By Matthew Staff

Johannesburg has been the base camp for OPEN Food’s expansion and diversification over the past decade, laying the groundwork for the catering and event management company’s growing international ambitions.

OPEN Food is exploring new horizons, new sectors and new territories as it stays true to an entrepreneurial ethos which continues to keep the catering specialist ahead of the industry curve and market competition year after year.

Founded in 1999, initially as a small catering company in Johannesburg tailored towards private events, the diversification and expansion of the group that has occurred ever since has been indicative of an ethos to never rest on its laurels and a commitment to ensuring the very best customisable offering to each and every client.

At present, the service variety now comprises – on top of its original catering activities – a recently introduced retail arm and a to-order production division that incorporates everything from ready-to-bake muffins to bespoke production for luxury lounges in the aviation sector.

Finance Director, Richard Friend, recalls, “In 2006 when I joined the company, OPEN Food had a change in direction in what we wanted to achieve moving forward with regards to their style of catering. We began doing more production work and taking on bigger contracts, as well as opening up into retail since then, but whatever we tried to go into, OPEN Food always made it unique and its own.”

Whenever a new canteen was opened, OPEN Food ensured that it was an exciting new addition to the market, offering a competitively priced meal, but in a style incomparable to older, traditional canteen concepts in Johannesburg.

“Everything that OPEN Food has tried to do has revolved around creating nuances and customising every new contract for that particular client,” Friend continues. “Across the divisions, OPEN Food offers something very unique and each month we look to see how we can push contract sites forward, in order to make them new, fresh and exciting and to ensure we never rest on our laurels.”

Business growth

At the core of OPEN Food’s philosophy is an unwavering commitment to client satisfaction; a facet which many companies struggle to retain as they grow. The business has managed to buck this trend, however, in ensuring that, despite being a prominent and large market player, it still operates as a small enterprise.

“As much as our turnover has increased, we still run with the same ethos that was there when the company began,” Friend explains. “The employee numbers have increased and our operations have expanded but we still treat and every client as if they are our only client.”

“The food and service will always speak for itself, but in a market like this, it’s about going that bit further and seeing how else we can help with a client’s contract so that they want to come back for more.”

“We know where we came from and we know how we got to where we are now; by treating our clients like they were our only client.”

To achieve this positive word of mouth across divisions, it is vital for the business to find a balance between not being pigeonholed into one sector above another, but to also ensure it has a reputation that bridges each division.

Aiding this drive is a concerted and ongoing approach to capital expenditure, ensuring OPEN Food stays ahead of the industry curve and up-to-date with the very latest internal procedures and technologies.

Friend says, “As we grow, the business needs to grow, taking into account our structures and facilities. As a result we have invested R1.8 million into a new internal system and are in the process of introducing a new facility for R12.5 million to cater for the latest in food safety trends and production requirements.”

Consistent quality

In terms of acquiring new business and adding even further strings to the OPEN Food bow, the company has already earmarked between two and four big new contracts a year, as well as an additional three retail outlets being opened up this year to complement its first foray into the domain.

To facilitate such a proactive and dynamic approach to attaining new contracts, though, requires a solid and consistent internal process across personnel and the supply chain.

Regarding the latter, Friend notes, “We employ someone in head office specifically to handle procurement, making sure that we don’t just move something off or on the menu. Instead we find new ways to cook and new ways to use different aspects of the menus.”

This integrated approach continues across the Group having worked alongside the majority of key business partners throughout its own rise to industry prominence; purchases with some suppliers rising as much as 1000 percent over the past seven years in some cases.

“It’s all about the consistency of quality; and the moment you chop and change suppliers, is the moment that consistency and quality starts to suffer,” Friend emphasises. “The same goes for our employment strategy where we look to promote from within and raise people up the ranks, ensuring they’re never doing just one thing the whole time and giving the skill sets to improve.”

Unique service

A stable core to operations has been the ideal platform for OPEN Food’s expansion over the years and will continue to be so as the company looks even further afield in the years to come.

With an international expansion plan on the business’s doorstep, the strategy will be able to find a balance between utilising local labour talent in each new region, yet leveraging existing partners, many of whom already enjoy a cross-border presence.

