My name is Greg. I'm your host today. Uh, today I am joined by David Martin, who is the joint managing director of MWorldwide, and Ian Tole, who is the, the CEO of Oscar Mayer UK. Welcome and thanks for coming. Uh, Ian, as our special guest today, please could you kick things off with a, uh, brief summary of your career to date and maybe what makes your perspective slightly unique.

Speaker C: Uh, yeah, I'm a 38 year and it doesn't look possible that I could have worked for 38 years with these boyish good looks. But, um, yeah, 38 years in the food and drink industry is pretty much all I've ever done. Uh, a bit unusually, I've sort of worked my way up through food manufacturing, predominantly became a director 28 years ago and then became a CEO or managing director of global president 18 years ago. Um, but I've also unusually worked in global supply chain as director of brakes. You may have heard of Brakes now Cisco, for seven years. And then I've actually been the CEO of food manufacturing business, but I've also run restaurants. I was the president of one of the largest Middle east restaurant groups. Um, and in my career I've run 600 restaurants plus in 13 countries around the world. So, and I'm now back in food manufacturing. So what's unique about it is I have a very different perspective compared to other people who probably only worked in one particular discipline.

Speaker B: So, Ian, how would you describe Oscar Mayer today, perhaps versus in the past?

Speaker C: Oscar Mayer was a great family business that was, um, you know, ran as a family business. Uh, and we supply most of the retailers in the uk.

Speaker B: One of the major things here to talk about is the concept of the gastro Hub. I'm not sure if they can see the logo on your T shirt.

Speaker C: Trademark.

Speaker B: There you go.

Speaker C: Gastro Hub.

Speaker B: Um, and this is a new type of innovation center that you developed, uh, in collaboration with them Worldwide, with David, David's company. So when we're looking at that first physical in person experience, Innovation center. Uh, how would you. Yeah, how would you describe that and how would you describe, I guess from the physical context in terms of what it does for, for your business?

Speaker C: Uh, I think if I can go back a step really when I came back and got back into manufacturing in the UK and I'm one of these people that has millions of ideas a week, I mean I literally plague my chief commercial officer with ideas all weekend with stuff. We should do this, we should do that. And I very quickly, when I was in restaurant business, we could come up with an idea in the morning. By lunchtime we'd made it and costed it. By the evening it was a special on the menu. If it sold, genius, we were stars. If it didn't sell, we never spoke about it ever again. But you can't do that in the manufacturing world because it costs a lot of money to get a product from an idea through a buyer and developer, uh, who rightly challenge and say, should we do this to then get it on the shelf to see if it sells. We do nothing for breakfast or brunch or lunch or afternoon tea or snacking or movie night. We do nothing for that. And um, why? Because it's never been done when it's never been done and I go to a retailer and say I've got this great idea for a breakfast wrap, you know, because we buy them in Costa or Starbucks or the local. We buy that all the time. But you can't buy at a supermarket to have in your fridge at home because it's just not been done. When I go to a customer and say, got this amazing idea and they go, who's doing it already? No one. I won't do that then. And it's really to say we're missing out on probably half of the food consumption opportunities because we just make dinner for when you don't have time. So how big could that market be if we really disrupted? But there was no way to do that or no forum to do that. And really when I met the partners here, they were brilliant with me because they've been very long suffering and, and patient with me because I'm one of these people. I knew what I wanted and I hand sketched it out in I Think it was in the Starbucks in Houston station to say this is the 600 square meters we've got. I'm going to demolish this whole floor of our head office, which was offices and old laboratories and things. I'm going to turn it into this innovation center. And I remember um, sitting with you and drawing it and you looked at me because I draw like Lowry, you know, cats, matchstick men and cats and dogs. And I have to say that it started a really magical relationship between us I think because they were able to take some ideas that I had but actually turn them into something that was very tangible. So the whole idea of the gastro hub is to bring customers into an environment that's very experiential and fun. We work in food and when in restaurants, when you go for a meal, it's not just about the food, it's about the fun, the experience. And it's one of the true non guilty pleasures we can truly have left in the world is nice food. And I wanted this whole experience to be fun, um, to actually be creative. So we started with six chapters. Imagine chapters in a book. This is how I kind of came up with the idea with these guys, where as you move from each chapter it does something completely different, but you feel like you're moving into almost different parts of the world or different parts of the universe and it kind of takes you on that whole innovation journey.

