I’m getting on a bit now. I swap gardening hacks with friends, and I natter to fellow passengers on the train. But perhaps my most embarrassing advancing-years admission is that I chat to self-service counters.
Subconsciously I miss a scan or try to cheat the bagging area sensor, merely to elicit some help from a human being. And in a supermarket, that human being can have a range of customer service skills: from genuinely bothered and interested, to chatting to their mate whilst solving my transactional breakdown, barely acknowledging my existence.
Chatty checkouts
Retailers need to up their game. In the eternal cycle of retail, we’re now going back to a focus on real service, by real people. The last month has seen the removal of self-service checkouts in favour of ‘chatty’ ones and Waitrose trialling ‘personalised’ deli counters.
Here at the Guild of Fine Food, we’ve been training folk how to handle, cut and serve deli products for nearly 40 years. A big part of that training has been imparting knowledge, confidence and encouraging chat over the counter. It’s not a new idea. But ultimately, I’m pleased this is fashionable again, if a little cynical in its intentions.
Structural issues
Amid this return to in-person interactions, we are facing structural issues with food and drink in this country. Those pillars of concern are chewed over at the Food & Drink Sector Council and, we hope, will be addressed at the reconvening of a new National Food Strategy. Secretary of state for rural affairs Steve Reed announced in December that his strategy will focus on four key areas: food security, health, environment, and economy.
There are some big issues to solve in those key areas. And I’m sensing, looking at the roll call of those steering the strategy, that independent retail and our smaller producers may have been ignored. That ignores an awful lot of inherent know-how, innovation and an ability to solve issues nimbly.
There was some good work done by Henry Dimbleby, and whilst this new strategy is a reboot, I hope his work is not wasted. No one likes food waste, least of all Dimbleby, who served his apprenticeship and formed his opinions in hospitality.
Upskilling in retail
Hospitality is where we should be looking if we want to genuinely upskill in retail. Our retailers shouldn’t just be focusing on getting staff to feign personality or charisma. We could do with the workforce understanding what they are serving and selling.
You find local colleges offering catering courses in most major towns and cities. And that’s before you consider the added colour provided by the headline establishments such as Westminster Kingsway College. I appreciate that the skills are different, but we wouldn’t expect to eat in a pub or restaurant and have our food prepared by an unqualified chef, and yet we ask those behind counters in supermarkets and independents to sell us food and drink without know-how.
I have a vision: The Food & Drink Centre of Retail Excellence. Courses and qualifications that impart understanding of food production, nutrition, security and enjoyment, ensuring workers stay in retail longer than that Saturday job. I fancy myself as that dusty-jacketed, young-life-altering lecturer figure in my dotage.
John Farrand is the MD at the Guild of Fine Food
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