Gaucho boss: Restaurant menus featuring more seasonal produce could be ‘silver lining’ of high inflation
Restaurants shifting to more seasonal menus may be the “silver lining” of sky-rocketing food prices, Gaucho boss Martin Williams has said.
Hospitality venues have been forced to grapple with heightened prices for vegetables and proteins this year, in addition to energy bill increases that bosses say pose an existential threat to the sector.
However, the chief of Rare Restaurants – which owns the M and Gaucho steak restaurant chains – told CityA.M. these pressures may push chefs into making more environmentally conscious menu decisions
Restaurants being forced to be more conscious about seasonal produce was “not necessarily a bad thing,” Williams told CityA.M.
The restauranter pointed to the French model, “where you will have asparagus two months a year” and said the world needed to “stop eating so many avocados” anyway.
If high prices pushed the industry to be more environmentally conscious, then it was “at least a silver lining” of the current pressures facing venues.
“It’s a time when the sector needs to be brave,” Williams said, praising the restaurant sector’s progress towards net zero over the past two years.
“It would be very easy for it to be the first thing that is dropped [by struggling businesses,” he said.
However, environmentally conscious options are not going to be the “make or break” for businesses, with headwinds increasing by record levels, Williams added.
Pubs have reported increases to energy bills of around 400 per cent, with many forced to go onto emergency daily tariffs due to difficulties negotiating affordable long-term contracts.
Martin echoed industry calls for more government support as venues approach the colder months, such as a VAT cut, business rates relief and a relaxation of green levy payments to ease the burden of energy price rises.
Energy prices were rising at such a significant level that it “basically obliterates any profitability for restaurants that haven’t frozen or been lucky enough to get fixed rates for a long period,” Williams said.
Prime Minister Liz Truss said last week that there would be a six month scheme offering “equivalent” support as provided to households, which will benefit from a cap on energy prices.
However, industry bosses have said they await further detail on this scheme and have called for additional support measures as venues attempt to recover from the side effects of Covid lockdowns.
Rare Restaurants has fixed energy prices across 22 venues but would have otherwise suffered a £3.5m hit to profitability.
“To maintain margins this would mean steaks would have to triple in prices to beyond £100,” the Gaucho boss said earlier this month.
Financial pressures had led to consumers “dining out less, but when they do, they’re dining out better,” Williams said.
Rare’s estate of restaurants, which has just seen a new M venue open at Canary Wharf, had been a “beneficiary” of diners premiumising.
Diners were eager to prioritise quality and seasonality, making a “conscious decision” to opt for carbon neutral steak, he said.
However, the sector as a whole was facing a slowdown of consumer spending that would continue as high inflation wages on, the restauranter acknowledged.