Independents' day

All too often, when you think of F&B outlets in the Middle East you think of hotels — fair enough, in a society where such a large portion of dining out does indeed happen at hotels.

But as the mall culture takes off across the region, while a multitude of mixed-use developments come into play, independent outlets are coming into their own — and not even the economic downturn appears to be dampening spirits.

According to Casper & Gambini's Worldwide chief executive Anthony Maalouf, business so far this year has been good, with “seasonal trends similar to previous years at an increase in revenue on the regional level by 10%”.

“The mall trend is ever on the rise — people have adapted greatly to the ‘one-stop shop’ system, thus business in malls in general has been better than ever,” he asserted.

The brand has established a holding company, Ant Ventures Holding, which will manage Casper & Gambini’s as well as two new concepts — Eatalian, a modern take on traditional Italian dining, opening in Lebanon; and Falafel Nadia which aims to revive the falafel tradition with gourmet falafel sandwiches and salads, opening in Kuwait and later Lebanon.

This strong pipeline displays real confidence in both the market and the product — and this company isn’t the only one feeling positive.

Egyptian brand L’aroma Gourmet Coffee’s partner and operations director Nadder Montassir said that its café concept had been “lucky enough not to experience any major effects of the global recession so far”.

“In fact, our forecast for this year indicates a healthy increase in sales over last year,” he continued. “This, we believe is attributed to the nature of our business, as people still socialise in cafés, coupled with the relatively stable economy in Egypt.”

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Al Tayer Trends’ brand manager for Caffe Nero, Simon Holroyd, was similarly positive about the brand’s launch earlier this year, which he said was met with “a very enthusiastic response”.

“Early March saw us launch the Caffe Nero brand in the UAE, with our flagship store in The Dubai Mall, followed by two more stores in Dubai Marina Mall and Al Hamra Mall in Ras Al Khaimah soon after,” he explained.

Of course, even with such a positive outlook, there are necessarily certain challenges to be faced, as Casper & Gambini's Maalouf pointed out.

“We have revamped our traditional image to a more modern, nature- and people-oriented one, providing tasteful products to people who love their taste in life, taste in service, taste in clothes,” he explained.

“It was a big challenge, to successfully launch our new identity across our 23 regional operations, from delivery and catering materials to the outlets themselves. We had to do all this and also ensure that we remained an industry leader, on both the coffeehouse and restaurant levels.

“But we are continuously looking for new offerings, enhanced products, the latest trends, and whatever it takes to stand out as a brand; and it is this forward-thinking ethos that has moved us to where we are today,” he said.

L’aroma’s Montassir said the major challenges he had noted across the Egyptian F&B industry were the scarcity of qualified staff and high staff turnover.

“For some reason, the F&B profession is still looked down upon as a ‘servant profession’ as opposed to a ‘service profession’,” he commented.