SO yesterday I visited the NEC (big place, Birmingham, fairly ugly) to take a look around the BBC Good Food Show, and its sister show the BBC Gardeners’ World show. For anyone who’s never visited the Good Food Show, imagine MasterChef meets Ludlow Food Festival meets a very fancy sweet shop. It’s the sort of place that if you had £300 in your pocket you’d spend it, as everything’s nice and everything’s ‘20% off today only’. I wouldn’t recommend going if you’re skint, and I wouldn’t recommed going if you’re on a diet. But if you like fudge, gin and chocolate, fill yer boots, you’re in the right place…
So how much did I spend? Well actually nothing. I was there to work. Not that I sure it would have been frowned upon had I returned with some goosebury flavoured fudge, or whatever the latest trend is, but because some places were cash only (seriously, cash only…. 30,000 customers a day, and you’re sending away people who want to pay by card. It’s 2018. I very rarely carry cash, take note if the stand selling yoghurt was yours, I would have bought some) and although there’s cash machines in the ‘atrium’, I really do object to paying £2.25 to withdraw a ten pound note. How on earth do they justify that? £2.25!
But I did drift around, speaking to stallholders (when they had the time, it’s a busy show), talking about packaging. And there’s definitely been a ‘post Iceland’ shift. Green, eco, environmentally-friendly, compostable, plastic-free, whatever you want to call it, people are looking for it at the moment. And I think it’s fair to say, in many cases, they can’t find it…
‘You can make that compostable?’ was a fairly frequent response. ‘Really? We need to talk, contact me after the show’. It’s happening. There’s been definite shift and the appetite’s there to remove non-eco-friendly packaging. But people don’t know where to start. They don’t know what their options are, what their first move should be. Well folks, your first move should be to contact Sirane….as we can help.
MARK LINGARD, MARKETING
