Fig - food service - Consultancy Ltd

06/08/2026

How much MORE time can you waste ??

Last Saturday a message came through our website: "Help. My EHO."
A business owner had been losing sleep for weeks, convinced the EHO had it in for them. When I visited, the fix took one conversation.
The problem was never the EHO. It was assumptions — about staff, about systems, about what was actually happening on the ground.
Sound familiar? You'd be surprised how often it does.
What are you worrying about right now that you haven't actually gone and looked at yet?

29/07/2026

How much do you pay for your Coffee ??

It's funny how we now use coffee as the benchmark for the price of everything.

"A two-course primary school meal costs around £2.60... yet people think nothing of paying £4 for a decaf latte."

Whether you agree with the comparison or not, it says something about how our perception of value has changed.

My Dad (God rest his soul) grew up in a very different world.

Coffee wasn't something you grabbed on the way to work every morning. If you had one at work, it usually came from a vending machine, and even then it barely resembled coffee. Dad was a tea drinker anyway, and the thought of paying more than £3 for a coffee with milk would have horrified him.

Occasionally he'd pay 30p for a cup of coffee at church, and that was about as extravagant as it got.

Dont get me started on bottled water. Imagine trying to explain to my grandparents that one day we'd happily pay more for a bottle of water than they paid for a gallon of petrol.

Who remembers when monkfish was considered the cheap alternative to scampi because scampi was difficult to get hold of? Fast forward a few decades and scampi in a basket has become a nostalgic pub classic, while monkfish is now regarded as something of a delicacy.

Even milk has had a remarkable journey.

My grandfather had a milk round, and one of Dad's jobs before school was as the "can lad". He'd travel with him by horse and cart, carrying milk from house to house. Fresh milk was poured from a churn into each family's milk can.

Back then, once the cream had risen, the watery milk that remained, the equivalent of what we now call skimmed milk, was often thrown away because it wasn't considered to contain the goodness of full-fat milk.

Of course today, we actively seek it out

It's fascinating how our attitudes towards everyday food and drink evolve.

What was once ordinary becomes premium.

What was once discarded becomes desirable.

And what one generation considered unthinkable often becomes completely normal for the next.

It makes you wonder...

What are we buying today that our grandchildren will find impossible to believe?

27/07/2026

The Most Expensive Employee is Often the Cheapest One !!

In the current climate with both NI and National Living Wage increases, overall margins are tighter than ever, so it's natural for a manager or business owner to ask - "Do we really need another chef, or could we get someone cheaper ?"

We see this time and again.

The assistant is asked to "step up". They receive a small pay rise, whilst the business saves a few thousand by not replacing the staff member.

Everyone thinks they've made a smart financial decision.

Until reality sets in.

The assistant isn't a bad chef, they are simply not an experienced chef yet.
they don't know the ordering cycle, or how to extract the maximum yield from every ingredient. They are not sure how to correctly chop every vegetable, or slice correctly to ensure consistent portions every time.
Recipes become less consistent, food costs increase, margins begin to disappear.

Then someone else takes over the ordering. Instead of buying the right product, they pick the cheapest , and ingredients arrive that don't fit the menu. Storerooms become filled with stock that nobody knows how to use.

Waste increases

And whilst the business has "saved" £12k in wages, it quietly loses more through waste, poor margins, inconsistent quality and unhappy customers.

Sometimes the cheapest employee turns out to be the most expensive person in the building.

10/07/2026

What Queues Tell You

Queues, Cues, Cues ... one of those annoying little words in the English language that has two different spellings and three different meanings.
Now, if you're an actor or a pool player, you know which one is which. But queues are the bane of our lives. In the main, we hate them because they are everywhere we go.

From the endless snaking lines at the airport, to concerts, roadworks, public transport, and the supermarket checkout, it seems you can't go anywhere these days without someone in your party saying,

"OMG, look at the queue !"
But however you spell them, and however you look at them, they're not all bad. A queue can signify something that's popular. Some people see a queue, have no idea what it's for, but join it anyway. How many times have you wandered down the high street and said,
"What are they queueing for?", is there a sale ?,
is it closing down ? . shall we join ?

