Who are these restaurant owners who are committed? How can you have an ecological, social and societal impact and stand out through concrete daily actions when you run a restaurant or a franchise?
Becoming a committed and responsible restaurateur is not necessarily easy. Innovorder invited 4 restaurant experts who decided to take up the challenge during a gourmet meet-up held at Innovorder.
Justin Wanecq, Customer Success Director at Innovorderwho served as master of ceremonies. On the program: an interview with the President of the Club de la FranchiseYves Sassi, followed by a round table discussion with Michael Cohen (Associate Director of Bagel Corner), Charles Cagnac (co-founder of Père & Fish) and Guillaume Beliard (Key Account Manager at Too Good To Go).
Introduction: diners and customers have new expectations
Justin: There are new expectations from diners and customers. Today, they want organic, local, home-made food, they like the storytelling behind the product - the story of the farmer behind the steak, etc. I read an interesting figure: 60% of French people would be ready to pay 3 euros more on their bill if the restaurant owner proves that he is committed, eco-responsible.
At Innovorder, our job is to support the restaurant industry. We support not only the digital shift of restaurant owners, but also their commitments, on our own scale of course, and via the tools we put in place: tablets for taking orders, reduction of tickets... For example, a sales outlet that issues a hundred tickets at lunchtime represents nearly 330 square meters of paper saved per year. The online ordering is also interesting for the personalization of the menu. Some restaurants use it to offer different portion sizes, which limits waste. We are happy to accompany this movement and to welcome you today around these themes.
Interview: Yves Sassi, Club de la Franchise
Q: What is the Franchise Club doing today for the restaurant industry?
I created the Club de la Franchise with the objective of bringing together franchise networks in all sectors of activity, especially start-ups at the beginning. Since then, the Club has taken a certain place in this universe. Our job is to get people with experience in the world of networks and business to talk to each other, to come up with ideas to help the franchise world renovate its image.
O'Tacos, Bagel Corner... the idea I have of the club is to give the franchise world a slightly "punchy" image. My job is to listen and then pass on, to say "I thought that", "I found that", and then the connections are made. The idea of the Club was to pass on from one to the other.
Q: Have you noticed this shift towards eco-responsibility among the chains you support?
I would go even further: we no longer have a choice today. It's a fundamental trend. The consumer will choose between the eco-responsible one and the one that is not... and he will take the one that is the closest to the planet. It's a fundamental trend, we can't say that we'll "see tomorrow": in the restaurant industry and in all professions, we have to adapt.
I have a little anecdote to illustrate all this, that of the hummingbird who, during a big forest fire, goes back and forth with a few drops of water in his beak to throw them on the fire. To another animal who mocks him, the hummingbird answers: "I do my part".
Everyone does their part. This is not commercial activism.
Q: What are the examples of chains where you have seen major changes or transformations to meet these new expectations, and sometimes to rejuvenate the customer base?
O'Tacos is a typical example, but also the Bertrand group with Hippopotamus. The shift was not made by saying "we're going to repaint in red", but rather by thinking about all the dimensions of the concept (...). I come back to my theory that in 2 years it will be a little different from now, and it will be a little different every time.
Today, it is no longer possible to tell a franchisee that for the next five years, "it will be this rule, this concept". Things are changing fast. My answer to Justin is that the job of the restaurateur and franchisor is toevolve as people want to evolve. Twenty years ago we used to say, "location, location, location, customer"... today it's still the customer, but a little less the location.
Round Table - Michael Cohen, Charles Cagnac, Guillaume Beliard
"I hope in five years we'll be saying, 'Why did we do it this way before?" (Michael Cohen, Bagel Corner)
Q: Can you introduce your background and what Bagel Corner, Father & Fish and Too Good to Go do?
Guillaume (Too Good To Go) : Too Good To Go is about giving everyone the option to do their own little action. We come back to the image of the hummingbird, trying to give everyone a way to do their bit. It's a platform to value unsold goods in the form of surprise baskets. We started with the first fruits and vegetables, then we were able to develop the offer with supermarkets, various brands, but also with commercial and collective catering. Food waste today is â…“ of food that goes into the trash every year, or 10 million tons.In terms of economic value, it's like destroying the GDP of Switzerland every year, 3 times the size of Lake Geneva. This is a social and environmental aberration.
Michael (Bagel Corner): As a user of the solution, I have to say that this is pretty mind-blowing. Bravo everyone! We are really happy to be partners of Too Good To Go. For my part, I founded Bagel Corner about ten years ago. We are developing under the brand license / franchise model. For a little more than a year, we have been very focused on the subject of commitment.
Charles (Father & Fish) : We are a smaller structure than Bagel Corner, because we only have one restaurant, specializing in fast food around fish. At the beginning, it was a business school project, which tried to take over the values of the family fish shop of one of the 4 founder friends. Today, we want to expand. We are in the process of acquiring a second restaurant at this very moment... we wish ourselves the same adventure as Bagel Corner!
Q: What does commitment mean to you? How did it come to you?
Charles: we had it in us from the start, trying to take up the values of the family fish shop. We only do wild fish, with the exception of red label Scottish salmon. We make it a point of honor to select only fish from sustainable fishing. It was very important from the start, and we did it from the beginning. We could have launched frozen fish to reduce costs, but we did not. That being said, we weren't perfect from the start at all to be honest... we had a lot of plastic in the packaging, but we got rid of all that and gradually went hard for containers, jars, that kind of thing.
