360 Food Partners

07/01/2026

Before you dust off your Valentine’s Day menu, read this! 💕

Christmas is boxed away. New Year’s fizz has gone flat. And now the next big moment looms large on the hospitality calendar.

Valentine’s Day has always promised romance and revenue.

But many operators are quietly asking if it’s still worth the effort, due to the tighter wallets, home dining upgrades, and growing cynicism out there.

Here’s what I’m seeing on the ground:

💖V-Day can drive midweek incremental footfall, even though it falls on a Saturday this year
💖Tables for two often cap covers and margin
💖Price-sensitive diners expect more than red napkins
💖Inclusive alternatives like Galentine’s, singles nights, anti-Valentine’s, and shared experiences are capturing hearts and minds

The venues getting it right are designing and delivering more innovative and hard-working menus and moments, such as:

🔥Group-friendly formats
🔥Experiences layered with food and drink
🔥Menus designed with operational reality at heart

What are you thinking for this year? Has your Valentine’s strategy kept pace with consumer behaviours and preferences? Or are you still daydreaming Cupid will save your P&L?

23/12/2025

All I want for Christmas is a fairer shot for the hospitality industry 🎅🎁
I wouldn’t do what I do if I didn’t genuinely believe we can finally stop talking about a battle-weary hospitality industry by this time next year.

I’m not pretending it’s easy or glossing over the pressure. But I have to believe better is possible, because hospitality deserves more than survival mode.

This industry is full of energy, creativity, and resilience. All the same it needs space, support, and confidence to use its assets again.

So as the year winds down, a genuine thank you to every client, collaborator, and connection who’s kept showing up. Merry Christmas to you all.

And I’ll leave you with this till we reconvene in the new year.

Hospitality has always shouldered more than its fair share. And yes, right now it’s stretched further than I’ve seen at any point in my career. But the show still goes on:

🍽Teams adapt
🍽Operators find a way
🍽Standards matter
🍽Pride remains

I’m not dreaming miracles but momentum, breathing space, and better conversations in 2026.

Over to you. What does a better year for hospitality look like from where you’re standing?

18/12/2025

It’s Christmas. Here’s what I’m predicting restaurant diners want on their plates this season. 🎄

Festive menus are taking a turn. Diners want comfort, bold flavours, and real value.

And the data for 2025 shows eating out at Christmas evolving in all the right ways, from global glazes to plant-based centrepieces and nostalgia heavy desserts.

So, I’ve wrapped up the key trends, insights, and operator sentiment into a quick read for food teams who want high performing Christmas menus, without added chaos in the kitchen or pressure on the bottom line.

Click through to read the full article here - https://zurl.co/VOrw1

Then come back and share which festive flavour, dish, or trend you think will surprise us most this year - and why.

Festive food strategy needs to deliver big on flavour, margin, and operational ease, sprinkled with the latest Christmas food trends in the UK.

10/12/2025

Did you know the latest Foodservice Price Index has risen to 151.1, its highest level since records began? And how it translates in real terms for hospitality operators? 📈

Leading global data, research, and strategic consultancy for the On Premise CGA by NIQ’s latest Foodservice Price Index confirms continued rising costs.

Oils and fats are up. Bread, cereals, and fish continue to rise.

Energy and logistics costs are still far higher than pre-pandemic levels.

And rising costs = tighter margins.

For all these reasons, operators are feeling the pressure to protect margin without losing consumer confidence.

Well, you’re certainly not alone. Everybody in the sector is doing their best to sail through stormy waters.

Here’s a snapshot of what we’re seeing within our client base and the broader foodservice environment:

🍽 Procurement control is becoming a daily discipline.

🍽Menu engineering is vital for optimising design, pricing, and placement, ultimately increasing profitability and customer satisfaction by focusing on popular, high margin dishes and adapting underperformers.

🍽Festive trading is demanding tighter planning than ever.

Yes, rising costs feel relentless. But there’s a brighter outlook on the other side when decisions are informed, not rushed knee jerk reactions.

Teams I work with are already seeing headroom return, when pausing long enough to:

✅ Ingest and act on the data
✅ Re-evaluate supplier terms
✅ Fine tune portions and pricing with confidence

Can you relate?

03/12/2025

Here’s the truth. December is the month when food safety standards are tested to the limits and pushed beyond them. ⚠

It’s the prime time hospitality shows what it’s really made of, in creativity, in covers, but most vitally, in consistency.

