50 | EVENT REVIEW: LUNCH! | CATERING & HOSPITALIT Y
W:
www.universitybusiness.co.uk/news/catering
Atendance up 5% at UK’s award-winning lunch! show
Renowned for atracting a who’s who of buyers from across the food-to-go sector, lunch! welcomed a record 6,215 atendees to its 2014 edition in September.
N
ow in its seventh year, the show featured almost 300 exhibiting companies and enjoyed a 5% increase in total unique atendees
(excluding revisits); compared to 5,924 in 2013. That’s a 44% increase since 2012. As in previous years, the surge in footfall was backed by glowing testimonials from across the show floor. Exciting, innovative, excellent, and enjoyable – are
just some of the words atendees have used to describe lunch! 2014 so far. Many of the country’s biggest high-street operators,
food retailers, and contract caterers were in atendance; including AMT Coffee, Aramark, Boots, Caffe Nero, Costa Coffee, Debenhams, EAT., Elior UK, Greggs, Harris and Hoole, John Lewis, M&S, Pret A Manger, Rail Gourmet, Sainsbury’s, Sodexo, Starbucks, Superdrug, Tesco, Waitrose and Morrisons. More than 2,000 independent outlets were also represented. Looking ahead to 2015, lunch!’s organiser
Diversified Communications UK has already announced a 25% increase in stands to accommodate growing demand from food, drink, packaging, technology and equipment suppliers – an expansion which will take the exhibitor total to 350 companies for the first time. “Rebooking for lunch! 2015 has smashed all
previous records,” says group event director Chris Brazier. “Given the waiting list ready to book their stands, and even with the addition of a new hall, lunch! 2015 looks set to sell out in record time.” Confirmed exhibitors for 2015 include Coca-Cola
Enterprises, Rombouts Coffee, Cawston Press, teapigs, Tom’s Pies, Radnor Hills, Proper Cornish, Unilever,
Oloves, The Food Doctor, Vita Coco, Lick Frozen Yoghurt, Adelie (Urban Eat), Moma!, Tudor Tea and Coffee, Rational, Nakd Wholefoods and many more. The high turnout at the show reflects the ever-
growing popularity of food-to-go in the lunchtime market. To quote Emma Read, director of marketing and business development at the insights firm Horizons (host of the show’s opening working lunch! theatre session): “The lunch market is a good place to be – vibrant and growing, with consumers eating out more.” “The lunch market has seen many changes over the
last few years and remains a key eating out occasion,” says Read. “More people are eating out and doing so more
often, but their expectations are higher than before – they want good quality at a good price and often something they can eat on the move. Successful operators are responding by offering a good price point, speedy and efficient service to compete with fast food outlets, and lighter, healthier options.” Read sees litle threat to the continued growth of the
lunch market, which enjoyed £44.9bn of sales according to Horizons’ Market Structure and Trends 2013 report. For many, the continued success of the show itself is a clear sign that food-to-go in the UK is thriving. Make a date with lunch! 2015 “With food-to-go going from strength to strength
as a breakfast and lunch occasion, it is great to be able to come to a show with this at its core. I would recommend anyone involved in this sector to make a date with lunch! 2015,” concludes Red Kitching, category buying manager at Aramark. UB
lunch! will return to Business Design Centre, Islington, London, on Thursday and Friday, 24–25 September 2015. For more information, please visit
www.lunchshow.co.uk.
Innovation Challenge Awards Designed to promote and celebrate genuinely new ideas in the marketplace, the Innovation Challenge Awards saw short-listed finalists (as voted for by lunch! visitors on the first day of the show) pitching their innovative ideas to a panel of industry judges (which included industry entrepreneur Jesper Toft; co-founder of Pod, Alastair Eperon; and Clare Benfield, Editor of Café Culture Magazine).
The following companies received Innovation Challenge Gold Awards at lunch! 2014:
✥ Wribbon: ELLER food Packaging GmbH
✥ Jools: Jools
✥ mini NOM NOMs: mini NOM NOMs
✥ Oppo Ice Cream: Oppo Ice Cream
✥ Tri-Label Online: Tri-Label
✥ Whitworths Shots: Whitworths – Healthier Snacking
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