Lindley Venue Catering – the specialist sports stadia catering division within the Lindley Group – is rolling out a range of innovative, branded, food retail concepts aimed at raising the quality standard and presentation of food and improving the speed of service on sports stadia public concourses.
Following the successful installation of some of the new branded outlets at Tottenham Hotspur FC’s White Hart Lane stadium, Lindley Venue Catering is making several new branded premium food retail concepts* – Frank’s Original New York Streetdogs™, The Pie Factory®, Pie & Mash Co, FGB – Flaming Good Burger™, Henry’s Chicken™, as well as bespoke deli concepts – available to its 30-plus professional football and rugby stadia clients. Stoke City FC’s Britannia Stadium, Ipswich Town FC’s Portman Road and Warrington Wolves RUFC’s Halliwell Jones stadia are amongst the first venues to benefit from the branded retail roll-out.
At the same time, Lindley – which has an established partnership with Starbucks Coffee Company (UK) and has introduced the ‘We Proudly Serve’ Starbucks coffee proposition into stadium environments – is expanding the provision of Starbucks making it more widely available to stadia both on the public concourse and in hospitality areas.
Adam Elliott, CEO at The Lindley Group, says: “Stadia public catering has long been Lindley’s core business and, with our substantial experience in this marketplace, we believe that we are in the best position to lead the field when it comes to enhancing the food experience of sports fans around the country. The quality and innovation that we have seen in branded retail food outlets on the high street, in mainstream visitor attractions and within other leisure venues hasn’t, until now, been evident in sports stadia.
“The aim of our new foodservice retail brands is to raise the bar in terms of quality, customer service and, ultimately, spend per head in stadia market, and the results achieved have been extremely positive and have prompted us to roll out these brands to other sites.”
The hot dog, pie and deli branded concepts were launched at Tottenham Hotspur’s White Hart Lane in the autumn and, as well as receiving very positive feedback from fans, have produced an 18% increase in total cash takings; a 28% increase in hot dog sales; and 19% increase in pie sales.
Elliott adds: “Gary Bates, The Lindley Group’s Creative Director, and our Executive Development Chef, Andy Wardle, have been instrumental in developing the new retail concepts and we have taken a holistic approach to improving the foodservice offer within our public kiosks.
“As well as introducing innovative and premium quality food products such as – hot pork torn sandwiches, homemade hot pot and homemade curries; we’ve also improved the packaging of hand held food; and our new branded kiosks have also been ergonomically designed to optimise the speed of customer transactions with the aim of enabling serving staff to complete an average transaction in 30 seconds or less.”
*Lindley Venue Catering’s branded food retail concepts include:
Frank’s Original New York Streetdogs™ – offers a premium hot dog in the sports environment. Naturally smoked over kiln dried Beech wood, and made with high-quality pork and a natural casing, the hot dogs are served in a soft dough roll with American mustard or ketchup and thyme-flavoured onions.
The Pie Factory® – another trademarked retail concept selling Lindley’s new bespoke pie range which has been developed in partnership with an artisan baker. Made with no artificial flavours or preservatives, the pies have a leaner, higher-quality meat content and offer a broader range including: a Bombay Vegetable Pie; the Pea Supper Pie – lean minced British beef in an onion gravy on a bed of Lockwoods Mushy Peas; and a Chicken Balti Curry pie in a spice infused pastry.
FGB – Flaming Good Burger™outlets serve flame-grilled high quality, burgers made with prime lean cuts of 100% British beef, served in warm ciabatta rolls with a selection of delicious salads and dressings. Lindley claims the flame grilled taste really stands out against ‘standard’ burgers while the quality of the ciabatta roll really helps to emphasise that this is a premium product.
Henry’s Chicken™ offers southern-fried in either a delicious burger or wrap with crisp salad and fresh salsa, with options of an original ‘Hot & Spicy’ or ‘regular’ recipe.
The Deli which will feature the postcode of each specific venue in its title – for example, at White Hart Lane it is known as the N17 Deli –serves fresh high-quality deli sandwiches, baguettes, wraps and boxed pasta salads. With the roll-out of the retail concept to other stadia venues the Deli menu is being extended to include homemade soup and freshly made salt beef and smoked salmon bagels.