Los Angeles and California overall are rightly seen as beacons in terms of future trends around healthier eating and drinking and better for you solutions across grocery and broader wellness.   And there's a huge amount to learn from concepts here, as we've discovered in visits over recent years. Here we've focused on our four top concepts to learn from based on our recent visits.     Erewhon   Some see Erewhon as a supermarket, others as a health supplements or healthier eat

We've recently spent time assessing the evolution of food-to-go across key channels in Australia, focusing this time on Sydney and Melbourne. A founding principle for us is that spending time understanding the dynamics of and operators in other markets helps inform and shape better propositions in your home market, and our visit to Australia delivered this in abundance, delivering a raft of learnings we see as relevant across Europe. While there were learnings across a broad

Irealnd is a long-standing global reference market for food-to-go in retail and it is one that continues to evolve. Over many years we've witnessed and showcased the extent of the food-to-go focus across retailers, whether in city centre, neighbourhood or roadside locations. And groups we take to Ireland are constantly impressed by the level of development and the focus on the category. A variety of retailers have been able to make food-to-go an intrinsic part of their propo

Paris is a real hot bed of food-to-go development, with some fantastic operators and some great initiatives under way. Here are some of our key takeouts from our latest visit to the French capital: Bakery-led food-to-go remains standout It's no surprise, given the importance of the boulangerie in France, that this has been a springboard for many into the food-to-go sector. And with multiple operators in this space, there are some great things going on here. One of our refere

We recently spent some time in a very cold New York. We learned a lot around the future of food-to-go and retail and a lot about the benefits of precise route planning in sub zero temperatures. Here are a selection of our food-to-go and retail learnings: Erewhon style concepts are gaining a foothold Los Angeles chain Erewhon has gained a strong global reputation as a trendsetter - in many ways it's a lifestyle brand that sells food & drink products. There's much for many oper

Following several recent London safaris, we draw out some the key shifts under way across the food-to-go landscape.   1.        The continuing growth of fresh focused, bowl led concepts Salad bars is easier to say. But for us, in its traditional, tight, British English definition, it's less accurate. It is however clear is that operators with quality, fresh ingredients, curated into bowls (and sometimes plates) are growing fast. There's been significant expansion over the pa

Earlier this month in London we held our first food-to-go insights & meet up session of the year. Now into its third year, this edition included Foodmaker Founder & CEO Lieven Vanlommel, as well as Gavin and Matt's latest perspectives on the market. An excellent guest list and some inspirational conversations around the room complemented the presentations, Here's our summary: Food-to-go has come a long way, but there's still a lot to go for There has been huge evolution acro

As we look at the prospects for the year ahead, here are our five key areas of focus:   1. An expanding “better for you” market    A key way in which London's food-to-go landscape has evolved in the past year lies in the expansion of vegetable led specialists such as The Salad Project, atis, Urban Greens and Farmer Js. Quality, fresh, seasonality and variety underpin the amply filled bowls - or fieldtrays - that each of them serve. They’ve been expanding at pace over the pas

We recently visited the new SuperValu concept in the expanding Dublin commuter town of Hansfield.    And it impressed. We met up with Gary McMahon, Musgrave’s Food Specialist, and explored how the 14,500 sq ft store is positioning itself as a forward-thinking food and drink destination. Here’s what we found:   1. Fresh at the Heart Fresh is the heartbeat of the store. Even before entering the store, floristry sets the tone. An impactful floristry selection by the entrance lea

There’s a lot going on in grocery retail in South Africa right now, and it feels that a lot of the recent development has been spearheaded by Shoprite. It operates several different formats across the market, but perhaps the standout from an innovation perspective is Checkers. Its new look Checkers format is now well-established, and in fact has recently been flexed to fit within a smaller, neighbourhood style format in addition to the core supermarket format. For us, what st

In our view, exploring the food-to-go landscape in Ireland should be a critical part of the development journey for anyone involved in...

Baked goods and food-to-go are natural partners, but this, in our view, is of increasing importance across the sector, and we see...

The best of what's new in food-to-go under one roof. That's the goal of our insights and meet up sessions. And last month we held our...

Earlier this week Co-op opened a different type of convenience store format that could have significant broader potential for growth...

We share some of the latest trends we've observed from recent London safaris and insight sessions. Food hall expansion continues Last...

Ahead of our food-to-go safari in Stockholm on Thursday 22 May , we highlight some of the key features of the market. Making food-to-go...

Ahead of our food-to-go safari in London later this month on March 20, we look at how the city's food-to-go landscape is changing and...

Last Tuesday we ran our latest Food-to-go Insights & Meet up session in London. Here are some of our key findings from the session.  ...

As we launch our next London food-to-go safari on March 20, we take look back on some of the key developments over the past year. From a...

This week at Seven Dials Market Matt Cundrick and Gavin Rothwell hosted our latest food-to-go insights and meet up session. Here are our...