Last week, Natalia, our Director of Impact & Strategy, had the opportunity to hear from Mike Barry, one of the architects behind M&S's pioneering Plan A programme.
Over nearly two decades, Mike helped transform sustainability from a standalone initiative into something embedded across sourcing, product development, commercial decision-making and brand strategy. What made Plan A remarkable wasn't the number of commitments it contained. It was how deeply it became part of the business itself.
One question from the session stood out:
What are the three ingredients that determine whether your business exists or not?
Not your most expensive ingredients.
Not your bestselling ingredients.
The ingredients that, if disrupted tomorrow, would fundamentally change your ability to serve customers.
For some operators, it might be coffee. For others, flour, dairy, olive oil, chicken or tomatoes. Whatever they are, Mike's challenge was simple:
Understand them deeply. Understand the risks around them. And understand what your competitors are doing to secure them.
Over the last few years we've seen everything from extreme weather and supply shortages to inflation and labour challenges test the hospitality and wider food industry's ability to adapt. What once felt like occasional disruption is increasingly becoming part of day-to-day business.
The operators responding best aren't necessarily those making the loudest sustainability claims.
They're the ones building stronger supplier relationships, creating flexibility in their menus, improving visibility into their sourcing and asking better questions about where products come from and what risks sit behind them.
Mike also shared his view that the next decade will be shaped by two powerful forces: AI and wellbeing.
At first glance, they might seem unrelated. But both point towards the same conclusion. As AI makes information more accessible and decision-making more automated, the role of hospitality becomes even more human.
Food alone becomes easier to replicate. Recipes become easier to access. Recommendations become easier to generate. What becomes more valuable is trust, experience, connection and service.
In Mike's words, we're moving towards a world where food is increasingly viewed not simply as a product, but as part of a broader service and wellbeing experience.
The food and hospitality businesses that recognise this shift early will be better positioned to win.
AI will undoubtedly help operators forecast demand, optimise purchasing, reduce waste and improve efficiency. But its biggest impact may be freeing people to focus on the things technology cannot replicate: creating memorable experiences, building relationships and understanding customers.
The lesson for hospitality isn't that technology will replace human connection. It's the opposite. The more powerful technology becomes, the more valuable genuine hospitality becomes.
Perhaps that's the biggest takeaway from the conversation. The future won't belong to the businesses with the biggest sustainability strategy. Or the most sophisticated AI tools. It will belong to the businesses that understand their supply chains, build resilient relationships and use technology to strengthen, not replace, the human experience at the heart of hospitality.
And it all starts with a simple question:
