The World Wide Web as we now know it was born after software was made generally available to the public. While in movie world, Jurassic Park, which now ranks as the 12th highest grossing film in Box Office history, appeared in theatres.

So why the focus on 1993? Well, on a personal front, it was the year that I started Coverpoint, in the back bedroom of our house in Maidenhead. My first client was several weeks after that; Royal & Sun Alliance gained that honour and Coverpoint was on its way. So what has happened in the last 15 years and what is likely to be happening in the next 15?

As a country, we fell in love with fast food and branded restaurants. We got casual in a big way. We lost that traditional stuffiness about eating out.

We travelled, we brought back food experiences and memories and tried to re-create the same at home, with varying degrees of success. We started going out without booking a table, turning up at restaurants in casual clothes expecting to be accommodated. And we watched hours of televised cooking, lifestyle programmes and read hundreds of books and articles on food and wine.

As a nation, we became interested in food and this interest continues today. We now have arguably the best quality and variety of restaurants anywhere in the world, a far cry from the drab and bland offers of the 1980s.

Frequency of use and spend on foodservice has also increased significantly over the same period. The UK eating out market has grown from just below £40 bn to over £80 bn and eating out has increased in terms of our total food expenditure from 27 per cent to 37 per cent, but still has not reached the levels of our North American cousins who manage to spend 50 per cent of their total food expenditure on eating out.

The variety and choice of operators has ballooned and pretty much all cuisines and tastes are catered for in the high street or city centre.

As for shopping centres - we went on record five years ago describing them as 'experience centres' where food and entertainment was to become a much more significant part of the visit.This has happened and mixed-use shopping, leisure and lifestyle components are now commonly discussed.

Foodservice space in shopping centres has risen from 3-4 per cent of GLA on average to commonly 8-10 per cent now, and if we follow the trends being seen in Europe, we will soon be reaching 12-15 per cent. This is significant growth by any measure, but also presents its own challenges. Apart from the obvious switching of space from retail use to foodservice, there are the very practical issues of deliveries, refuse, smells and alcohol - all have to be faced and dealt with.

It would be wrong to review the last 15 years and not talk about the food court. Loved and hated in equal measure by the property community, this transatlantic import was already in the UK in 1993, in both disposable and crockery versions. Early adopters had pursued various operating models, including a complete landlord fit out and turnkey, and almost no branded food courts existed back then.

The growth in shopping centres inevitably led to more food courts, and they got bigger, adopted themes and attracted more brands from the high street to open. Latterly, food courts were included as part of a wider foodservice offer in the centre.

Then as the consumers' tastes changed, so did the food court offer, with examples such as Wesfield's Eat Central in Derby paving the way with freshly prepared food being served quickly in a stylish and contemporary environment.

In the coffee shop market, it was only 10 years ago, in 1998, that Starbucks acquired the Seattle Coffee Company in what then chairman, Howard Schultz, believed to be the company's "springboard into the European market."

This was only three years since Scott and Ally Svenson opened their first Seattle Coffee Co store in London's Covent Garden in 1995, after moving to London and finding that the coffee scene was non-existent. Since then the UK has become a nation of coffee lovers. Starbucks has about 550 units across the country and it is believed that the potential market for branded coffee houses is between 4,500 - 5,000 units nationwide.

Casual dining in the UK really began in 1986 when Whitbread opened the first international TGI Friday's restaurant in Birmingham. In the 15 years that Coverpoint has been involved, the casual dining market has ballooned with more operators, more units and more choice than ever before. This is increasingly being driven by the private equity and investment markets fuelling expansion and company sales.

So there you have it. The milestones of change in our industry are clear. Coverpoint has been providing advice to our clients in all aspects of food since the first La Tasca opening - five years before you had ever even thought of ordering a tall skinny mochachino with a double caramel shot!

So what for the next 15 years? Who knows, but there are some trends becoming clear. As a nation, we are getting more interested in regionality of food, authenticity, provenance and quality. We are accepting that food is going to cost more if it is going to be better and although we are becoming more health conscious, we are also looking for indulgence when we do fall off the wagon.

I hope that operators continue to try new formats, come to market, develop their offers and expand the base of concepts. I know the world is getting smaller as we export brands and import concepts. Europe is eying the UK as a valuable and growing market, not a difficult, insignificant market.

Spending on eating out is set to continue to increase, and is expected to match US levels by the year 2025.

From my perspective, we intend to grow Coverpoint, as we are already working all over the world. This may be through partnerships, acquisition or merger. But one thing is certain, foodservice is going to be more important than it has been in the last 15 years, and that's certainly saying something!

Printer friendly version

Email this article to a friend