When you're driving and you see the traffic cones out, how annoying is the person (usually a BMW driver with a private number plate!) who waits until the very last second before the cones run out, then tries to nudge their way in? How does that make you feel? Does it make you angry? Are you not bothered? Or do you pretend you haven't seen them and purposely close the gap, forcing them to wait?

How close do you stand to someone in a queue? Close enough to read their phone messages (for fear that someone might push in), or do you give them a bit of space? It reminds me of the comment made to me at an airport by a French lady: "Excuse me, you're invading my personal space." This was despite the fact she insisted on leaning back and whacking into me with her carry-on rucksack every time the queue moved!
The best queues, in my opinion, are food queues. They usually mean the food is worth waiting for. Although, after spending years working in school catering, I know that not everyone sees it that way. Teachers often spot a queue in the canteen and immediately start imagining a full-scale riot breaking out before the Year 9s have even reached the pasta pots.

They secretly think the catering team must be too slow... when, in reality, they're often serving around 90 pupils a minute and wondering what more they can physically do without issuing roller skates.

Now, before you wonder, there is no deep moral meaning to this post. It's just an observation that, loathe them or accept them, queues can tell you a lot about our own behaviour—and that of others.

How do they make you feel?

Have a nice Day !!

27/05/2026

I wrote this post last year, but following the recent spell of good weather and as we approach festival and event season again, its content is even more relevant this year

£15 for what is basically a fancy Sandwich ? - Are you ‘avin a giraffe?”

“Wow — you must be raking it in!”

That’s the classic reaction many food truck owners and street food caterers hear from customers and (sometimes) event organisers too.

The truth - street food is not a gold mine .... it’s hard graft.

Unlike a restaurant that can manage stock daily and run ‘specials’ to avoid waste, food vendors often face the opposite. If they don’t sell out at an event, much of that food goes straight in the bin.

And that £15 ? It’s not just paying for your lunch. It’s covering:

✅ Pitch fees (which don’t guarantee footfall)
✅ Fuel for towing a 3.5-tonne mobile kitchen
✅ Disposable serveware, cleaning materials, gas, and prep time
✅ A prep day before and a clean-down day after
✅ Stock that might never sell and can’t always be reused

We haven't even covered Labour and food cost yet

Oh, and let’s not forget the unknowns:
❗️ Poor event promotion
❗️ A mismatch between the food offer and the crowd
❗️ Zero insight from organisers on what the audience actually wants

Unfortunately there a number of organisers out there who are interested in the "pitch fee" that they charge the caterer. They have no real interest in how that caterer will trade.

or comments like.

We need a cheap burger van, not fancy street food, can you do something for a fiver ? our crowd won’t pay for it.”

We help bridge the gap advising event organisers on how to support vendors fairly, and helping traders plan realistically and profitably.

Because street food done right adds real value — but only when the setup, audience, and offer are aligned.

08/04/2026

So the weekend was quite nice weather wise.
Inbetween the competitive lawn mowing – (has next door mowed their lawn ? does ours need mowing ) , we ventured out with family for a meal out.

I’m always nervous about eating out on Bank Holidays and big calendar event days like Mothers Day or Easter, not because of the big crowds, but I know that its some of the most stressful within the hospitality calendar, when the general public go from perfectly nice people to the evil white striped gremlin from the film of the same name when their family days out become awful for any and everyone having the displeasure to serve them.

Anyway, I digress, and regarding this weekend, we visited a nice pub in the Midlands, was reasonably busy and service was ok, big tick.

The thing that let them down was…. Flavour !!.

Every cookery programme that has ever landed is constantly telling you to season, nothing fancy, just salt and pepper, so easy, it’s the base point of any kitchen
So if its so easy, why would a busy pub / restaurant get it so wrong?

The answer- when is gets busy, standards slip, I imagine that the priority was to send out food because it was ready ... not because it was right.
Sounds basic and it is . One of the first rules taught at catering college is
- Taste, season , and then Taste again.
In the end its not a big menu that fills the carpark, it’s the simple things done well that keeps them coming back.

