John Benson-Smith's Food & Beverage Consultancy
'Helping hospitality businesses create food experiences that actually work'
For over forty years, I've partnered with hotels, stadiums, restaurants and global brands to design concepts that are commercially sharp, operationally sound, and guests love. From fixing underperforming operations to building new ideas from the ground up.
John was named together with Marco Pierre White, Brian Turnet and James Martin as one of the four most influential Chefs to emerge from Yorkshire.
see further recommendations at top of home page
' We get reminded often about our work as original flavour designer for Walkers Sensations Crisps, it was amazing .
However my favourite is still Cheese & Onion
'Thought Sherpa' for Des Hagues' thinking academy
John is delighted to accept the invitation www.deshague.com
Judge of the Best Foodvenience store in the World 2025. www.globalconvenience.com Congratulations to the winner - Rutters, 106 Milton, Pennsylvania USA
'Retail can so exciting with its QSR opportunites'
Quick headlines of what we do
Our Purpose
Our Purpose
Our Purpose
We aim to empower and support businesses with strategic insights and customised solutions.
Our vision is to drive growth, profit and innovation in every client we serve.
We enjoy 'planning the plan' and are totally solutions-based.
Our Values
Our Purpose
Our Purpose
We believe in integrity, excellence and collaboration. We untangle, we are open, linear thinkers, uncomplicated and dedicated to strong relationships.
We deliver exceptional service that exceeds expectations and like to get into straight forward easy communication.
Our Services
Our Services
Our Services
We offer a wide range of food and beverage (F&B) business and management consulting services, including essential planning, business analysis, and more.
Our in-depth industry knowledge and experience of fifty years helps you achieve your goals.
Our Approach
Our Services
Our Services
We have a fix it, sort it, mend it approach. Taking a holistic forensic approach to consulting.
We mentor, tutor, and develop.
We work closely to understand your unique needs and challenges and develop customised solutions that drive results.
Capturing that future F&B concept via strategy
Picture it, Structure it & deliver that Vision.
Our early involvement in shaping several blue-chip companies' F&B businesses was, I'm told, legendary
Our Professional Hotel heritage
Creating fabulous Food and Beverage (F&B) in Hotels is vitally important to customers. It is about creating a mood, light, music, buzz, and atmosphere that's on trend, with smiles and naturally great food. We commenced our extensive solid Hotel learnings and experience back in 1975.
Our clients and experience have been extensive, spanning a vast variety of four- and five-star Hotels. These included:
- Concept creation in Aberdeenshire
- Hotel group in Scotland, Perthshire
- Boutique Hotel Perth
- Bartle Hall Country House in Lancashire
- St Michael's Hotel in Falmouth, Cornwall
- Victoria and Albert Hotel, Manchester
- Hotel Indigo Manchester
- IHG Hotels
- Atrium Hotels, Greece
- Callow Hall Hotel
- The ELH Hotel group in the Lake District
- Hazlewood Castle Hotel, Tadcaster
- Forte Worldwide Hotel Group
- Whitbread chain PI
- Brighton Hotels
- Black Swan Hotel, Helmsley
- London Five-Star hotels
- Granada TV Theme Parks and Hotels
- Variety of other Hotels
Instagrammable is the standard, but it is also about creating your own immersive venue of experiences and atmosphere.
Over the last ten years, we have worked with the fantastic, award-winning, bespoke Lancashire Country House Hotel, Bartle Hall, which sits on sixteen acres of landscaped gardens and woodlands.
Our focus was to support the ownership with direction and commercial influence, while also focusing on and improving the F&B menus to develop and create that exclusive 'Wow' experience.
Bartle now offers many on-trend features heavily influenced by its private ownership. Examples include its winter Alpine Bar, featuring luxury hot chocolate with a kick—the all-year-round outdoor BBQ kitchen, designed and enjoyed with its curative event stylists for exclusive weddings.
It features the style of the main hall, the Coaching barn, and the Thicket Lodge.
1000 year old challenge in the golden triangle of York, Leeds and Harrogate
Back in 1996, the conversion of a derelict one-thousand-year-old Castle of great historical significance was no easy project.
Hazlewood Castle, set on 77 acres of land, was transformed into an award-winning restaurant, café, conference venue, cookery school, and event and wedding venue.
