Monday 23/3/15
Propelinfonews.com: Raffles Restaurant Group sells Pinocchio’s in Norwich: Raffles Restaurant Group has sold its Pinocchio’s Restaurant on St Benedicts Street in Norwich to Italian brothers Andrea and Gonario Vilia. The Vilias have spent 20 year running restaurants in the UK and Italy. Jayne Raffles, co-owner with her husband Nigel of the firm, which also runs the St Benedict’s Restaurant and The Library on Guildhall Hill, Norwich, said: “Nigel and I want to continue running our other sites but also pursue other business interests, so now is the perfect time to move on and explore our ideas.
Bighospitality.co.uk: UK hotels have worst customer service in Europe, says Hotel.info
By Sophie Witts, 20-Mar-2015
Staff members in UK hotels are the least friendly in Europe, according to Hotel.info.
Morningadvertiser.co.uk: CAMRA celebrates pub campaign wins
By Ellie Bothwell, 23-Mar-2015
Members of the Campaign for Real Ale are being urged to visit their local asset of community value-listed pubs to celebrate Community Pubs Day – a new national event to highlight the 600 pubs that have so far been listed.
http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/General-News/CAMRA-celebrates-pub-campaign-wins
Tuesday 24/3/15
Yahoo News UK: Horsemeat charges man faces jail
A slaughterhouse boss has become the first person to be sentenced in connection with the horsemeat scandal which rocked British supermarkets in 2013.
Peter Boddy, 65, was fined £8,000 after admitting one count of failing to abide by EU meat traceability regulations.
Boddy, who runs a slaughterhouse in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, also pleaded guilty to failing to comply with food traceability regulations which state the source of meat should be traceable from field to fork……. Read More
Propelinfonews.com: Pub is the Hub receives £100,000 cash injection: Pub is The Hub has announced a £100,000 injection of funding for its Community Services Fund that will go directly to pubs who are looking to diversify. The Department of Communities and Local Government has confirmed that it will continue its support for Pub is The Hub’s Community Services Fund for local services projects with a further contribution of £100,000. This initiative set up by Pub is The Hub was first launched in April 2013 as a ‘fund of last resort’ to help pub licensees wanting to diversify and provide essential services within their local communities.
Propelinfonews.com: Whitbread head of education – apprenticeships help plug hospitality skills gap: Employers should use an apprenticeship strategy to support the sector’s future growth, according to Whitbread head of education Sandra Kelly. Speaking to HR magazine at an event on hospitality careers run by education charity Believe in Young People, Kelly said there is “evidence that shows investing in a structured apprenticeship programme can have a significantly positive impact”. Using Premier Inn as an example, she said: “Employees who were previously apprentices are 45% less likely to leave the organisation than non-apprentices. The commitment demonstrated by the company through the investment in apprenticeships is mirrored by the commitment of those apprentices.”
Propelinfonews.com: Cat cafe fully booked for opening two weekends: Nottingham’s first cat cafe, which was due to open on Saturday (21 March), is fully booked for its first two weekends. Twenty cats will be roaming around Kitty Cafe while visitors are having drinks and snacks. The cafe is opening in the former Prudential offices in Friar Lane after owner Kate Charles-Richards scrapped earlier plans for a venue in Goose Gate, Hockley, since it did not have access for disabled visitors. Charles-Richards told The Nottingham Post: “There is a huge amount of interest. We’ve had people coming up to us in the street and saying what a brilliant idea they think it is and social media has been amazing – I think we’re close to 4,000 likes on Facebook at the moment.” Customers will have to sign a set of rules before being admitted to the cafe to ensure both their own safety and that of the cats. Strict hygiene regulations are in place and the kitchen is sealed.
Wednesday 24/3/15
Wigan Today: Businessman’s shock at £12k electric bill: A WIGAN restaurateur feared he had been dealt a business-wrecking blow after receiving letters that told him his electricity bills had rocketed by almost £10,000.Howard Gallimore was stunned when he opened his post to find British Gas had charged him a combined £12,342.96 in recent bills for his three eateries….… Leigh Franks of British Gas Business added: “I’m sorry that we sent… Read More
Propelinfonews.com: Sussex schoolboy wins FutureChef 2015: A 15-year-old from Horsham, Sussex has beaten more than 8,000 other teenagers to the title of Springboard’s FutureChef 2015. Tom Hamblet, a pupil at Tanbridge House School in Horsham, was one of 12 regional winners in the finals of the competition, held at Westminster Kingsway College, where his poached fillets of sole and fish cream foam won over a team of highly experienced judges who included David Mulcahy, culinary director at Sodexo UK and Ireland, Richard Davies, the Michelin-starred executive chef at the Manor House in Wiltshire, and Joe Queen, executive chef at Tennents Training Academy. Springboard’s FutureChef is a nationwide culinary drive with 500 schools participating, designed to help young people aged 12 to 16 learn the skills of cooking and provide inspiration for building a career within the hospitality industry. Tom Hamblet’s prize includes a visit to Henley Regatta where he will work with top chefs while his parents enjoy a boat trip along the Thames.
