Event Timings

10.30am	Guest Arrival and Refreshments
11.00am	‘2030 Vision – the Future of Foodservice’ presented by Simon Stenning, Founder, Future Foodserivce
11.45am	Drinks and Canape Reception
12.45pm	Three course seated lunch
2.45pm	Panel Discussion hosted by Peter Martin, Co-Founder, Peach 20/20
4.00pm	Drinks and Networking
4.30pm	Guests Depart

The Event

The finale in Arena's calendar of events for 2024 brings together some highly experienced foodservice and hospitality industry leaders. 

Industry Insight

On the morning of the event, Simon Stenning, Founder, FutureFoodservice will present '2030 Vision - The Future of Foodservice'  Simon will present data and forecasts for the 9 sectors covering the breadth of the UK foodservice market, delivering a deep understanding of the drivers of change as we head towards 2030.  Following on from the last Future Foodservice report on the ‘Changing Landscape’, Simon will outline how the market will continue to evolve over the next few years, as consumer behaviour settles into a new normal, but also as societal, economic and technological change affects the market.

Simon will include forecasts for how the Pub market will develop through new formats, how Restaurants will polarise, and how Hotels will adopt new segments such as ‘Friendly Comfort’; Other sectors that will be explored include Contract Catering, and how elements of public sector catering are forecast to grow, plus of course, the exponential growth of Fast Food, and whether this growth can be maintained.
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The presentation will conclude with a vision for the market in 2030 and the key consumer behaviours that need to be taken into account.

Guests will then enjoy the fantastic hospitality of the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park at our drinks reception which will then be followed by a three-course seated lunch.

Panel Discussion

After lunch we welcome three outstanding foodservice and hospitality industry leaders who will take part in a thought-provoking panel discussion hosted by industry commentator Peter Martin, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Peach 20/20.  John Nugent, Founder and CEO, Green & Fortune; Angus Brydon, Managing Director, BM Caterers; Coral Rose, Managing Director, Fairway Foodservice and Robin Rowland, Partner, Trispan will discuss the relevant issues affecting the foodservice and hospitality sector.

Meet Our Speakers

John Nugent, Founder and CEO, Green & Fortune.

Green & Fortune is a hospitality company John launched in 2008, in London’s Kings Cross.  It was the first hospitality operator to open in the area, as part of this regeneration project.  Green & Fortune operates five prestigious sites in London, focusing on restaurants, events and conferencing, as well as bars and cafes.  John is a partner in the Shoreditch restaurant, Daffodil Mulligan with Richard Corrigan.  He is also an investor in a number of other restaurant companies.  In 2022 he launched Patina  -  a bakery, bar, restaurant and events venue in Edinburgh.

Prior to launching his own company, John was CEO of Searcys and led the launch of some of London’s iconic hospitality venues  -  The Gherkin, Royal Opera House, Champagne Bar St. Pancras, The Portrait Restaurant.  He was also managing director of Richard Corrigan’s restaurant company.

John supports Sadler’s Wells with their catering strategy and he is also a founding director of the Kings Cross Business Partnership.

 

Angus Brydon, Managing Director, BM Caterers

Angus Brydon is the Managing Director at BM Caterers (previously Bartlett Mitchell), an independently-minded foodservice company in the UK.  He has been with BM for over 11 years, working across operations, sales and marketing before taking on his current leadership role.

Brydon started his career in 2001 as a graduate trainee with Aramark, moving on to Restaurant Associates where he left to become an Area Manager with BM in 2009. From there, Brydon was promoted to Senior Operations Manager, before leaving in 2014 to join Elior in the City as Operations Director.

Brydon returned to BM in 2017 and held the position of Divisional Managing Director, before taking up the role of MD in 2022, alongside Antony Prentice.  In the two years as MD, BM has seen growth of more than 40%.

Brydon is a passionate foodie and strong advocate of charitable activities at BM, including numerous fundraising efforts to support Ukrainian citizens, as well as working with Unity Works, and the Luminary Bakery on an exciting new project.