The Castle needed substantial repurposing and development. As a Grade 1 & 2 listed property, it was of great interest to English Heritage, the Elizabethan Society, and the Georgian Society. We needed to install all mains services, road and communication networks within a plethora of restrictions and challenges. The sympathetic and mindful conversion from a monastery into a commercial, privately owned hotel, a hugely successful cookery school, café, and an award-winning fine dining restaurant and chapel, hosting conferences, events, and weddings, which gained local and national recognition.
Formulating commercial opportunities in the face of significant challenges, including huge overheads that were heavily biased towards food and beverage, and establishing the business from scratch, which required a substantial level of commercial sales to survive and a clear understanding of the diverse range of customer profiles to thrive.
As operational principals, we drove the business from zero to achieve significant sales and reputation levels.
'Stadia F&B, he was a forerunner, creating fantastic legacy
Champions League & Premiership Award Winning F&B Stadia
The Commonwealth Stadium was finally handed over to the English owners of Manchester City Football Club after the Games. We were involved for nearly twenty years, spanning three ownerships, eight football managers, and two contract caterers.
John Benson-Smith, together with Manchester City Football, was very ambitious towards the F&B and Hospitality Sectors with their new Stadium. We were engaged before the then-new Stadium's opening to drive the radical alterations, both internally and externally, that needed to be made.
We created, proposed, and guided the F&B and Catering offer for all areas, including Hospitality, Concessions, and all associated features, including the first team. Our original, groundbreaking, pioneering work in UK Stadia set the best-in-class standard and pace, which other Clubs and Contract caterers both in the UK and Europe then mimicked and copied over many years.
Over twenty years, our remit covered the following, and we finally hung up our boots at Etihad in January 2023
:
- All Catering layouts and designs, Inc., Concessions, kitchens and all associated
- Areas of design and fit out relative to Restaurants and front of house
- Every concept, and participated in crafting brands
- External Catering Inc. fans zone City Square (the first and original in the UK)
- All zones of the new build City Football Academy training ground
- Every Catering area, including the new CFA Mini Stadium
- All staff feeding, including first team, Academy, Women's, Directors, and Youth
- Occasional input into New York City FC
- Initial hotel and new associated build
- Encapsulating the entire Eastlands site, including the new arena Co-op Live and Hotel under one caterer.
Our involvement also covered the following Clubs and Caterers
Crystal Palace FC - Fulham FC - Watford FC - FC Bayern - Real Madrid FC - Birmingham City FC - Hull City FC - Stoke City FC - Burnley FC - Tottenham Hotspur FC - Manchester City Football Club - Scottish Football Association - Leicester City FC - Huddersfield Town FC - Barnsley FC - Bradford City FC - Halifax Town FC - Oldham FC - Doncaster Rovers - Leeds United - Hull KR - Scarletts plus various others, including UEFA Healthy eating
New Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Our year long involvement with the Club and new Tottenham Hotspur Stadiu. The detailed involvement encompassed supporting, evaluating and driving animated £50m Catering tender contract for the newly built Spurs White Hart Lane.
This new award-winning stadium is London's largest, which also hosts the NFL.
Fulham Pier luxury boutique Hotel & Riverside market
Our F&B Catering involvement was over eight years and two ownerships at Craven Cottage, London, with Fulham Football Club. It captured many renditions & designs of this startling new stadium stand and its very unique 365-day use.
Fulham has a unique approach to its legendary customer care, often referred to as 'Fulhamish.' Its River Thames location brings back many fond memories of working with this fantastic client.
Our Proven Restaurant Delivery
Middle Eastern taste of one of our Restaurant concepts & creations
Working for the high-profile, Arabian Client Al Hajery to identify sustainable opportunities for an innovative Mediterranean-style Restaurant concept. Initially, within Kuwait, then to roll out a limited number of restaurants, eventually throughout the Middle East.
We commenced by researching and understanding the market, trends, and developers to build an authentic artisanal Mediterranean restaurant. This involved identifying essential values and a cultural ethos that were developed into suitable dishes that would resonate with the Middle Eastern market.
We opened two sites for the Client, one in Kuwait's exclusive high-profile Phase 4 Avenues Mall and the second restaurant in Murouj. Kuwait's premier lifestyle destination. In addition, we designed and advised on a central production unit for the company.
The success of the two openings in Kuwait led to our being commissioned to work for the Client's other F&B businesses in Kuwait, with an overarching role in strategy.