Cask Marque :New Cask Beer Uncovered e-learning launched: The future of cask beer quality and dispense receives a massive boost today with the launch of Cask Beer Uncovered, a new e-learning programme targeted at staff in the hospitality industry. Kris Hopkins, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, was on hand to support the launch at a pub in Westminster.
Cask Beer Uncovered has been developed by Cask Matters, a partnership of industry and consumer organisations, brewers and retailers who care about the future of our national drink. The goal is to put 100,000 bar staff through the programme over the next three years. The course is completely free of charge to retailers and their staff and represents a £2 million investment by Cask Matters. Read More
Propelinfonews.com: Pub licensees open next-door fish and chip shop: The new licensees of the White Horse in Norton, near Daventry, Northamptonshire have opened a fish and chip shop next door to their pub. Becky and Dan Chan ran the Danetre Chippy on Sheaf Street, Norton for 26 years and after selling the business last month to take on the pub, a former Charles Wells outlet which has changed hands several times in recent years, decided to bring their own culinary expertise to the White Horse, converting the building next door into the Chippy at Norton, a fully licensed restaurant and takeaway serving fish and chips, kebabs and burgers. Becky Chan told the Daventry Express: “The reason we called it Chippy at Norton is because I am from Chipping Norton – it’s a play on the name.
Thursday 26/3/15
Propelinfonews.com: Half of all consumers unhappy with vegetarian choice on menus: Over half of consumers feel there are not enough vegetarian dishes on menus when eating out, with a third wanting to see between five and ten options available, new research has found. The latest research also revealed that of the one in four (26%) of consumers choosing not to eat meat, one in seven (14%) do so because they are vegetarian, while a similar number (12%) consider themselves to be “flexitarian”, suggesting that it is not only consumers turning to a strict diet that are driving the market, but meat-reducers seeking out a way to eat a more balanced diet. The independent research, commissioned by Vegetarian Express, the specialist distributor of vegetarian and vegan ingredients, looked into the demand for vegetarian menu options, highlighting the fact that consumers would like a greater choice of vegetarian dishes when dining out. When asked which cuisine consumers felt best caters for vegetarians, 41% said Indian, followed by British (28%) and Asian (22%). Mexican and American were both cited as the types of cuisine least likely to cater for vegetarian diets.
Friday 27/3/15
Propelinfonews.com: Select committee asks government to look closer at benefits of VAT cut on food: The culture, media and sport select committee on tourism has asked the government to look closer at the case for a VAT reduction and the job creation which a cut in VAT on food could bring. The chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, Brigid Simmons, who addressed the committee, said: “It is easy for tourism and tourism policy to be something that is nice to have but not essential to government. It is absolutely essential that we think in all of these things, whether it be visas or transport, about the tourist industry, the importance it has to the British economy and how we can have that at the forefront of all our minds when any government makes any decision about anything.”
Fresh Busines Thinking: Third of hospitality employers don’t know what ‘Living Wage’ is:More than a third of employers in the hospitality industry do not know what the living wage is, according to a new poll.
Despite campaigns to raise the profile of the benefits of paying the living wage to 5.28 million people earning less than the living wage, sustainability business Footprint found that 34% of those questioned didn’t know what it was, while another third knew but wasn’t paying it. The UK hospitality industry, worth an estimated £4.25 billion per year, is the fifth largest employer in Britain, but research by KPMG in November … Read More
Propelinfonews.com: Deaf Masterchef competitor to open meatball restaurant in Soho: A deaf chef who starred in MasterChef is opening a restaurant in Soho, Central London. Bonny Porter, an ambassador for deaf charities as well as being a respected chef, has snapped up a prime site in Greek Street. Porter, 25, who appeared in the Australian version of the TV cooking competition, lost her hearing as a seven-year-old. She was working as an apprentice chef in a Sydney restaurant when she entered the MasterChef Professionals show with judge Marco Pierre White and used her lip reading skills to understand instructions. Her Bonny Appetit brand has bought the leasehold to the Lebanese restaurant Kaslik for a meatball eaterie.