apetito UK

I had the opportunity last week to spend time with members of our Education team - Olivia Churchill , Dave Roberts , Daniel Willson , Evan George , Ryan Popek , Colin Bousher , Rupert Weber at the Independent Schools' Bursars Association (ISBA) event at the Celtic Manor in Wales. We have been building a really exciting Education business over the last couple of years, providing great, nutritious and safe food to pupils, and it was brilliant to see the team showcasing that at the event. I loved seeing how the team had taken our existing range and adapted it in an innovative way to create canapé-style options for social and parent events in independent school settings.

𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺! When demand forecasting is off, the impact spreads across the entire business: • Too much cash locked into slow-moving stock • Urgent shipping costs eating into margins • Missed sales because key products aren’t available • Planning teams constantly firefighting instead of improving operations The challenge is that inventory decisions are built on forecast assumptions. Order quantities, safety stock, and replenishment plans all depend on: • expected demand • demand variability If the forecast is inaccurate, even a good process will produce poor inventory decisions. So before changing suppliers, increasing stock levels, or redesigning operations, it’s worth asking: “Are we reacting to the real demand signal?”

Earlier this week, we held our quarterly Senior Leaders Huddle - one of my favourite regular events. It is always so invigorating to get all those who can deliver our aspirations in one room together. The positivity was exceptional and thank you to all those who attended. There was an exciting focus on AI, as well as the fabulous unveiling of our new Wiltshire Farm Foods advert, which airs next week. Watch this space on Monday to have a look for yourself. We finished the day with an inspirational discussion with apetito friend, Jazz Carlin . Jazz shared her key insights on winning in sport and how she has applied these learnings to both her subsequent business career and personal life following Olympic success. A pleasure to have you with us, Jazz!

Super excited.... Nope. Amazing opportunity.... No. Join our dynamic.... Urgh. This is why I never post here! If you’re a Lead QA — or an experienced QA looking to step into a Lead role — I’d love to talk to you about this: 👉 https://lnkd.in/esbmFfGK I love building (well, watching others build these days) exciting digital experiences for our customers and internal teams. I love that we experiment with new technology, tools, and ideas all the time - and that we do all of this in an inclusive, supportive, and sustainable way. This is a great company to work for, with plenty of opportunities to collaborate across our wider group. Take a look at the vacancy, and if you're not sure about applying, drop me a message. Let's figure that out together. And for recruitment consultants — this role is being handled by apetito’s internal recruitment team.

Most software rollouts don't fail because the tool is bad. They fail because confidence is low. We recently launched a internal tool, and Instead of running more teams tutorials that no one remembers, I tried something different. I built an AI Training Agent trained specifically on our SOPs. Instead of a separate manual, help is now embedded directly into the workflow. It feels less like "training" and more like having a smart colleague sitting right next to you. The shift was instant: Faster Onboarding: No more digging through PDFs. Real-time Guidance: Contextual answers exactly when a user gets stuck. Higher Adoption: People actually use the tool because they aren't afraid of breaking it. The real takeaway? AI isn’t just for chatbots or automation. Its greatest power is removing friction at the exact moment a human struggles. If your AI strategy isn't actively building user confidence, you’re barely scratching the surface of what’s possible. Want to build something similar? I’ve put together a step-by-step tutorial on how to build and deploy an AI agent like this at the enterprise level. Drop a comment with "BUILD" below, and I’ll send the guide your way! 👇

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗺 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗳. We spend a great deal of time in analytics discussions talking about tools, platforms, and data quality. These things matter. But what defines how much value a business extracts from its analytics capability is the analyst’s understanding of the business and the context of the question. Think of the family doctor who has known you for years. They do not just treat the presenting symptom, they read it against everything they know about you: your history, your patterns, what has and has not worked before. That longitudinal understanding is what separates genuine diagnosis from an educated guess. A locum can treat the symptom. Only the family doctor spots the pattern. The same distinction exists in commercial analytics. An analyst working from a brief has context. An analyst embedded in the business conversation, present in the commercial debates, understanding the pressures and the politics, has instinct. 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗰𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗽𝘂𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴. This is not a case against technical rigour. It is a case for something that sits alongside it. The analyst who understands a commercial decision, the assumptions it rested on, will find insights that no brief can direct them towards. 𝗔 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗳 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁. 𝗜𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗰𝘁. Building this kind of capability is a deliberate choice. It means including analysts in the business conversation rather than housing them behind a request ticket queue. The businesses that do this consistently do not just get better analysis. They get a fundamentally different quality of commercial conversation. PS: A three-part series on Value from Data: Tomorrow: Analytical creativity #DataStrategy #AnalyticsLeadership #DataDriven #CommercialAnalytics #DataDrivenDecisions #GrowthStrategy #RevenueGrowth

Much of my time over the last few weeks has quite rightly been focused on our exciting new investment in Kitchen West. But this week, it was great to get back to the coalface and spend time with our teams and customers. At the annual Hospital Caterers Association - Wessex Branch Conference in Brighton, I had the opportunity to support our Healthcare sales team as they showcased our exciting new staff and visitor proposition. I was also given the privilege of taking part in an industry panel alongside Caron Longden , Carrie Howes and Marcel Dueren , hosted by Tim Radcliffe , with research presented by Philip Shelley FIH . We discussed the challenge of adopting more British food while meeting higher environmental standards. Thank you to the HCA for the opportunity to contribute - both as a business and personally.

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝗝𝗼𝗯𝘀 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟬𝟭. 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱. Apple already had a thriving online store. When Jobs opened a physical one, analysts called it a ‘very painful and expensive mistake’. What Jobs saw, and they did not, was that customers needed to see, touch and understand the products — and Apple had to own this first physical experience. The stores were not a sales channel, they were a brand experience and a risk reduction engine, turning product quality into purchase intent. Within three years, Apple stores were the highest-revenue retail space per square foot in the United States. For two decades, online won. But as every business went online, parity has killed the advantage. And now, the worm is turning. Physical retail provides something online cannot replicate. The human moment. The reassurance. The reduction of doubt before commitment. The automotive industry has understood and adapted. The research journey is now almost entirely online — reviews, comparisons, configurators. Customers arrive at the forecourt with product knowledge. But conviction still happens in person. The test drive. The human who answers the question the website cannot anticipate. Cazoo bet over a billion pounds on removing that moment. And lost. It went into administration in 2024. Online brings scale, reach, and Direct-to-Consumer efficiency. Physical brings risk reduction, human connection, and the conviction that closes. The physical store does not compete with online — it removes the friction that stops the online sale completing. In a world where every competitor sells direct, that amplification is the differentiated position. Gymshark built a billion-pound business entirely online and now has deliberately opened physical stores. Customers who visit the flagship stores go on to buy online as well. The stores do not cannibalise the online channel. They feed and strengthen it. More pure-play businesses will follow. Those that do are more likely to win the next decade. #DataStrategy #DataDriven #DigitalTransformation #CustomerExperience #CX #GrowthStrategy #RevenueGrowth