Better business – Ffresh bar and restaurant, Cardiff
The Ffresh bar and restaurant has to cater for a wide variety of customers at the Wales Millennium Centre, but when it comes to suppliers it has one strategy: keep it local. Janie Stamford reports
Need to know When the Wales Millennium Centre opened in the redeveloped Cardiff Bay in 2004, the bulk of the food and beverage offers were outsourced to catering giant Compass Group in addition to a number of tenanted operations including a pub, a restaurant and a café. But in 2008 a decision was taken to bring much of the services back in-house.
According to David Pearce, business development director at the centre, the reasons were three-fold. "Compass was great for mobilisation, but we wanted to take control of the customer service and the product delivery and source locally," he explains.
"The third reason was that with impending public spending pressures, we realised we would have to increase our commercial income and one route is through food and drink. We would be masters of our own destiny."
Around the same time, the restaurant tenant decided to surrender the space back, so the centre grasped the opportunity. It reopened, following a refurbishment, as Ffresh in time for the centre's fifth birthday celebrations in October 2009 and it quickly became a destination attraction in its own right.
Target market The centre attracts 1.5 million visitors each year and is the number one attraction in Wales. A £20m-turnover operation, it is located in Cardiff Bay which means there is a steady flow of footfall from neighbouring businesses, while its multi-functionality means the type of visitor it attracts varies according to times of the day as well as days of the week.
As a result the offer mutates accordingly. The mornings are dominated by tourists hungry for coffee and cake and local business-folk using the free Wi-Fi for more informal business meetings. A number of lunch options are available including a full-blown restaurant experience or more casual pizzas and sharing platters of charcuterie and cheeses in the bar before pre-theatre diners start arriving.
How we stand out Aside from the Ffresh bar and restaurant's position in a landmark building, it also stands out from the restaurant crowd. "In a market which is dominated by chains we've got quality, locally sourced products and they're value for money," says Pearce.
"Obviously we also leverage business from the market we've developed for the centre, in terms of theatre audiences. But we also look for ways to attract new people." The first Friday of every month is music night, which has been very successful.
Marketing Once the new website for the whole centre is launched, there will be development of individual micro-sites so that the Ffresh restaurant can also stand alone. It will mean that while it can benefit from being part of the Wales Millennium Centre brand, it can also be a destination place to eat in its own right.
In addition to traditional marketing, social media such as Twitter and Facebook play a major role in its promotion and for the past 18 months Ffresh has had an account with online discount service Voucher Cloud. Pearce says: "We've noticed that each time we try it there's a bigger take up."
A major footfall driver was the introduction of free Wi-Fi. Local businesses were asked what they would like to see and as well as an early opening time (now 10am), quality Wi-Fi was most requested. The centre invested in ensuring there's 20Mb of bandwidth and plenty of powerpoints in the bar and restaurant, which now regularly hosts informal business meetings.
Suppliers The decision to try and showcase the best of Welsh produce and source locally was not without its challenges. "Any suppliers that were local would have to be able to meet our quality needs but also our quantity needs," explains Pearce. "We could potentially be trying to feed up to 2,000 people in any one day."
Pearce paid a visit to the Food Fisheries Marketing and Development Division (FFMDD) for help with the sourcing, because not only does it have a comprehensive list of contacts it also aims to develop suppliers from cottage industry-style businesses to manufacturers that can cope with supply on a much larger scale (see right).
The Centre has now been working with the Welsh Assembly for 18 months to try and source as much product from Wales as possible. As a result, 80% of what is bought is bought locally. Of that, 30% comes from Wales the True Taste award-winning suppliers such as charcuterie specialist Trealy Farm.
Business advice "Listen to your customers," advises Pearce. "Give them what they want, not what you want to put on the menu." The decision over what type of chips would be served was a prime example of this.
"I said we should do big, chunky triple-cooked chips, but we did a taste test and it turned out that people wanted skinny." This philosophy of listening to and meeting the needs of the customer is reflected by the whole centre. "When we opened we had no audience," adds Pearce. "So we went with whatever people wanted to see and do."
Spotlight on Suppliers
"The Georges, who run the farm, decided to start making their own ice-cream using the fruit on their farm," explains Pearce. "They brought their daughter, Lucy, into the business to help develop it and they approached us about supplying us with ice-cream."
However, their operation, which was essentially a cottage industry, was not going to be able to meet the demand of 75,000 tubs of ice-cream. Instead the centre put them in touch with the Welsh Assembly Government, which gave them a grant in order to start manufacturing on a grander scale.
When both Wild Fig and the centre both needed a milk supplier, they went to local supplier Ty Tanglwyst in Bridgend, another Wales the True Taste award winner.
"So they grow their own fruit, they get their milk from the cows down the road, they make it there and then they supply us," says Pearce. "So there is connectivity there."
FACTS AND STATS
Owner Wales Millennium Centre
General manager Barnaby Hibbert
Staff 22
Time open 18 months (Bar opened in November 2010)
Average spend per head £25 (£25 in the restaurant, £10 in the bar)