Get the foundations right, the rest will follow.

26/03/2026

A Calm Response, expands Control. - article by Ben Sterling.

A saw this article earlier this week but I thought that it is so true of how most of us respond under pressure- i.e. you get an email that you read in a certain way, depending on your state of mind at the time, and you fire back with a curt response, only to regret it later.

Anyway, have a read , its about Resilience.

Capacity increases when your response becomes more regulated than the initial trigger.
Our emotional reactivity narrows perspective and drains mental bandwith. Calm response preserves clarity.

Physiologically, pausing before reacting reduces adrenaline spikes and allows the prefrontal cortex to stay engaged. This improves decision- making and protects energy.

This is not about suppressing emotion, it is about regulating it.

Think of a recent situation that got you frustrated.

How quickly did you respond ?
What might a slower response have changed ?

When something unexpected happens today, pause for 5 seconds before speaking or acting .

Have a good day 😉

17/03/2026

𝗪𝗲𝗹𝘀𝗵 𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗺 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗦𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗹 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘀

The Welsh Government has just published its Interim Report on the Universal Primary Free School Meals (UPFSM) policy.

If you are a Headteacher or School Business Manager in Wales, here are the 3 critical takeaways you need to know, and what you should do next:

Priority 1 - The eFSM Funding Trap- (eligible free school meals)
Because all primary children now get free meals, many parents are no longer registering for income-related Free School Meals (eFSM).
This misunderstanding directly threatens your Pupil Development Grant (PDG) allocations

Priority 2. The Lunchtime Squeeze
With more children eating hot meals, school infrastructure is feeling the strain. Larger schools are reporting longer queues, rushed eating, and chaotic dining environments. Lunchtime now starts earlier in the day in larger 2- 3 form entry schools, impacting on lesson time

Priority 3. The Uptake
Whilst younger , infant children engage well, the older junior children, less so, generally because they are the last to be fed, and are rushed for afternoon lessons to start again.

For a more detailed breakdown of this post and the action that schools need to take go to : https://blog.fig-consultancy.org

06/03/2026

Why the Traditional Pub Has All But Disappeared !!

So you've all seen our pubs disappearing over the past 20 years , squeezed by falling beer sales, supermarket alcohol pricing, rising costs, and perhaps most frustratingly, the complex relationships between tenants and large pub companies.

And while there's been plenty of debate in Parliament and the industry about how to fix it, what you may not know until you read this article, (at which point you'll wonder how you ever survived a pub quiz without it) is something called the Pub Code.

The Pub Code, which turns 10 years old this year (no birthday party planned, fittingly enough), was introduced to make things fairer in theory for pub companies and tied tenants.

At its heart, a tenant landlord, or "tied pub," must buy their beer and sometimes other drinks from the pub company that owns the building. Seems fair enough: landlord gets a pub, pub gets a tenant who sells their beer. Everyone's happy. In theory.

In practice, tenants feel they pay high prices for the beer, high prices for rent, and have little chance of renegotiation once the lease is signed. Less "partnership," more "hostage situation with a beer tap."

So the government stepped in and introduced the Pub Code in 2016 to make the relationship between the two a little more balanced. The system works on just two main principles:

Pub companies must be fair to their tenants

A tied tenant should be no worse off than a "free of tie" tenant

Simple enough on paper. Less simple when the pub company in question is a faceless corporation whose idea of "fairness" involves a lot of small print.

Want to know more ?? - read the full article at

https://blog.fig-consultancy.org

11/12/2025

Let's be Honest ! - this year for many has been ... well a bit s**t really. Could be work, family, the budget, or the current weather.

When you get on a train, you want to board quietly, find a seat- (or stand in a corner), put your headphones on, and silently hope that nobody sits next to you.

"it's the British thing !!".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xctzp0dp9uc

Well - have a look at this- (it is old, but always worth a rewatch), it may just put a smile on your face and lift your spirits .... Have a nice day 😃

Monday morning blues is spontaneously transformed into glorious public sing-a-long! Best i've ever seen. Full story behind this morning can be found here ht...