Additionally, the company is also in the planning stage of establishing a new kitchen solely tailored towards the production arm of the business, which Friend expects to really take off across the aviation and hospitality industries in the next two to three years.

“On the retail front, we have a goal of opening at least two new stores a year and getting into franchise opportunities, while from a catering perspective we want to separate the functions and events from our everyday catering activities to create bigger teams from each division,” adds Friend.

As the offering expands, so too will the geographic footprint, with neighbouring Southern African nations top of the agenda and Europe not beyond the realms of possibility further ahead, as a consequence of its influence on the airport scene.

“The concept of providing food and catering services for a number of business class lounges in Africa will be a new one for us, but we are always looking to provide new services to each client,” Friend concludes. “It’s all about sitting down with each owner and getting a sense of how we can do new things for their benefit. How we present a service to every client is unique and should never be copied, from our point of view.”

This year, we’ve been bombarded with so many diet trends it’s hard to keep up – low carb, no carb, high fat, bone broth, fermented and whole foods. It’s tough to tell fork from knife amidst the sheer number and diversity of health movements. But the common denominator we’re excited about is a shift away from processed foods, towards fresh, organic produce.

Superfoods, including goji berries, chia seeds and avocado, have had their time in the spotlight, with fermented foods, namely sauerkraut and kefir, gaining notoriety too. Proponents of high protein and stomach-healing diets have also put forward bone broths and gelatine as the cure for diet woes. Ancient grains, such as quinoa and Teff, were more prolific this year than ever before and hyperlocalism (only buying foods within a certain radius from where you live and eat) continued to gain popularity.

As conscious eating gained more momentum this year than ever before, restaurants and grocery stores have kept up. Gluten-free, sugar-free and low-carb options are peppering menus, mostly accompanied by the source of the ingredients (preferably farm-raised, free-range or organic).

Major retailers have taken advantage of the new wave of health-obsessed eaters, offering convenient ready-made meals and ready-prepared vegetables (zucchini noodles and cauliflower rice, amongst others) for those in pursuit of a wholefoods lifestyle, without the time and energy to prepare meals.

But with the proliferation of new, improved diet trends comes the inevitable pendulum swing. And although the trends might change there are a few things that are constant. Here’s a round-up of the new-generation diet principles that will stick:

1. Smaller portions, more often – or ‘grazing’. The elimination of food groups altogether isn’t encouraged, but a full, happy life, fuelled by real food is.

2. Whole foods. One thing every modern eating movement has in common is a closer assessment of what’s on our plates – a shift in consciousness to truly analyse the source of our food, how it’s produced and what we’re getting out of it. Factory farmed meat is not trendy, but everything organic and local is.

3. More veg. If you feel guilty about leaving a mountain of broccoli on your plate (in favour of macaroni cheese) when you were five, forget the guilt – vegetables are having a moment. They’re being eaten in every way imaginable – mashed, with spiced cinnamon butter, or as chips and spaghetti – and the one thing all diet trends have in common, is that they’re giving veg the thumbs up.

4. Ingredient awareness. This includes a more conscious and deliberate approach to back-of-the-pack browsing. If sugar is listed as one of the top three ingredients, it’s a no. Then there’s carb, protein and salt content. Whatever your enemy of choice, all new diet trends share the desire to know what’s inside.

5. It starts with condiments, and ends with stock and bone broth. Cooking and preparing food at home isn’t just cost-effective, it gives the maker complete control over ingredients, and rules out additives. Make it at home and, chances are, the final product won’t have a list of forty-five additives.

A few years ago, an airline lounge was a dingy room, in which you’d dump your bags between flights. Possibly chew on a stale sandwich, sip on a watery cappuccino and squeeze in a nap between departures, squashed against an uncomfortable faux-leather armchair.

Thankfully, bleak airport lounges are becoming a thing of the past. As our partnership with Slow Lounges grows and strengthens, we’re seeing a fundamental shift not only in the way people travel, but the way people appreciate what’s in between travel – a little extra comfort they’re provided by their chosen airline, which makes all the difference.

So why the mass move by airlines to better their lounges? As airline offerings become equalised – a flight is a flight and unless you’re travelling business or first class, there’s not a huge amount an airline can do to differentiate from its competitors – airlines have had to constantly improve their service offering outside the aircraft.