And the reality behind it is this:

🆘Volumes surge
🆘Teams blow hot
🆘Shortcuts are tempting

🆘Fatigue quietly becomes the biggest food safety risk of all #

This is why Worldwide Foodservice Safety Month lands at an oddly perfect moment. And it’s a timely juncture to ask some difficult questions about your culture, like:

❓Whether your systems hold up when your people are tired
❓Whether “good enough” suddenly becomes ”just enough to scrape through by the skin of your teeth”

Here’s the bottom line. Food safety isn’t seasonal. But pressure is. And how your teams behave under that pressure is the difference between safe operations and critical risks.

At 360 Food Partners, we see this pattern across the industry every year, and we love helping teams stay strong when it counts.

Where do you see standards slipping most in the industry when teams are this stretched? How do you prevent it happening at your own site/s?

26/11/2025

Cost centre vs growth driver? Surely there’s an easier way to take compliance to heart? 😍

It can be hard to love. But it's not over-egging the pudding to say food safety is the foundation of customer trust in hospitality.

In addition, it’s also a powerful competitive edge.

Our latest blog post takes a deeper dive into the process and benefits of relooking at compliance through fresh eyes to:

✅ Boost customer confidence - Understand why ratings drive bookings and how to ensure your customers feel safe

✅ Simplify operations - Discover digital tools for hassle-free food safety management, in turn reducing risk and errors

✅ Protect profits - Learn to view compliance as a strategy to safeguards your reputation and cultivate long term growthIsn’t it time you reframed compliance from obligation to opportunity?

Click through to our latest blog post to learn how to shield your reputation and ramp up your bottom line: https://zurl.co/0qnOo

And don’t forget to come back here and share what your biggest challenges are around compliance right now?

26/11/2025

Cost centre vs growth driver? Surely there’s an easier way to take compliance to heart? 😍

It can be hard to love. But it's not over-egging the pudding to say food safety is the foundation of customer trust in hospitality.

In addition, it’s also a powerful competitive edge.

Our latest blog post takes a deeper dive into the process and benefits of relooking at compliance through fresh eyes to:

✅ Boost customer confidence - Understand why ratings drive bookings and how to ensure your customers feel safe

✅ Simplify operations - Discover digital tools for hassle-free food safety management, in turn reducing risk and errors

✅ Protect profits - Learn to view compliance as a strategy to safeguards your reputation and cultivate long term growth
Isn’t it time you reframed compliance from obligation to opportunity?

Click through to our latest blog post to learn how to shield your reputation and ramp up your bottom line: https://zurl.co/90SEA

And don’t forget to come back here and share what your biggest challenges are around compliance right now?

19/11/2025

There’s nothing more painful than slow dayparts and quiet days coupled with poor strategy. 😣

Every restaurant has quiet shifts. And worryingly, repeat slow days drain profit fast.

The temptation is real to blanket discount, just to get bums on seats. But the answer isn’t 50% off everything.

Restaurant owner and consultant Ratnesh Bagdai told Restaurant Magazine:

✨"The word discounting is a worrying thing. It undervalues and undermines what you're doing. A better way to guise it is through a promotion that targets a slot within the day." ✨

I agree targeted promotions are a smarter tactic. In fact, we’ve seen the proof this year with:

Gaucho and Hawksmoor's (surf and) turf wars - Sorry, it was a pun I couldn’t resist! 😬
Las Iguanas and Pizza Express introducing bottomless offerings
Cote's £10.00 classics

They’re all trialling time specific offers to drive volume without eroding value.

I’ve had personal successes when I was in-house, and I’m also seeing wins for our clients, with initiatives like:

🍽 Off peak menus – High margin, low prep dishes that move volume and reduce waste.

🍽 Loyalty rewards - Double points, timed perks, and behaviour-driving incentives.

🍽 Themed micro-events - Quizzes, tastings, playlists, etc, designed for your slowest three hour windows.

Ultimately, discounts build dependency. Whereas strategic promotions build habit.

Think about it like this. What kind of targeted offer or experience pulls you in on a quiet day, from a consumer rather than an operator perspective?

12/11/2025

Small, smart, and still standing 🍽

I’ve been a bit late to the party catching up with last week’s Restaurant webinar - How Hospitality Is Adapting to Survive & Thrive. Thankfully, I did. And it was brilliant.

A few gems that hit home:

👨🍳Cinder’s Jake Finn - Beware assuming your handprint can be the same across multi-site ops. And max every ounce of value, e.g. Cinder’s premium specials from prime cuts, with the offcuts repurposed into artisanal steak hash. Signature quality without compromise.