Speaker D: For us, it's, it's been great to have worked on this and I mean we're often invited into many businesses um, that have got great um, skills, expertise and knowledge. But I think what this does perfectly is draws all those um, attributes together in a very succinct experience and journey. I mean it's been running now for a month or so and you've already had some uh, big clients of yours in and um, sort of participating in this. What would you say for them in terms of benefits to them, to their businesses? This, this brings as an experience innovation center?

Speaker C: I think the first, I'll break that down to the reactions I've had from people. And I won't name the retailers that have been in for their own uh, benefits, but some of the retailers that wouldn't be traditionally the most animated of people who actually left going, I knew it would be good because I could have told them about it. But most of the reaction has been it's blown the minds, knock the ball out of the park, all the American acronyms. But basically I had one retailer say to me, okay, what are we launching? And when it was that positive a reaction because it does everything, the amount of times they're shown new products, but there's uh. And then it's what we think it'll sell because it's got a little twist of lemon on it. It's actually quite nice. But it doesn't actually tick all the boxes of when would people use it, what would they pay for it, why do they want it in this format, how are they going to heat it, how they get it kind of does all the hard work. We recently launched Cathedral City Cheesy Meals. They're amazing. They're not diet meals. These are fantastic restaurant quality meals. Just on the same page, but they're amazing. And we took that from a conception with our wonderful partner in Saputo who had confidence in us to launch these meals. Uh, and we took that from a conception to being on the shelves of Sainsbury's in 400 Sainsbury stores in just under five months, which is unheard of. From a conception to being on the shelf is almost unheard of. And we use the same process to be able to whittle down is it the right thing to do. And, uh, our customers are telling us that 60, 70% of customers are buying those haven't bought a meal from that fixture in 612 months. So it's kind of bringing people back. Um, uh, we've got to make sure we do a blend of innovation between our label, which is traditionally what we do, and within brands where they add value. You won't see us doing brands just because it's a brand, it's only a brand where it really can add value or add trust to that experience. So the reaction has been amazing. The benefits I think is speed and chances of success. Uh, it reduces the chance of failure. Now we will still fail and we will fail fast and learn fast. But if 90 of people say they're going to buy it and we've had all those people eat it and they love it and the price point is right and the packaging is right and the ESG story about, you know, making sure we're doing the best thing by the planet is right, it kind of makes it much higher success rate than should we just do another. Should we just do this? And I think that's the. We ask what's the benefit to the customer? It takes a lot of risk out, uh, of making a decision which is different in a category which hasn't really had that much true innovation since it

Speaker B: was invented to elaborate slightly on the gastro, because I think it's important highlight. Could you give us example of like what some of those stages are?

Speaker D: Sure.

Speaker B: Just a little bit.

Speaker D: Sure, yeah.

Speaker C: Uh, I mean, it's really when you, when you enter our office building, the group office, you're kind of very normal office environment downstairs. And the first experience, I guess is when you go up the stairs into our reception stairwell and you see this big flavor wheel which talks about all the tastes that you have on your tongue, from bitter to sweet, from unami, which is kind of the middle flavor. And um, and it tells you what flavors that throws out. And then what ingredients do you tweak to actually make different flavors in your mouth. And that kind of gets you into the ridge initially, right into that mindset of re entering a different zone. And then you kind of go into the first major suite which is. We've called it sort of Mission Control. Now. It was kind of NASA inspired. We didn't want to call it the NASA Ruby case. The CIA came on to us or something ridiculous like that.

Speaker A: But.

Speaker C: But it's kind of. It has a 14 meter video wall which is completely U shape, so you can see it from anywhere in the room. And it's designed to. This is where we set the scene. This is the beginning and the end of the day's innovation journey. It also has like a Saturday kitchen style kitchen as well. But this is where you'll watch videos and content of what we think is a good idea. We think we're going to tackle lunch. And in lunch we think this is the important things in lunch. And then the buyers automatically would say, yeah, but who's doing that? Well, nobody. And then it's automatically the normal conversation would be, well, let's not do that then. Whereas now we're saying, let us an idea. Don't say no yet. Okay. Then we go into the chef's kitchen. And that kind of takes it from an idea to how we're going to make it. It's a state of the art, uh, beautiful chef's kitchen with our great culinary guys in it. And then we're saying, so this is how this might be made. But don't say no yet. Okay. And then we go through this amazing. We love to come and see this, this amazing sort of, uh, transition tunnel where you're. It's like, it's like. Have you got children?