Michael: Was it in the DNA from the beginning? More like it was in my genes, not my partners' genes. I had to convert them over the years. The notion of commitment must, in our opinion, be based on values that are already in the company and that are conveyed to the various businesses. It is a tripartite commitment, and we use Zei World as a tool to publish and track all the commitments that Bagel Corner makes publicly each year.
Justin: At Too Good To Go, it was in our genes from the beginning. The first markets were for fresh produce and local shops, and today for collective and commercial and commercial catering. How did this evolution come about?
Guillaume: With the fast food industry, it was done quickly because there were expectations on the subject and easy packaging of unsold food. The adaptation was more complicated for the mass retail sector. The subject is more in the capacity to convince people to change their habits. For some, the subject is in their DNA, for others it is necessary to convince them of the interest of not wasting.
Charles, you organized a clean-up operation with other restaurants, can you say a word about it and talk about the genesis of this project?
Charles: For us, for our customers I think, plastic is a subject that is very, very important. Our customers would "feel" us directly if we didn't pay attention to it. We wanted to change our habits, our packaging, etc., to show them that we were committed. We tested it by organizing a first waste collection at the bassin de la Villette... and I can tell you that there is not only plastic, but also 90% of cigarette butts and still filled bottles! At the beginning, we did it only for us and a few of our customers. It was a great success. For the second edition, we wanted to have a stronger impact and we surrounded ourselves with Pokawa and Pedzouille, which made a little more noise. It rained but it was a great success!
Question to Bagel Corner: what kind of discourse do you adopt, for what actions?
Michael: it is necessarily complex to get the message across to the franchisee, who thinks in a "business" way. For example, changing the packaging costs more; you have to find other actions to balance the balance and allow the franchisee to earn at least as much as before. This can be green electricity at a controlled price, etc. At Bagel Corner, we are in the mode of "we propose, we say that we have tested in our place and the potential advantages", then the franchisee can subscribe or not to this approach.
Q: What are the obstacles and difficulties encountered on a daily basis?
Charles: The first obstacle is probably the cost for the restaurant owner. Plastic is really cheap in terms of packaging... I would say about 3 times cheaper than a kraft packaging. After that, there are many recyclable solutions today, biodegradable corn starch... straws represent 6% of plastic waste in the oceans, it's huge! Our customers are very attentive to this: but starch looks very much like plastic... we had to put a small label to explain and, despite everything, some customers were thinking at the checkout.
There are two problems with responsible eco-packaging: the cost on the one hand, and informing the customer who in fact knows nothing about it. Even for us restaurant owners, it is not always easy to understand.
Q: On this point Guillaume, how do you convince restaurant owners? What are the obstacles?
Guillaume: One of the first objections is the impression that it takes a lot of time. But time is the key. We add a step which is to prepare a basket rather than to throw it away: it was a challenge to make them gain in simplicity and in time. There is also the fact of convincing the partners to adopt something new. Beyond the concrete action of reducing waste, there is also the economic contribution, the eco-responsibility and the impact on the image.
Justin : one of the differentiating elements of Too Good To Go is to bring the customer to the point of sale
That's one of the benefits they've realized very well. In addition to increasing the value of their products, they will also be able to have consumers who come to the store and take advantage of it to complete their purchases. Even if it is not a direct cross-selling, there is an interest in seeking the loyalty of a responsible population that will keep the address in mind and come back.
Q: How do you convince restaurant owners on a daily basis, especially your franchise network?
Michael: it must be said that there is no choice anymore. "Stop, that's it, we're moving", even if it's going to cost more at first. I like this notion of "little by little"; it's in this spirit that we launched the hashtag #passalaction: we no longer have a choice, we start even if it's not all at once, we go ahead, we put things in place.
Yves Sassi's speech: "changes in mentality will lead to changes in business
Michael : it's a very good argument for franchisees, who are more business-oriented
Guillaume: it's the same with the notion of containers that seem to be essential and yet are not always so. For example, many retailers ask us if they should prepare a specific packaging for Too Good to Go. We tell the consumer to come with his own packaging.
Q: There is a lot of talk about labels today. Is this an important element in your activities?
Michael: on eco-responsibility, it was during the research phase 18 months ago. We looked at a whole bunch of labels, including "made in France" which is important for packaging. However, we come back to the same subject: it's all very well to have a label, but the goal of all this is to have no more packaging. It's not unfeasible! If I take the example of Bagel Corner, you have the bag, the cup for the drink, the cutlery... all that can be processed. We market stainless steel cutlery branded Bagel Corner; the goal is not to make extra money, but to encourage customers to bring them from home. I hope that in 5 years we'll say "why did we do this before? Why didn't we do it before?". Our network and customer narrative is leaning towards that.
Charles: on the question of labels, at the beginning we paid particular attention to it. For fishing, there are different labels, MSC for example. Over time, we realized that the chain was very complex, sometimes corrupt, and that it was better to know your fish supplier. We have chosen to use suppliers who are closer to us, such as groups of fishermen from Brittany, who allow us to know how the fish are caught and offer us a traceability that we pay particular attention to.
A big thank you to all the participants, as well as to our partners on this event: The chocolate of the French, Chiche! and le Coq Toqué !
