The Package Free Larder interior. 76 Elm Grove, Southsea, Portsmouth.
A conversation with Connie Fenner from the Package Free Larder
by Colin Higgs/20th-April 2021
I am joined by Domini Hogg from Tried and supplied and we’re going to talk about her upcoming conference, which begins on April the 20th to the 21st called The Better Hospitality Conference. So without further ado, I’d like to introduce Domini, and please introduce yourself and also tell us more about the upcoming conference the Better hospitality Conference. Thank you, Domini.
Thanks, Colin. I’m Domini, and I’m the founder of Tried and supplied , which is a better ecosystem buying supplies for the food and drinking industry. We’re working on making your supply chain, more efficient and eco friendly. So, as part of that. We speak to lots of different people throughout the hospitality industry. And as also their suppliers. So we’re working in that intersection between food and farming.
And I’ve met so many incredible people, through, through those relationships that I, I really wanted to bring them together in the better hospitality conference. So, the better hospitality conference really is, it’s coming at a time when hospitality is just the opening, and they have the opportunity to do things a little differently and better. So, it’s, it’s really aimed at helping business owners and decision makers too, to get the inspiration and the ideas for how to reopen better.
Thank you Domini. May I ask you to tell us a little bit about the agenda for the conference as well please?
Yes, absolutely. We have a fantastic lineup, I’m really excited about it. Many of the people that I admire the most within the industry will be speaking at some incredible chefs like Asma Khan, Chantelle Nicholson , thought leaders like Paul Pavli , Simon stenning and Katy Moses , will be covering hospitality trends post pandemic. And we’ve got some incredible, incredibly supportive, industry associations and charities involved in the work that they do so. The Oxford Real farming conference and Springboard charity . Soil Association for their food for life scheme, and the Sustainable Restaurant Association, really we have got some excellent partners, and across all of those, we will be covering four key themes. So those are sustainability, resilience, people and nutrition. The four key themes that we think are going to be most useful to businesses reopening post pandemic.
Domini Hogg Founder of Tried and Supplied
Thanks Domini. May I also ask you what inspired you to try to create this conference as well. Thank you.
Yes, so it was at the beginning of this year in January, when I went to the Oxford Real farming conference. And if you haven’t been. I thoroughly recommend going. It was obviously virtual this year. Normally it’s held in Oxford as, as you might imagine, and, and even if you’re not a farmer, it is just the most incredibly inspiring conference to go to there are so many different sessions that are both practical for farmers but also more kind of philosophical about the way we think about food and how we need to change society in order to facilitate sustainable farming so it’s it’s really a conference designed for the farming industry to share knowledge, and, and particularly on how to farm more sustainably and better. And I left that conference thinking well, you know, I’ve, I’ve just feel so enthused and excited and inspired by that. And then I started thinking well, you know, actually, the hospitality industry needs something similar.
You know, we were all gearing up again to reopen after, hopefully the last, last time we’ll be, we won’t have to close again. And we just need that that kind of enthusiasm and energy and inspiration to get us going and, and, and reset because it’s very rare that you kind of are forced to have a business disruption like we’ve had. So it’s a really excellent opportunity to to use that time to recess and to explore, doing things differently on reopening. So that was really where it came from.
I have to say that the Oxford Real farming conference, their support in running this has been absolutely phenomenal, they’ve, you know, all of what they’ve learned from from running a much bigger conference, I think they had 5000 people worldwide attend their conference in January, and everything they’ve learned from from organising a conference of that scale has been shared with me and they’ve been supporting on the technology and the organisational front as well so massive thank you to them.
Thank you Domini. So, basically the conference is split into discrete sessions. Can you tell us a little bit about which of those sessions, you are excited about.
Well I have to say, obviously to start with I’m excited about all of them, I think they’re all going to be amazing. And I think there’s a huge variety, lots of different perspectives, and I really tried to make sure that we’ve been covering the industry as a whole. And I think probably I’ll touch on a few that are a little bit more unusual that people might not expect, because they’re the ones that I’m probably most intrigued by the outcomes of.
So, one of them is about experiential dining, and how that can benefit not only your customers and their experience of, of what you offer, but also you and your team, and that comes from a conversation that I had with a restaurateur Matthew Pennington who, who runs the Ethicurean in Bristol , and how he has re reorganised the structure of the restaurant so that it becomes like a ticketed experience which means that he has better control over achieving a better work life balance by his team, and ensuring that they all are, are able to get at least their living wage, and not reliant on service charge and, and things like that so the service charge becomes all incorporated into the ticket.
And it’s, that’s one aspect of it, but, you know, there’s, we’ve also got an Jozef Youssef on that session as well and he, he’s been experimenting with some fascinating things around, kind of how you can help blind people explore visual things like the universe through food. And, you know that the powers that that food has from a transformational perspective and an educational or what he described as edutainment, you know, it’s fun, it’s not just educational.
There’s so much that that food can do beyond just the eating and Jenny McNeil from Ginger line in that session she will. She’s talking about the experiential events, they do. And one of the things that we want to address is kind of the ability for food to kind of not just transform but transport people to a different place, and how much given a lack of travel recently this year, using food as a way of, you know, travelling further and kind of almost getting into a magical world of food is something that I think that would be a really interesting session, and then kind of maybe one other that I would I would pick out, it is around designing multiple Multi Purpose rescue spaces for additional revenue streams with David Chenery is the founder of Object Space Place, So, how do you create more resilient restaurants, and through that session we’re going to be looking at the optimum use of time and space
Above images; Different speakers from the event including Jozef Youssef, Andrei Lussmann Asma Khan,
What do you hope people will take away from attending the conference as well?
Well what I hope they will take away is, I guess partly a sense of community that, you know, there’s a whole load of people in the industry riding towards doing things better, and that they’re part of that and I think, you know, the hospitality industry is has had to be very brave this year and will have to continue being quite brave over the next few months, I imagine. And so it’s really helpful to feel that sense of community. So I think that’s one thing but I also hope, obviously from the sessions that they keep away, practical advice that they can implement within their business. But also, you know, that energy and enthusiasm and inspiration that gives them the momentum to actually go for it. So yeah, a mix of things.
Thank you, Domini. Also I saw in the in the literature that you’ve set up a community platform. What do you hope to do with that, after the conference concludes?
Yeah, so we’ve, we’ve launched the food web community, as, as part of a means of networking throughout the conference. So we really want to encourage engagement and people to meet each other, and network, and there’ll be plenty of networking opportunity throughout the conference, as well as a cocktail shake long at the end which I think should be good fun. But beyond the conference, what we, what we see the food web, coming is a really a platform for thought leaders within the hospitality industry, and one which is, is a collaborative space where you know people can contribute to what each other are doing, and support each other, and, and find opportunities where they can actually benefit from working together. And so, that’s something that I would love to see, you know, continue beyond the conference itself.
Thank you Domini. And finally, can you tell our listeners how they can join the conference, and come along with you.
Yes, absolutely. So, you just need to go to: https://triedandsupplied.com/better-hospitality-conference/. Also, if you go to our website triedandsupplied.com and just click on conference you’ll get there too. And it’s just a question of registering. From there, which will also give you free access free membership to the food web community in the long term as well so that’s that’s kind of part of joining the conferences, you’ll get that as well.
Thank you, Domini.
Above images; SRA on sustainability.James Bates and David Chenery. Jimmy Woodrow