👨🍳Cin Cin’s David Toscano - Creativity is throttled when staff and skills shortages mean it’s all hands to the pump from the top down. Senior teams need room to breathe, analyse, and make clear decisions.

👨🍳Chick ’n’ Sours’ David Wolanski - Small can be beautiful, with tighter control, cherry-picked events and collaborations, and richer rewards. The dream of “a site in every city” has lost its shine after pandemic-era wipeouts, with major players decimated when the investors they relied on for rapid growth promptly called time.

👩🍳Square’s Fiona O’Reagan -Hospitality tech should serve operators, not hinder them. Right tools. Right jobs.

Thank you Lutrario for hosting a thought-provoking session, confirming the challenges faced by most industry stakeholders right now, and offering inspiration from the top of our sector.

I'm already looking forward to listening to the next one about another moot point - AI.

05/11/2025

PROOF of powerful positioning when Britain’s best-loved bakery goes gastropub. 🥟🍺

Greggs opened its first pub, the Golden Flake Tavern, in September, at Fenwicks in Newcastle.

Diners can tuck into a Sunday “carvery” of steak bake or vegan sausage roll with all the trimmings, washed down with exclusive draft beers like Pink Jammie Pale Ale and Gosforth 1939 Stottie Lager.

I’ve not managed to make it up to the north east for work since the opening. Although I’m really hoping I get to try it before it comes to the end of its shelf life in February 2026, if only for the novelty value.

Journalist Kevin Donald tried the Steak Bake Mixed Grill (£12.50), complete with a fried egg, chips, and to his surprise, a gravy boat. “If this had come from Heston’s kitchen, we’d be hailing it as genius,” he admitted in his review for The Independent.

It’s tongue-in-cheek. But there’s also strategy in the insanity:

🥟Shrewd brand extension - Turning everyday grab-and-go food into an experience
🥟Local collaboration - Partnering with Full Circle Brewing to add a credible craft edge
🥟Trend alignment - Tapping into the mash up moment driving buzz across hospitality (think Bundobust x Nell’s Indian pizza).

It’s a brilliant reminder innovation doesn’t always have to mean new. Moreover, it can be serving what consumers already love, in a fresh new way.

And I, for one, love seeing food brands pushing boundaries, testing and surprising.

How about you? Would you order a pint and a pasty roast meal at the Greggs pub? Or is this one step too far to the ridiculous for your personal liking?

29/10/2025

The cold hard truth about weight loss drugs and their rising impact on the hospitality industry. 💉🍽🍷

Weight loss drugs like Mounjaro, Ozempic and Wegovy are reshaping how the UK eats, drinks, and spends when dining out.

💉Portions are shrinking
💉Alcohol sales are dipping
💉Consumers are saving their nights out for special occasions

This means restaurants, hotels and venues need to think about menu design, pricing, and the overall guest experience to move with this major shift in consumer behaviour.

In our latest article, we explore what’s happening, what it means for your bottom line, and how to adapt without losing flavour, theatre, or profit.

Read the full piece here: https://zurl.co/ZmmjZ

Then, come back and tell us what if your business has already been impacted. Or how you foresee weight loss drugs perpetrating change in your food development strategy.

360 Menu Partners discuss: How ready is your food development strategy for the influence of weight loss drugs in the hospitality industry?

22/10/2025

Why I take a different approach to menus for venue operators who want to attract Gen Z customers. 🍽

Gen Z, and to an extent Millennials, are rewriting the rules of eating out.

Convenient. Conscious. Camera ready.

But what are they hungry for? And how can smart operators serve it up?

They eat with their eyes, value authenticity - and expect hospitality to keep up, with elements like:

🍽 Digital convenience - Quick and simple mobile ordering contactless payments to make food even faster.

🍽 Value with vibes - They’re budget savvy but crave fresh, customisable options, like shareable plates, customisable toppings, and build your own bowls.

🍽 Experience > transaction - Gen Z love a story behind every bite, from plant-based plates to Insta-worthy presentation.

🍽 Sustainability - Local sourcing, ethical supply chains, and ingredient transparency are no longer nice-to-haves, but expected.

At the end of the day, food trends change fast. But the need for strategy doesn’t.

This is why we, at 360 Food Partners, help operators turn these insights into overperforming menus, with an expert combination of creativity, commercial nous, and compliance at heart.

So, think about it. Gen Z is the future of dining. But are you developing menus for their tastes? Or still cooking for yesterday’s crowd?