Open to all, not just Brakes’ customers, the event launched on June 7th and is an integral part of Brakes ‘Help for Hospitality’ campaign

Brakes Virtual Food Event is back for the summer, and it’s better than ever, with a host of new features, support, and practical advice, all designed to help caterers from every sector make the most of the summer and plan for the rest of the year with confidence.

With the look and feel of a summer festival the event will specifically focus on menu inspiration, award-winning new food, and market insight. It will also feature a host of webinars on key topics such as Natasha’s Law, ways to reduce food waste, key trends for 2021 and food and wine pairing, as well as tips on how operators can harness the power of social media to promote takeaway options, drive footfall and build their customer base.

Visitors can explore 40 stands containing helpful information, downloads and over 900 products from Brakes, and a host of other leading brands. In addition, they will get access to ideas that will help them to reduce costs, increase footfall and boost both sales and customer satisfaction. Everything is designed to help them make the most of the summer period and plan for the rest of the year in confidence.

New for this Summer event are: the ‘Brakes Event Village’ featuring sector specific stands for hospitality, care and health, education and food to go, which will make it easier for visitors to navigate and find ideas and support relevant to them; a personalised homepage to improve the visitor’s journey whether they are accessing the site via mobile, tablet or desktop, and from which they will be able to sign up for the webinars, an ‘on demand’ You Tube channel, and downloadable video and webinar content.

The event also represents the first opportunity to see Brakes’ latest innovation, Virtual Chef Online, a groundbreaking suite of recipe and menu management tools that allows foodservice operators to optimise every aspect of their recipe development process including nutrition, allergens, costs per serving/per batch and will automatically calculate the RRP for a dish based on the desired profit margin and tax rate. Virtual Chef Online is underpinned by live product and price data from Brakes’ portfolio of more than 12,000 products and was developed in partnership with Nutritics, market leader in the development of nutritional software for healthcare, education, foodservice, food manufacturing and elite sport.

“The reaction to our first two Virtual Food Events has been phenomenal and many of the new features that appear in this latest one are inspired by comments and feedback from visitors to those,” says Leon French, Brakes’ Customer Marketing Director.

As before, the Virtual Food Event will be open to Brakes customers and non-customers, with the former able to buy products directly off the page – with their agreed discount applied – and get details of all the latest promotions available to them. Existing customers will receive an email invitation letting them know how to access the event whilst non-customers can simply visit the home page at: www.brake.co.uk/virtual-food-event