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker C: Okay. So have you been to a theme park with them?

Speaker B: No. He's only 10 months old.

Speaker C: Okay, well, okay. Were you once a child?

Speaker D: Yes.

Speaker C: Okay. Did you ever go to a theme park? Many, many theme park. Okay, so we're on the same grade though, so. So when you get a theme park, there's almost that little transition holding area before you go on the big ride. And I wanted to kind of create that. We kind of did this together. So you enter this tunnel, you're not quite sure what's going on. It' dark, it's got cows on the walls. And suddenly you hear this, hello, welcome. And it's a whole sort of experiential of entering this next chapter. And you enter Oscar's market, which was really inspired by Borough Market. And it's really a food market space with 10 market stalls and it's manned by our suppliers. And what it's trying to do is bring the experts from around the world who, because we can't be experts on two and a half thousand ingredients for every meal we make three million times a week. But they are. And then our customers will then see not just how it's made, but what it's made from. So they'll speed date with our, uh, butcher, our baker, our candlestick maker, our spice guy, our uh, uh, broths guy, our cheese guy or girl or whoever that person people are. But they'll speed date around to find out of the idea. We've got, we've got 10 stalls, but we've got 20 partners. So we'll bring in different ingredients for the, for the actual idea we have. But that could easily be an hour or two of just talking about what ingredients and the carbon footprint of those ingredients and the provenance of where they've come from. It's amazing. Suddenly they say, so now you've seen what it's going to be made from. But don't say no yet. Hold that second. Okay? And then you went to a really different zone again, which is, um, I would uh, classify as, it's called the AI suite. And never have your appraisal, if you even have such a thing in that room, because everything in that room is recorded 24, seven. We have eight cameras in. Eight, eight cameras in there. We have four sensory booths with cameras. We can film people either eating the food or them actually talking about eating the food whilst they're eating the food. And in that room we have another four cameras that film people doing focus groups. We have 50 to 100 people a week in to say, this is the idea. Would you buy it? Do you like it? Would you buy this for 5 quid in Tesco or Asada or Sainsbury's or whatever. And then on top of that we have our own App. So we partnered up with a brilliant young company called Bulb Share. Um, and, uh, they have been amazing because the danger of having focus groups in the northwest of England, in Wrexham, is you only get people from the northwest and Wales and it becomes very regional. So we developed our own app where we can actually talk to over a thousand national, uh, customers. Not say our customers, customers of our retailers. And we can actually say, got this idea for a breakfast wrap, two for a fiver, and it's going to be egg, bacon, sausage, Dah, dah, dah. Would you buy it if 90% of people said, I'm in? I think it's the best thing since sliced bread. I'd love to buy it. Then suddenly we can then send them that product to their home and they can film themselves eating and sending it back to us. So very quickly we're building up real insight as to whether, is it a good idea, is it an idea, or is it actually a good idea that people want to buy but they just can't. They don't not buy it because they don't want to buy it. They buy it because it doesn't exist. So. So if you get. Think about the journey, sort of the idea, how it's made. Don't say no yet. What it's made from. Don't say no. Do people want to buy it? Looks they really do, but don't say no. Yeah. And then the next chapter on that journey is, is our, uh, ESG shop. And that really showcases every single bit of packaging from around the world, most of which you don't even know exists, because within the meals category, and I'm talking about lasagnas and Bologneses, you buy them and they come in that same plastic tray. For the last 25 years, nothing's really changed. And why hasn't it changed? It's probably more recyclable now than it used to be, but it's still the same fundamental plastic tray. And, um, the reason it hasn't changed is to go to something different costs a lot of money. How much more Is that 6 pence carton? Well, we'll do that then. I can imagine these conversations happening. So what we're trying to say is, look, when we're doing new stuff, let's look at stuff that actually it's better for the planet. So every one of those packaging types shows its carbon footprint. So at the moment, when you see your food packaging, you can turn over and you can see red, green and amber on salt and fat and things like that. I want to get to with this red, green, and amber on carbon footprint and recyclability. There's so much fun you can have with that. I don't know, but do you have an air fryer?

Speaker B: I, uh, do, yeah.

Speaker C: You have an air fryer, right? Okay. You're my man. I'm a cook. Never had one till Christmas. Best invention ever. All roast chicken. Amazing. But you put a meal or a ready meal or chilled meal in an air fryer. You can get it in, but you can't get it out because the tray doesn't fit. It kind of gets stuck. You burn your knuckles. We put a 3D printer in there to say, what tray do you want? You know, do you want a round one? Do you want a square one? We can draw it at the beginning of the day, send it to our partner CAD designer. We can then have it sent immediately to our 3D printer. As a customer, you can walk away with your own bespoke style of tray on the day, within hours. And we've developed one for air fryers that just fits and you can get it in. It sounds really obvious when you say it, but no one's done it. And then also within that. Sorry, you asked me for a quick version of this. This is, uh. But then you walk further. We have then a merchandising suite. We've got four meters of refrigeration, and we can say, well, we normally merchant. Here's all your packaging. We normally merchandise things, uh, economy, premium, Italian, Indian, whatever. Why don't we do breakfast, lunch, dinner? Why don't we do good, better, best, and play around with stuff in a really live environment and see, does it fit? Does it look good? Will it be compelling to customers as they walk along? And. And then. So if you look at that journey again, you know the idea. Don't say no. Kitchen, have it made. Don't say no. What's it made from? Don't say no. Do people want to buy it? They actually do. So don't say no. Definitely, yeah. How are we going to package it to do the right thing by the planet? Okay, well, let's not say no yet. And then, um, how are you going to put it on the fixture? At what price? And how will it sit and how will it look? Yeah, let's not say no. Yeah. And then you go all the way back to mission control, where you'll go to the kitchen area of that, where our chefs will be actually showing you the food that we started a few hours before with this idea that no one else is Doing. And I've got this great phrase, um, and I'm of an age now where I can say this, um, I can't turn over, I can't turn around. Well, to reverse my car. So I tend to reverse my car using the little camera thing and my rear view mirror. And that for me is how everybody develops food. They look at what's happened to predict trends for the future. And your rear view mirror is this big, but your windscreen is kind of this big. And what we tried to do, and the brief very clearly with Dave, was how do we create an experience that customers can actually go on and actually feel the confidence building as they go around to say what would have taken six months or a year. We can kind of scope out an idea on the day and ah, we'd like at that point, if people say no at that point, then we really have got it wrong. But so far we've had really positive responses.

Speaker B: I like the long answer, to be honest. I think it's so good, I think for our audience. Naturally everyone is from different industries, but I think they can see the bigger picture of what you've created in terms of this, in person, physical experience, going through it in that level of detail. I think it really gives people an understanding of how innovative what you've done is.

Speaker D: So this is, uh, I mean the facility you've got there is about five and a half thousand square feet, something like that, as you said, it's broken down into six key zones which are all feeling very different and um, really demonstrating different areas of expertise that the business has in terms of a sort of choreographed journey, if you like, for your clients. How would you describe the way that clients, uh, move through that space? And you know, how is it immersive and sort of collaborative?

Speaker C: I think because it is truly immersive. Because the first thing I'd say is when we take customers or supplier partners or our shareholders from, from each chapter to each chapter, from each zone to each zone, the first thing I can see is smiles and wonder. And I do really mean that. And uh, one of the things we talked about very early on, if you remember, to go into Oscar's market, how could we make that narniasque? Do you remember? That was a part kind of the theme we wanted. How do we make it as theatrical as possible? Each of the zones you really could be entering a different time zone, a different country, a different planet. They're really incredibly different. Um, you know, when you leave the high tech environment of the mission control, then you're Suddenly in a kitchen which could be in Borough Market or the West End or wherever, and then suddenly you're in Borough Market having just gone through a tunnel and a butcher's green curtain being spoke to from the ceiling. And people, you just see people blinking and smiling and loving seeing stuff they've never seen before. Every food company has an innovation center. Uh, you know what it is? It's a meeting room or a series of meeting rooms, maybe some fixtures and a kitchen most 90%. I'm not saying nobody has cool stuff, I'm just saying 90%. And that's what we've always thought is innovation. But I wanted it to be experiential. I guess that's the restaurante in me as well, in terms of like, I want people to enjoy it and to love it and show about choreography. And it's not choreography as such, but it's very personal. If you remember that we, we sat and every single carpet, fiber curtain, carpet, tile, wall, tile, toilet seat, we chose absolutely everything together. I remember making Dave and his partner meet me in London so many times with all these big boxes of samples. And one of my colleagues said, what are you doing? I said, we're choosing the tiles for the wall. And we went. Actually, me, M and Michael and a few of my colleagues, we went to. I, uh, think it was Newark and where they shoot Bargain Hunt. They were shooting Bargain Hunt that day. Sally Gunnell was being shot. I don't know if she won or not, just so you know, but she was in blue. I seem to remember. Um, all might have been red, but basically we went and bought all those antiques ourselves. Very food oriented. We've got a meat chopper from Victorian time. We've got fire extinguishers from 1914. We bought, we got a butcher's block, you know, amazing stuff. To actually make it feel. Not just, just it looks like Borough Market. It is Oscar's market. It really does feel. We have the pipe sound of Borough Market piped into the place. So when you go in there, it has the hustle and bustle of a food market. When you go around, you are eating and tasting cheeses and sauces and spices and it's, it's, it's experiential. So we talk choreography and then suddenly Oscar's market. But it's a bit like, all right, Governor, please sir, can I have some more? And then suddenly you're into this AI suite. It's, it's uh. And people are just blown away. And there's a one way mirror where you can Stand behind, it's not quite crime watch, but you can stand behind this one and watch people doing focus groups and you see all of the, the AI stuff going on and then you leave that and you're basically walking into a WH Smith or at whatever at an airport store or a convenience store or a Tesco or a Sainsbury's or a Co Op or whatever retailer is suddenly into a retail store. Each one of these are so different and we actually, do you remember the brief was they can't be in any way linked, they have to be completely different. And you feel like you're on a fun journey of what's next. And then when you go back and eat the food it kind of completes that journey. So if you like, other people out there have kitchens and they have uh, a meeting room but they don't have the journey of all the decision making points in them at all. I know this is the first time I've ever put all those things in one place.

Speaker D: So yeah, those things that those other uh, examples, they're more of a what you might describe as a showroom experience versus this is a very memorable. Was one of the objectives, um, and immersive and experiential place for people.

Speaker C: I love what you just said there because showroom. When you go to a showroom the first thing you think of is car. And you go to a showroom to buy a car.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And ah, you actually look at the car and you go I'm going to buy it or I'm not going to buy it. And you may go through the spec list of saying I'm going to have this, this and this. It's quite passive though, is very, very passive. Whereas what we're taking you, is taking you to an idea of a picture of what my car might look like. And then we're going to show you how you're going to put all the bits together. Then we're going to show you what we're going to make it from and what color you're going to have it. And then we're going to say this is, you know, your partner would think you look cool in this 90% of the time. Right. And you're going to love the ride and actually it's comfortable, it does the sporty things you want because also practical, you can park it and then how are you going to package it? And then we take you to the interior and we're going to show you how we're going to put all the seats in and what gadgets do you want. And then it kind of is that it's like going to a showroom without a car, but you finish with a car.

Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker C: That's kind of the difference between the showroom and the gastro.

Speaker D: And from what you've said so far, it seems to be working from a sort of collaborative point of view. It's not just, uh, passive from. From the point of view of. Of your clients, uh, and customers. Um, but in terms of, um, what I'm. One of the things that I've sort of picked up being evolved. And now it's open as is the sort of power of it for your own team and all of the sort of areas of expertise everybody seems to have got behind it. Everybody's been very motivated by it. Um, everybody's got their part to play in that journey. And as visitors, you know, enjoy it.

Speaker C: In terms of. All of our commercial people are buying people. Ah, all of our management. There's many phrases in the world of success has many fathers, and long may that continue. Um, but everybody absolutely has suddenly gone from being a little bit downtrodden because we were a company struggling for a number of years, to suddenly seeing us making money. Not too much money for our customers, but we are making money now. And, um, you know, from that point and then suddenly seeing that we're now gone from being the least probably or certainly average in innovation to say now potentially being, I would say, certainly at the cutting edge of food development within chilled meals. If not chilled food, if not chilled food, generally. I think we really have taken a massive step forward. And I think you can just see people sitting proud. And, you know, when we have customer days, everybody gets the gastro hub T shirt, all the team, and they very proudly wear them now because I don't think they'd have probably worn an Oscar Mayer T shirt the old days, but now they're very proudly walking around in their gilets and their T shirt because, you know, it's a shame England didn't bring it home. But we want. We want that feeling. You know, we're actually bringing this home. You know, we're actually bringing innovation home. Um, and one of the other key things about choreography is one thing I know about the world we live in today is it's moving incredibly fast. Yeah. 50 years ago, I heard this the other day, and I've actually went trip. Fifty years ago, nobody in the world had the joy of a hot shower. I didn't. And how fast have we gone from hot showers to iPhones and AI? And it's incredible, right? With the gastro hub, we can actually repurpose some of those zones or even extend it downstairs to actually without having to rebuild the whole thing because Journey will need to evolve. And we've tried to build it because it's modular. We can change parts of it to make sure we're ahead of the next new thing.