Airlines know if they can differentiate themselves, even slightly, with the added benefit of a lounge, a customer is more likely to choose them for their next trip.

As such, airlines have shifted their focus to improving the quality and efficiency of their lounges – starting with the bad coffee and stale sandwiches, and now offering so much more.

Universal flight mode

Another major influence in the expansion and upgrade of airport lounges is accessibility. Flight travel is no longer a once-a-year, exclusive experience – most professional individuals travel at least once a month, while the real business commuters, once a week.

Travel is now affordable and accessible. We’re living our busy lives in transit. We check emails in airport terminals. We eat breakfasts and dinners at airport restaurants. We plan our next adventure at the click of a button. It goes without saying that, as we increase our frequency of flight, we want airports to accommodate our standards of living – not the other way around.

This is the premise of the modern airport lounge: creating a level of comfort in an airport you’d expect from a hotel or a restaurant. Airlines have been forced to understand both business and leisure traveller needs and cater to their tastes, beyond the offer of chicken or beef. They now have to offer a full-service buffet, free Wifi and even facilities in which to shower and freshen up before your next flight (fresh towels included).

International flair

Lufthansa’s Frankfurt Airport Lounge now sports personalised wind-down areas, resplendent with oversized bath tubs, cigar lounge and nap rooms. Singapore Airlines’ Changi Airport Lounge offers guests the option to wander a butterfly garden and rainforest nature trail between flights. Turkish Airlines pulled out all the stops with their lounge in Ataruk Airport, which features a library and movie theatre.

While not completely necessary, these well-appointed lounge offerings showcase the swift move towards a lounge way of life. With the upgrade and revamp of OR Tambo’s lounges, local airports are set to follow suit with their own next-level offerings.

Amazing lounge experiences are going to become expected, not nice-to-have. What used to be seen as an elitist place beyond frosted glass doors will become the norm for airlines willing to go the extra mile to win over customers.

In South Africa, SLOW has changed the game as far as airport lounges go – and they don’t look set to stop anytime soon. Watch this space.

To find out more about OPEN Food’s partnership with SLOW, click here.

This month, we started serving ‘real’ smoothies at seven OPEN Food sites. We’re looking to roll this out to as many of our locations as possible. But if you’re looking to stop by for a frozen yoghurt-filled, creamy fruit drink, you’re barking up the wrong cup.

The truth is, we’ve lost the plot about what smoothies and juicing are all about. Travel overseas and order a smoothie from a reputable health restaurant – you’ll be served a delicious combination of vegetables, with a small amount of fruit (just a few pieces), nuts and some coconut water or almond milk to dilute it.

South African restaurants are set on serving super-sized cups of blended frozen fruit, combined with frozen yoghurt – or worse, ice cream – and fruit juice. Another ‘healthy’ option is an equally gargantuan glass of orange, pineapple and apple juice. We gulp it down, while convincing ourselves we’re doing our bodies a favour.

Not so sweet

What most of us (and too many restaurants) don’t know is the average smoothie or fruit juice contains just about as much sugar as a fizzy drink. It also contains about five times our recommended daily fruit allowance – without the fibre and goodness to keep us full afterwards. Perceived ‘heathy’ smoothies have essentially pulped nature’s own portion control.

In short, we need to abandon what we know about smoothies and juicing and adopt a more philosophical approach to ‘healthy’ fruit and vegetable drinks. Done right, a smoothie is a complete meal – or two – which can sustain the body and keep energy levels up for hours. It’s a meal on the go that fits in with our manically busy lifestyles while also being an excellent way to take in whole foods.

Be smooth

Smoothies and juices can also be a great way to avoid waste – we use loads of fresh vegetables and fruit offcuts from our restaurants in smoothies – always making sure they’re in the right quantities. You can do the same thing at home.

Some of our best combinations are goji berries and beetroot, or fennel, celery and spinach. Always make sure any smoothie you buy is sweetened with nothing but a small amount of fruit – added sugar is a no-no. Any liquids added to your smoothie shouldn’t be sweetened either – stay away from loads of fruit juice. Try smoothies made with wholesome coconut water, coconut milk or almond milk.