Customer Relations

My favourite kitchen shop sells everything from basic wooden spoons and saucepans to weird and wonderful gadgets and gizmos. One of the most eye-catching is the banana guard. The bright plastic holder ‘protects the fruit in your lunch box’. But try explaining that to anyone if you whip it out on the bus. Then there’s Happiness Tea, a mood enhancing brew from a company called Today Is Fun. It’s a blend of tea that – along with Sleepy and Expectancy – comes with its own life philosophy. A cup in the morning can, in short, change your life and, like the banana guard, it’s guaranteed to start up conversation. Casual Dining – the new trade event for the UK’s £6.7bn casual dining sector — is full of the weird and the wonderful in the casual dining sector. And some inspiring ideas that could serve as a point of difference for your street food business. How about eye-catching menu cases with battery-operated additions?  A glass froster? A High Speed Grill (HSG), which combines breakthrough microwaves with infrared technology — six times faster than a standard panini grill? You’ll leave feeling slightly geeky, and amazed at the indignities that humans will put themselves through for a tiny cube of free cheese, but — quite possibly — armed with a new BIG IDEA. If you can’t make it along at the end of February, make sure to come to Caffe Culture, on May 14-15, which will have a dedicated street food programme and a roundtable of some of the biggest names in the business.