This included :
- Adjusting the offering for the local clientele and customer demographics, working up locations/sites/sizing/return on investment
- P&L forecast and budgets, operational modelling,
- Food methodology, product and service design, and their design approach are integrated into workflows, logistics, and ergonomics.
- Including search, selection and recruitment,
- Internal details such as menu design, NPD and costings,
- Project management, working with interior designers, brand design agency, kitchen design layouts,
- Plotting spaces, specification of equipment, and tendering (challenging circumstances and individuals)
- Working with contractors on site, deliveries, fit out, installation, handover,
- Pre-opening, staff role play and training,
- Promotional marketing and working with the team operationally from pre-opening through day-to-day trading and into profit.
The expansion continued, and we opened two additional restaurants in U Walk, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with success.
www.gastronomica-me.com
We were delighted to work with the team at Gastronomica Middle East . A leading, award-winning Restaurant operator in the GCC region, including Dubai, KSA, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait, offering a total dining concept and experience.
Shortlisted in GCC for Restaurant & bar design awards 2023, proudly certified as a great place to work.
One of the 50 best Restaurants by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna.
Award winning innovation in Manchester
We were involved with Manchester City Football Club and its chosen caterer, F3 (jointly owned by USA giants Legends and Absolute Taste), regarding the design, fit-out, and mobilisation of the award-winning, stunning Asahi Tunnel Club Premier. This was one of the numerous restaurant hospitality concepts we were involved with and created at the Etihad over time. The Tunnel Club is the most immersive Restaurant experience in the world of football, bringing you closer to the action than ever before.
Our journey creating Mediterranean inspired Restaurant Solia
Creating & Developing Morrisons Market Kitchen Concept
Our Mission
Creation of the brand and concept from blank paper upwards. This award-winning in-store market kitchen served fresh, tasty food, prepared by typically twenty-five chefs on site, cooked to how you would like it, ready to eat.
Live Chefs Kitchens on show
The Morrisons Market kitchen when created, was a first to market as a collaboration between Retail Supermarkets and F&B hospitality industries.
Eighteen Supermarket locations included Aberdeen Scotland, Basingstoke, Brentford, Camden town London, Piccadilly Manchester, Canning Town London, Cheltenham, Eccles Manchester, Edgbaston Birmingham, Gravesend, Kirkby Liverpool and more
Multi-million-pound investment
Customers can watch their meals being made to order using fresh, seasonal ingredients or ready-to-go meals, concepts and brands location specific included. Char & Smoke - Bird and Baste - The Hot Pan - The Chippy - Chef made Meals - Loaded and Toasted - Pie and Mighty - Brew - Fresh Pasta - Pizza by the Metre etc
Retail industry award winning concept
Our Appraisal of Arts & Culture
Food, drink and great service within the Arts
At F&B Business, our mission is to help businesses achieve sustainable growth, success and renown by providing them with expert business and management consulting services, regardless of their food offering and facility.
Often, Catering can be the byproduct and not the main attraction or event, making the challenge of yielding a profit, controlling costs, managing queues, staffing, and adjusting to price points even more of a challenge. The needs of different groups and clientele are paramount and need research and understanding.
Theatres
Clients within the Arts, included
- West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds
- Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
- Birmingham Hippodrome
- Bradford Alhambra Theatre
- Octagon Theatre, Bolton
- Grand Theatre, Blackpool
- The Green Room, Manchester.
The Arts council
We also conducted a 360-degree review of F&B Catering outlets for the Arts Council in Museums and Art Galleries which included forensically investigating:
- Gallery Oldham
- Victoria Theatre Halifax
- Touchstones Rochdale
- Manchester Art Gallery
- Urbis Manchester including the National Football Museum
Distant 'off grid' Restaurants
The Faroe Islands are part of the Kingdom of Denmark, comprising eighteen rocky, volcanic islands between Iceland and Norway in the Northern Atlantic Ocean.
Totally backstory focused
We were working with renowned Nordic Photographer Arjan Wilmsen on a captivating project in the Faroe Islands. Our storytelling focused on the essence of a breathtaking archipelago of a hamlet Restaurant. The goal is to capture the essence of Faroese food, with its rich heritage, simplicity, and traditions. Crucially telling the story of two characters, origin, charm, emotion, and the stunning location. More to follow.
Gastronomique weekend guest chef at the five star Imperial Hotel Torquay
1986