Minute on the clock Holmes Eddie


How has the industry changed since Chop’d first opened? Lots of people have jumped on the bandwagon. Everyone’s claiming to be healthy and sustainable, which is where we first started. We pay attention to trends, but often they’re all just marketing nonsense. We prefer to stick to fresh ingredients.


It’s just over 10 years since fast- casual lunchtime brand Chop’d brought its healthy, fresh ethos to the British high street. Hannah Thompson speaks to managing director and co-founder Eddie Holmes about expansion plans and staying competitive in an ever more health-conscious market


What was behind that ahead of the curve thinking? When we started the company, we went to suppliers to look for chicken, and they could only offer frozen chicken with a 28-day shelf life. But we wanted to feel that whatever we made would be safe for our then-young children to eat. We wanted to serve food we were happy to be cooking in the same way as we would at home.


How do you arrive at a competitive price on this scale? Other places might make their food two days before in a factory in the middle of nowhere. We can’t afford to compete with that on price, so we have to compete on quality. We also have great rela- tionships with our suppliers and get a price that works.


What is the average number of customers you serve? At Canary Wharf, our busiest site, we serve about 6,000 a week, from 7am to 7pm, five days a week.


You have 11 sites at the moment. Do you plan to expand further? I’d love to see 100 sites in the next 10 years, but it’s about keeping the quality. We don’t want to expand too quickly. We’re opening a central London site in a couple of weeks and we’ve got offers on a number of other London sites, but we’d like to go outside London too, as people outside the capital are very aware of the quality of food.


64 | The Caterer | 20 March 2015


What do you look for in a site? We have three different busi- ness models: one is a takeaway, with a few seats; one is a sit-down model; and there’s a takeaway- only. They’re all different but suc- cessful, depending on location.


Has people getting more interested in the healthy side of food changed what you do? Yes, people are much more inter- ested in what they’re eating, but we’ve always put nutritional infor- mation on our food. We have nothing to hide. Fresh chicken is going to taste a heck of a lot bet- ter than a frozen chicken pumped full of steroids.


Who is your ideal customer? One with money who’s hungry! Our main menu criteria


are


taste and quality. If you want a salad, you’ve got lettuce that isn’t washed in bleach, carrots from Lincolnshire and beetroot from Norfolk. It makes sense.


How do you remain competitive? We do what we promise. Also, someone worked out you can make 39 billion combinations from our create-your-own salads. Throw in our 21 different ingredi- ents and eight different flatbreads and customers are not going to get bored. Plus, we stick to our core values. The single bestselling item is the jerk chicken salad, and that recipe hasn’t changed since the day we opened.


“Fresh chicken tastes a heck of a lot better than a frozen chicken pumped full of steroids”


More online www.thecaterer.com


Career moves


On the move? Send your details to careers@thecaterer.com


Danny Burns has joined D&D London’s Butlers Wharf Chop House as head chef. Burns


is modernising the menu and has brought in a wide selection of seafood and steak sourced from local suppliers such as Cannon & Cannon at Borough Market.


Private members’ club Home House has announced Joel Williams as its new general


manager. He was formerly operations manager at the club and has experience with hospitality brands such as the Conran Group, the Sanderson hotel and the Wolseley.


Marc Smith is now general manager of the Macdonald Portal hotel, golf and spa resort


in Cheshire. He has more than 20 years’ hotel experience and previously managed the sister hotels Macdonald Hill Valley in Shropshire and the Macdonald Highlands in Aviemore.


Moves of the week


Birmingham restaurant Gas Street Social has appointed Florian Mainzger (left) as head chef and Scott Walker as general manager ahead of its opening at the city’s Mailbox development. Walker was events manager at the Shaker UK group in London, while Mainzger has worked at the Hyatt Regency Sochi and the Tschuggen Grand hotel, Switzerland.


www.thecaterer.com


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