Speaker B: One thing I didn't ask actually, uh, when we spoke recently was on the senses side of things. Have you designed this in a way together where you, you're factoring in activating different senses within the people?

Speaker D: I think it comes back to, you know, showroom versus, uh, experiential innovation center. I think it is a very sensory experience. Uh, it was certainly designed to be that as you move through these different areas as, as Ian has explained, uh, and expanded on, you know, it, they're all very memorable in their own way. And um, I think they're a sort of perfect encapsulation of a, of a massive business that does a lot of amazing things. But it really sums it up very neatly. And in the space of half a day, as you say, you can not only understand all of those different parts of the process, but also be immersed in them, participate in them, and create new, uh, products for the future.

Speaker C: But I don't see it on the question is, I don't see it as just being for us. This is, this is generally built for our customers firstly, but actually also for our suppliers, namely another food business that openly lets all of their suppliers talk to their customers. I never used to, I don't know anybody else that does. For us to actually turn down his head and go, hey, we got a problem with potato, let's talk to the potato guy. The meat's a bit tougher, this casserole. And the butcher will say, using the wrong cut of meat. We might not be expert enough to know that, but they are. And actually, uh, uh, this is what blew my mind is the amounts of stuff since I started this process with the supplier partners and some big ones in there and some really small ones, by the way. And for me to say they've come to us with your ideas. I'm now overburgeoned with ideas from suppliers to say, this is. What have you thought of this? Have you thought of that? And the answer is we hadn't thought of it because we never asked them. Um, all we ever did was give us a quote for tomatoes. But we never said, you know, what's the right source, what's the right story, what's the right. And with 2D barcodes coming down, which in a year's time, two years time, we'll all be walking around with our phones. You won't need this thing in Sainsbury. You'll just be buying stuff and looking at what's in your food. This is incredible stuff, right? So for me, the supply, I mean the packaging guys have been off the scale. Have you thought of doing this? And why don't we do meal kits? And you could just. They go, how could you do that? And it's suddenly like um, I feel like we've awakened between Dave and myself and Michael is we've awakened passion that's been kind of cosseted or held back for a long time. Not consciously, it's just what we've always done. And um, because it's what we've always done, it's very hard to break that circle. And don't get me wrong, in three to five years time, uh, what we do today will still be probably 70% of our business, 80% of business in five years time. Because people always want to buy a lasagna in a cottage along may they. I love, love a lasagna, love a cottage pie. Chili con cardi, personal favorite. But the point I'm making is we'll still make that, um, we'll still make Mac and cheese for when your kids are screaming or you're just getting late at night. But we want to have that 20, 30% of stuff that genuinely grows the market. It creates delight in consumers eyes. And you mentioned about, you know, that sensory. We've got four sensory booths that are designed to actually do exactly that. We film people eating the food and actually look and pull out questions about what senses does it provoke, what flavors does it provoke. So yeah, it is a sensory experience as well as a fun experience.

Speaker D: One of the things I was sort of reflecting on, um, now that now it's up and running and being used was the fact that um, I mean post Covid, I just wonder whether facilities um, like this have really had to step up a bit. Like you know, workplaces with hybrid working have had to step up to be more appealing than working from home, you know. So again, showroom versus experience center, uh, we've had to go much further really to make this more memorable. And I guess in terms of your relationship, B2B relationship with your, your customers do more to uh, you know, open conversations, open ideas.

