David Small heads the team that is now conjuring up recipes bursting with creativity at Rail Gourmet’s new prupose-built Food Lab.  The London-based facility is equipped with the same ovens and other appliances that are used on-board trains, which means all new products considered for use on the company’s train service can be developed and tested in conditions that accurately replicate those on a working train service.

In addition, in July, Rail Gourmet won a Compassion in World Farming Good farm Animal Welfare award.

To meet the needs of the urbane Frankfurt consumer, SSP’s new outlets at the country’s busiest airport will include an inspired mix of highly regarded bars and restaurants from both the Frankfurt area and other parts of Germany, as well as famous international brands.

Lovers of Italian food will be able to choose to visit Lucullus NERO, while the Reingold bar will catpure the glamour of the city of Berlin in its 1920′s heydey.  SSP will also open a second temaki bar sushi concept, building on the success of the current outlet which is part of the airport’s popular Around the World food court at Terminal 1.  The highly successful coffee house, perfect day, will remain, and will be refurbished to re-open in 2013.

Mark Hallstein, senior food and beverage manager of Fraport sasy that having worked with SSP Germany for a number of years, he is very confident that the team can meet the high standards Fraport expects for its customers.  ‘SSP’s new bars and restaurants have proven appeal to consumers in Frankfurt and will help us to achieve our objective of creating an airport of individual style and character.’

Starbucks and SSP are set to expand Starbucks’ presence into Finland opening the first store at Helsinki Airport early 2012. The move comes just a month after Starbucks and SSP announced plans to open a store in Oslo Airport, Norway also in the first months of 2012.
SSP will operate two coffee houses at Helsinki Airport. One will be located in the arrivals hall where it will be accessible to passengers and visitors from the city. The other will be located past security. SSP will also be opening the first Swedish Starbucks accessible to non-travelling customers at Gothenberg and Malmö railway stations.  These  new stores will open in early 2012.

Commenting on the new  openings, SSP’s CEO Andrew Lynch said, ‘Since we opened the first Starbucks in Sweden, it has consistently performed above expectations. We’re delighted to now be building on this achievement with the opening of these new stores to bring the “Starbucks  Experience” to customers in Finland and Norway.’

Rich Nelsen, president of Starbucks Europe, Middle East and Africa said Starbucks was looking forward to meeting new customers in Helsinki, Gothenburg, Malmö and Oslo .’This expansion is consistent with our growth strategy to further develop our existing retail business in the travel channel with skilled and experienced partners like SSP.’

SSP and the Montreux Jazz Foundation have agreed an exclusive deal to open a number of Montreux Jazz Cafés at travel locations across the world. At least ten outlets are expected to be opened by the end of the ten year contract. Commenting on the deal, SSP CEO Andrew Lynch said; ‘The Montreux Jazz Café has proven ideally suited to the travel market. Offering a great menu served in an exciting and  entertaining environment, it is the perfect place to spend some time at the airport.’ Festival founder Claude Nobs believes SSP’s ability to take great brands and turn them into popular and commercially successful operations in the demanding travel environment makes it the best choice of partner for this venture. ‘The reputation of our brand is of crucial importance to us at the Montreux Jazz  Foundation. SSP has demonstrated it can present our brand in a way that enhances that reputation, bringing the thrill of the festival to an even greater audience.’

Among the new locations where the brand is set to make an appearance in the future is one of the iconic stations of Paris. The brand will be particularly well suited to the French market, where jazz has long been part of the cultural fabric of the country. The new outlet will capture the authentic atmosphere of the festival while also retaining the architectural character of the historic
location. It will offer a specially crafted menu that that is familiar and attractive to the French consumer, featuring a number of the café’s classic dishes. This latest agreement follows the successful operation of the existing restaurants at two of the world’s leading airports (Geneva and Sydney) and the announcement of the plan to open a third in December this year in Zurich.

