Christian Gradnitzer was speaking on the opening panel of the Caterer Middle East Chefs & Ingredients Forum 2013.
Dubai’s hotels are failing to achieve consistency with their restaurant and bar brands, according to Jumeirah Hotels & Resorts group culinary director Christian Gradnitzer, who is in charge of 194 outlets.
Speaking at the Caterer Middle East Chefs and Ingredients Forum, held yesterday at InterContinental Dubai Festival City, Gradnitzer said he hoped 2014 would bring “stabilization” and much-needed “consistency behind brands”.
He advised learning from the success of franchises currently operating in the UAE, such as Cheesecake Factory and Shake Shack.
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“I think [franchises] are successful because of consistency; they guarantee consistency working within the market. You have one good experience, you go back; you don’t get it, you don’t go back,” he told the 120 assembled chefs.
“Every brand has a market. Take Cheesecake Factory in this market: Cheesecake Factory is the most successful franchise brand in the market from a revenue perspective, from a profitability perspective because of the volume. We would have many comments on this — from us as professionals, being proud chefs and believing in what we do — however, they do something right because they create for the most credibility and I believe strongly that we can do that,” asserted Gradnitzer.
The problem with hotel F&B operators was the desire “to satisfy everybody and everything within our concepts,” he continued.
“We confuse through that and don’t determine concepts anymore,” he said. “Things are not always good, summer is always a low time, yes the market is full, it’s busy but suddenly we start stacking everything on our menus because we believe we can make an extra dirham on it but what we actually do through that, we lose our consistency, we lose our loyalty.”
Also addressing the conference, Gates Hospitality CEO Naim Maddad agreed that “we see this time after time”.
“We see a lot of operators try to copy successful brands rather than actually sticking to their guns saying ‘this is what we’ve opened, this is what we’re supposed to deliver, this is what we’re all about, let’s do it, let’s do it well’,” said Maddad.
Gradnitzer added that the fact Dubai relies largely on imported products should enable it to maintain consistency of product.
“Take Shake Shack – the majority of their products don’t come from this region, they come from overseas and through that they achieve consistency and through that they achieve loyalty, customer base. Within the room surely everybody has brands you go back to every week, every two weeks because you want it, you know what you are going to get, and you won’t be disappointed. And that’s where we step down,” he admitted.
“We don’t deliver on our promises,” Maddad said.
“It’s a brand marketing promise but [franchises] won’t change their product in bad times to keep the cash flow — they have other ways, it’s predicting, it’s forecasting, it’s working with global partners,” added Gradnitzer.
For a full report of the Caterer Chef and Ingredients Forum, see the November issue of Caterer Middle East.
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