Speaker C: And so yeah, one of my biggest challenges is when I arrived here 13 months ago, it's all, I've been here 30 months unlucky for some, not for us hopefully. Um, but the point making is in that time the first challenge I have was getting people to come back to work. The building we're in now is a bustling place. Not everybody's in every day but it's a bustling place with people and excitement and buzz. I was only, I was the only person who sat in that whole building. We had uh, administrators working from home and accountants working and everybody worked from home because after Covid nobody bothered to change it. And you know, we, we encourage people to come back to work and then you know. And I think that's been a fundamental game changer in terms of interaction. Yes, there's a space for teams calls and zoom calls and whatever calls you do, but nothing can change or be true. Human interaction.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: It's just, it's electric.

Speaker B: I couldn't agree more. I think this also brings to the topic that's at the heart of this entire conversation which is that in person, human to human experiences, uh, non comparable really. I think we've been through a very digital phase of working from home and stuck at home. And I think that applies to every industry. Uh, not just your industry but all other industries. I think they're all trying to go through the same and it could be for reasons for customers to visit a physical location like bank branches or reason retail locations. You can only for so long can you get away with having a very quite flat reason to visit. I think you've got to bring those levels of innovation and it takes creative thought, it takes creative execution as well.

Speaker D: Um, yeah, I mean certainly what's been created there I think is uh, Ian touched on is it is very um, future proofed, it's very flexible, it's very modular. So I think it's not just a sort of one, one visit wonder. I think you know the idea is that customers come back. There's, there's uh, supplier events, there's educational events, uh, potentially to really squeeze this as an asset.

Speaker C: Absolutely. And everything that's been done, I mean it's, there's so many audiences that I hadn't even planned. I mean there's a whole audience. We're holding our first climate change get together summit in September on how can we as the chilled meals market affect climate change. So the whole go back to the audience is it's not just customers and suppliers, it's investors, it's banks, it's esg, it's climate change, it's the government. Um, you know we take a lot of bashing in the chilled meals category, it's processed food. Of all the ultra processed foods in the world, we're not one of them. We make meals the same you do at home, just in much bigger kitchens. We don't use false preservatives or bulking agents or any of that stuff that people think we do. It's really unfair, the press we get, but the reality is that can be part of it. We're even going to start shooting a TV channel, YouTube channel, in the mission control room in the kitchen, and invite chefs from around the world to come and play with us. But you talked about location. Um, you know, our, uh, factory's in Wrexham in North Wales. Possibly not the most visited place in the world until Ryan Reynolds came along. And my brief to Dave and to Mike was, I want to make something that's cool enough, or the coolest thing that happened to Wrexham since Ryan Reynolds came. That's kind of for the food industry. That's kind of what we wanted to create. And I think we, we're not there maybe, I mean, better looking than me and richer than me and more successful. But in the food industry, we wanted to make something compelling. We had a member of staff will always go unnamed, but when we floated the idea of this originally, this person said, yeah, um, nobody will ever come. It's Wrexham. Why don't we just build a creche instead? That was kind of the reaction of one person. Whereas we've had every major retailer booked to come, the ones that have been, have been blown away and want to come again and want to move in. We've had even a pit developer say, can I come for a week? The answer is, yes, you can. Um, so, yeah, I think it's. What we've done actually relates to so many industries above food. It's the decision making of, is it a good idea? Do you think people are going to buy it? Is it too radical? Is it not radical enough?

Speaker B: Last but certainly not least, the question, I guess I would have then, is you've taught, you've touched on how you delivered this project from the inception.

Speaker C: We. We delivered this.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: And that's what I was going to ask you about. How do you see that? We. And, and how. How did you work together in a way that led to this being delivered so successfully?

Speaker C: I think it was, it was collaboration from day one. I mean, if you'd have seen the sketch that I did on day one, you'd have gone, whoa. I remember the both Michael looking at me just to go, but I knew what I wanted having built hundreds of restaurants around the world. And I'll give you an analogy, and we've all done this at home. You go out and you see a picture or a sofa and you think, that's going to look absolutely amazing in my lounge. I'm having it. I've got to either get a loan or I'm going to buy it, but it's going to look incredible. And when you get it home you go, it's nice, but it's not quite what I thought it would be. And having designed and built so many things over my very fortunate career, very humbled to have had the wonderful career about influence of experiences, having built so many things. I can tell you now that 7 out of 10 times, it's always that it's not as good as you think. It's all right, it's good. It doesn't quite look what I expected. And then two times out of 10 it looks as good as what you believed it could. And the drawings. And then one time out of 10 is better. And this is the one time. And that was kind of the brief to you, wasn't it? This has to be. Nobody's ever seen anything like this before. And even when I walk around it, I go, yeah, we did this. But how did we do it together? Uh, from. From the day of conception, we designed this together. A lot of to and froing because again, you can't take my drawing and turn it into much unless you're Larry, of course, and you could just leave it as is. Um, but reality is. Then we, we did a lot of interaction, uh, and I didn't, A lot of me got. Yeah, I didn't mean that. I meant this. And they go, right, So a lot of interpretation.