The first Café opened at Geneva airport in 2008, and quickly established a reputation as not only a great restaurant, but also a venue for music fans. During the festival,  travellers visiting the café are able to watch concerts just a few hours after they have taken place at the Stravinski Auditorium or the  Miles Davis Hall. The café also hosts a number of live music events throughout the year.  The café at Geneva serves a high quality casual  dining menu developed in partnership with leading chef Gilles Dupont, and incorporating signature  dishes inspired by Claude Nobs’ favourite artists and their best known work. These include the BB cheeseburger, crispy shrimps with a wasabi tartar sauce and fried noodles, or Vienna turkey piccata served with lemon.

Richard Reed loves airports. ‘I’m fascinated by them,’ he says. ‘I’m a romantic and to me they’re places where adventures begin.’ Reed  also recognises the airport’s enormous potential for brands such as innocent. ‘Airports are a portal for the whole of society, and all the key people – from sports stars to politicians – will pass through them at some time. If a brand wants to make an impression, being at the airport is a great start.’ Reed knows a thing or two about making an impression – the launch of innocent saw the advent of a promotional style which relegated the marketing of the most on-trend FMCG companies to a previous era.

 According to Reed, coming up with a brand that has a unique persona means firstly simplifying and then amplifying what you do. ‘The hard bit’s understanding what you’re really all about. At innocent, we knew we wanted to be natural and we wanted to be pure. We then made sure that showed in everything from all our photography, the words on our packaging to the type face we used.’ Airports could do the same, Reed maintains. ‘An airport is a community and it will have a personality that people will react to emotionally. If it’s a personality they like, it also means they’ll give you a break if things go a bit wrong.’

Many have tried (and failed), to copy innocent’s quirky approach, but a brand’s personality must be founded on truth. ‘If you fake it, you just look like a dad dancing at a disco.’ And when asked if integrity matters in all business relationships, Reed’s answer is; ‘One million percent ‘yes’. The most valuable thing in business is trust, and a  commercial relationship between a business and its suppliers or a business  and its employees is so much more  efficient if it’s based on honesty.’ As a traveller, Reed looks for two different types of airport experience. ‘It’s not as simple as wanting different things when I’m travelling on business or for leisure. But ideally I want an experience that’s either ‘ultimate express’ or ‘ultimate leisure’.’  For the times when he just wants to ‘get the hell out as quickly as possible’, there’s plenty the airport business could do to help.

‘Airports could use technology more. It would be excellent if they could collect customer information on boarding passes rather than asking for it every time you want to buy a bottle of  water, for example, and I’d be one of the first people to have a chip put in my arm that’s a passport, wallet and credit card.’ Reed believes that airports still make the mistake of serving customers as they are served on the high street. ‘But nowhere are you more  conscious of time than at the airport. Airports wouldn’t need to charge a premium for better, faster service – they’d make more because they’d sell more.’ Similarly Reed says airports should be more imaginative about how passengers can fill their time while they’re waiting for a  flight. ‘You have an assured length of time at the airport. As well as fun things, it would be good if you could get some boring things done  like going to the dentist.’ We might not see dental surgeries at  airports in the very near future, but Reed’s vision of a day when there’s a ‘grass covered fridge full of innocent smoothies’ at many more airports across the world may not be too far away.

For those looking to chill with friends on a spa break to families in search of some high-octane fun, a Center Parcs village is the perfect place to get away from it all. Now there’s even more reason to visit. SSP, which has been operating at Center Parcs since 2007, is taking  over the operation of an additional eight existing food and beverage outlets across all four Center Parcs villages, with an agreement to develop a number of additional concepts for new location Woburn, which will open in 2013.

 Nathan Wall, Managing Director of SSP UK Air, said; ‘I’ve been a visitor to Center Parcs for over 20 years, so it’s particularly satisfying for me to be  involved with the parcs on a professional basis now too. Our new operations will showcase our excellent fast casual and casual dining brands including Dexters, which we already operate very successfully at Bristol Airport.’