Coral Rose, Managing Director, Fairway Foodservice

Coral has extensive experience in the food wholesale industry and has been working with foodservice wholesalers and manufacturers for more than 30 years.

She started her journey in foodservice in 1993 with Watson & Philip and after 10 years jumped over the fence to work with suppliers developing sector focused strategies for leading brands.

As MD of Fairway Foodservice she leads a central team who provide buying and marketing support to their membership of 14 independent foodservice wholesalers who supply to thousands of independent caterers in all sectors of the market.  

She is a founding supporter of Women in Wholesale and a member of the council of the Federation of Wholesale Distributors, completing a three year term as FWD Chairman in 2022 and is the current Chairman of the FWD RemCo.

 

Robin Rowland OBE

From joining Whitbread PLC on the graduate intake in 1984,  Robin went on to develop and lead multiple pub & restaurant brands through the ’80s & ‘90s with PLCs Diageo, Scottish & Newcastle and The Restaurant Group, before joining YO! Sushi as CEO in 1999.

Over 20 years, Robin built this iconic fast-casual popular restaurant chain from three to ~100 company restaurants, both in the UK & USA, including 16 franchise restaurants in international airports and the Gulf.  Robin led YO! Sushi’s MBOs in Sept 2003, Mar 2008 and in Nov 2015. In 2017 he led the acquisition of ‘Bento Sushi’ in Canada/USA creating a $200m turnover group. He stepped down from Chair/CEO role at YO! at the end of year and remained a NED until mid 2019.

Robin has been recognised by the sector receiving MCA’s ’Retailer of the Year’, Caterer ‘Group Restauranteur’, Peach ‘Hospitality Industry Icon’ and was awarded an OBE from HM in 2015 for ‘outstanding services to hospitality’.

From Jan 2018 Robin moved to set up a dedicated ‘transatlantic’ restaurant fund as the EU Partner with ‘Trispan Private Equity’, today the ‘rising stars’ fund has invested in 10 brilliant companies with ~200 restaurants. Currently Robin chairs 4 portfolio companies, Pho, Rosa Thai, Thunderbird  & Rosa Mexicano and is an active Board NED with Fullers PLC, Caffe Nero and UK..

Robin is married to Fi & has 3 university age children, lives on a farm in the Surrey Hills, loves skiing, hiking, yoga, sailing, mountain biking and great food.

Simon Stenning, Founder, FutureFoodservice 

With 30+ years’ experience of working in, developing, analysing and commentating on the UK foodservice/hospitality industry, Simon is expertly placed to advise on what will happen in the future. Acknowledged as the leading analyst of the market and recognised as an expert in making sense out of all the data and insight available, Simon is now making sense of the future.

With a career founded in operations, managing hotels & restaurants, and with Pret A Manger through the nineties, Simon moved into marketing and development with Compass Group; at that point Simon completed a Postgrad diploma in Marketing, enabling a move into strategic marketing and market intelligence.

Simon worked with management consultancy Allegra Strategies, developing Allegra Foodservice as a leading source of market intelligence; This was sold to William Reed Business Media at which point Simon created and led MCA from 2014 to 2019, merging the data, insight, news and events businesses.

Simon stepped down from MCA in order to launch FutureFoodservice, providing unique foresight into the future, to the whole spectrum of the hospitality/foodservice market.  The most recent future foresight report that Simon has written is ‘2030 Vision – Future Foodservice 2024 to 2030’ with detailed forecasts for each sector of the UK market.

Peter Martin, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Peach 20/20

Peter Martin is one of the most authoritative and influential communicators and community-builders in the eating and drinking out sector, with some 40 years experience as entrepreneur, columnist, editor, media owner, market analyst and board adviser.

Peter brings people together, a connector, collaborator, creator of new opportunities, a communicator of ideas and insights, a confidant to business leaders, a cheerleader for innovators.  

He is founder of the Atlantic Club, an exclusive international network for senior executives, entrepreneurs and investors in the out-of-home food-and-drink market, and strategic advisor to a number of international companies, including CGA, the global data and insight specialist.