Speaker D: He's also quite fast track, wasn't it? And I do, I do think, as you said earlier on, you know, the world's moving faster and faster, but there is sometimes too much deliberation can, or sort of analysis, paralysis can, can creep in. And we certainly didn't cut through that. Uh, didn't have any of that at all, which has been brilliant. I think you touched on it at the beginning though. Um, you know, because for us we're looking, always looking for that sort of collective joint vision. What is the vision? And that was very clear from, from the get go, but also very clear and decisive decision making.

Speaker C: I don't think we went more than an hour on, um, any one choice of a thing without making a decision. We didn't say, let's look at that we'll come back to tomorrow. We went, it's that one or that one. We're going that way. And we literally demolished the floor the building in the January. By the end of January, it was just a shell. We had it built and finished by the beginning of May. February, March, April. Thirteen weeks, I think it was. From actual starting the build to dressing and opening was 13 weeks, which is incredible.

Speaker D: Actually uncovered a lot of potential in that, if I can say was. Is a fairly nondescript building to start with. But we actually uncovered some amazing sort of features of it which we. We sort of brought to bear as part of the project, really. I mean, for example, the Borough market area has got a great vaulted ceiling inside, which is about sort of 7 or 8 meters at the apex. You know, uh, so there's some very dramatic.

Speaker C: Um, we only find it by taking out the roof and going, oh, that's handy. So we built it into. It wasn't, uh, it had to be done the original way because just as you. As you start building stuff and knocking stuff down, if you can find a better or more effective use of the space, you were brilliant at that. And the whole process, you guys have been cool. Uh, but the fact that, you know, we need to choose curtains. Right? Send me two swatches. I want that one. It was literally like this. Um, and then we need to buy some antiques. I think Michael came with us. And it was literally, we're going to an antique M market when you go Wednesday. And the fact that we did it and then we went back to the car four times and loaded the car bucket with all the stuff, and then we had some stuff to live. It was. And I go back to what was cool about it. It was. For us, it was very personal. We didn't have too many consultants, we didn't have too many cooks. We literally did it together. And it's turned out brilliantly and fast.

Speaker D: Yeah, it's been very immersive for us, I think. I mean, we really enjoyed it. I think my wife was used to despair when I used to get back from Wrexham and she said, well, come on then, show me the site photos. You know, it became a regular thing.

Speaker C: Let's have a look at the site photos.

Speaker D: Um, but yeah, we've. We certainly really enjoyed the experience of doing it. I think we had some great other partners. I mean, certainly the AV guys.

Speaker C: Brilliant.

Speaker D: The teams of contractors that we. That we selected and used for it did a great job. And. But there is something.

Speaker C: Who thought the coolest AV place in the country today is in Bolton. I mean, you couldn't make it. It was brilliant. We went there and we were totally sold on it. And we were like, man, we want this and we want that. Yeah, it was. It was the most expensive hour and a half, probably of my career.

Speaker D: That is. That is another aspect of this, just to say, is that, you know, there is a sort of hybrid aspect of this. As you touched, the AI lab has got some fantastic technology to be able to sort of quantify and to capture those insights sort of. And that data, um, and also, you know, the digital aspects of the, of the, of the experience as well, is an important part of it. It's not just a physical thing. So I think it is still a hybrid, um, uh, experience.

Speaker B: Well, uh, thank you very much for coming on and talking us through the project. I think, um, I've learned a lot more than I already knew about this project today, but I imagine the audience are going to be pinging with ideas just like you were when you first came up with this. Um, so, yeah, thank you for coming on and to us, and congratulations on

Speaker C: a very successful project between, hopefully many more to come.

Speaker D: Great, thank you.

Speaker B: Thanks.

Speaker C: Pleasure.