One of the most prestigious names in French retail will be among the glittering choices which will soon be tempting travellers passing through Hall A of Roissy-Charles De Gaulle Terminal 2. The Fauchon story began in 1886, when grocer Auguste Fauchon opened a store on Place de la Madeleine to sell ‘the most unusual and refined products’.

 The brand still epitomises French chic and is known across the world for signature products such as champagne mustard, marrons glacés and strawberry and rose water preserves as well as ranges of over 100 teas, 50 vinegars and 50 honeys. The new outlet at Charles De Gaulle will comprise of three distinct offers. A café will serve a range of snacks, salads and patisserie as well as a breakfast selection while a retail area will sell a range of Fauchon chocolates,  preserves, gourmet groceries and gifts for the food enthusiast.

For passengers looking for a snack to take on a flight, a take-away area will offer an especially travelised selection of sandwiches, salads and cakes including Fauchon’s much-lauded macaroons.

The street food theme continued with the opening of Urban Crave at George Bush Intercontinental Airport’s Terminal C earlier in the year. In the spirit of the sleek ‘urban loft’ style, the design features rough textures and reclaimed materials including a bar top of riveted steel, while smooth, oversized grey and espresso-coloured concrete tiles evoke the authentic mood of the city.

Among the items on a menu described as ‘not timid and not for the timid’ are huevos rancheros of crispy corn tortillas topped with black beans, cheese, chipotle roasted salsa, sunny side up eggs and fresh sliced avocados, or vintage ceviche of fresh prawns, mahi-mahi, red onion, a touch of mango and red pepper.

SSP’s history in the airport market  began fifty years ago in Scandinavia. Today, the company’s Scandinavian operations remain among the finest examples of how to get it right in food travel retail.

SSP’s position as the leader in the field was cemented this summer when it clinched a five year deal to run 30 outlets at Oslo Airport. Several of the company’s successful local and international brands will ontinue to operate at the airport, and a number of these outlets will be refurbished as a part of the redevelopment of the terminal.

It was the success of its current operations at the airport, coupled with the company’s impressive brand portfolio, that were instrumental in securing the deal, according to Espen Ettre, Director of  Business Development and Real Estate at Oslo Airport. ‘SSP offered an outstanding range of bars, cafés and restaurants that are ideally suited to our passengers here at Oslo. They really understand the  travelling  consumer, and how to operate within the travel environment. The local  management team is a strong one, and we’re confident that SSP Norway will continue to meet the high expectations of our customers.’

Passenger numbers at the airport are forecast to rise from 19 million in 2010  to 22 million in 2012. The new contract will result in the creation of an additional 100 jobs, taking SSP’s  team at Oslo to a  total of over 800 people. 

SSP has made its first foray into another new European market with the agreement of a deal valued at 70 million euros to operate six new units at Vienna International Airport’s new Skylink terminal extension.

The new outlets will feature a selection of leading brands in international travel retail, as well as some of the finest names of Vienna. These include a food court from the luxurious food emporium Meinl (pictured right), which has been Vienna’s premier address for gourmets and connoisseurs since 1862.

Airport favourites Caffè Ritazza and Panopolis will also feature. Both Caffè Ritazza and Panopolis will incorporate local specialities on their menus, such as the famous Viennese Sacher-Torte and other cakes and pastries typically found in the coffee houses of the city. These will be complemented  by a restaurant, a pub and an Austrian wine bar.

Franz Svoboda, Head of Centre Management at Vienna International Airport, said that SSP’s unparalleled food travel expertise made the company the ideal partner for this new venture. ‘We were impressed with SSP’s scale, operational capability and flexible approach that enabled them to offer a broad range of exciting and interesting concepts that reflect the personality of  our airport.’  SSP’s new units are scheduled to welcome their first customers in June next year.