The Chef JKP Podcast
The Chef JKP Podcast
Season 6 - Episode 9 - Ben Milne - Restaurants to Food Distribution !
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Welcome to the Chef JKP podcast hosted by James Knight Pachecco!
In this episode, Ben Milner, the head of commercial development at Chef Middle East, shares his culinary journey, experiences in the food industry, challenges faced during COVID-19, and insights into running a successful restaurant business in London.
The discussion also highlights the evolution of Chef Middle East, focusing on product development, strategic partnerships, and future growth plans in the Middle East food industry.
Topics discussed:
· Ben Milner's Culinary Journey
· Importance of Ethical Food Sourcing
· Running Bombetta London
· Evolution of Chef Middle East
· Future Growth Plans
· Culinary Preferences and Culinary Heroes
· Advice and Future Plans
Key takeaways:
- The importance of passion, quality, and ethical sourcing in the food industry.
- Challenges and adaptations faced by restaurant businesses during COVID-19.
- Strategies for growth, development, and sustainability in the evolving food distribution market.
- Inspiring culinary journey reflecting dedication, hard work, and consistency.
- Nostalgia, creativity, and collaboration as driving forces in the culinary world.
You can follow Ben on HERE
The show is brought to you by our partners Chef Middle East, you can follow them on HERE
Follow The Chef JKP Podcast on Instagram HERE
That's right, the podcast is now on YouTube, so you can watch all of the interviews at your leisure. At the same time, your contribution to the show by hitting that subscribe button makes a monumental difference to the show,
as you can keep inviting the guests you love and keep having the conversations that no one else is having. The only thing that I ask is that you share the show. Welcome to the Chef JKP podcast with me,
James Knight Pacheco. and memories.
Wherever you are in the world, whatever you're doing, I ask that you sit back and listen, and perhaps take away a few more sorts of advice. There will be laughter, we're gonna get serious.
Above all, lessons for life. You're listening to the Chef JKP podcast, and this is what you can expect on today's show. - So if they're buying something at,
I don't know, 60 dirhams a kilo and you're offering something at 120 dirhams. If they like that product and that product fits, they'll tweak the portion size, they'll change the dish,
they'll make it work because they like you, love the product. And their, you know, chefs are essentially artisans and they love to tell stories and what better way to tell a story through an incredible dish and ingredient,
right? That's it. Obviously, you know the scene in London extremely well when it comes to dining. What are your thoughts on the dining scene here in the country? It's different.
There's a lot of caveat and a lot of truffle. I've noticed that and it's exciting. You know, I think there's more diversity in terms of, well, I wouldn't say diversity, but every single option that you could possibly have is here and available for you.
And I'm still exploring it. We've done great by kind of growing at least 30 % every single year, and over the next few, we want to carry on that journey. And as the UAE and the wider region continue to evolve and food changes,
we need to make sure that we've got the pieces in the jigsaw to be able to do that. We also need to look, honestly, at ourselves and our competitors and say, actually, we think they're really good at that. We need to develop ourselves in that area,
and that's the process that I'm driving. (upbeat music) - As you know, here on the Chef JKP podcast, we love to push boundaries and discover the movers and shakers when it comes to the hospitality industry.
And today's guest certainly does just that. We have an absolutely cracking interview for you today. Fast, furious, with a lot of high -speed turns.
On the podcast this week. I talk to Ben Milner. We discuss his accidental love of football, plus his undying passion for food,
how he got involved with so many Michelin -starred restaurants in London. We also discuss the intricacies of running such a monumental food distribution machine.
Ben is full of energy, incredibly educated when it comes to all things food. Not only that, he's also well -travelled. And he fully understands what it takes to get Chef Middle East to the next level.
A light -hearted conversation with plenty of laughs. Now, listen out for a story about the police and his then restaurant. Time to rock and roll.
(upbeat music) Just before we begin, here is a small message from this week's guest. Hey, guys. I'm Ben Milne. I'm the head of commercial development at Chef Middle East. And if you liked the podcast,
please make sure that you follow and share and subscribe. Thanks for listening. Welcome back to the ChefJKP podcast. And on the show today,
we have the head of Commercial development for Chef Middle East. Ben, welcome to the show. - Thank you, appreciate it. - First things first, favorite childhood food memory.
- Oh my gosh, kind of so many really. I think that, you know, everyone could talk about 11 year old going to McDonald's, stuff like that. There's a foodie show, but you know,
that's when you kind of realize that food's kind of synonymous with celebration celebration, stuff like that, isn't it, you know? But I mean, as a kid, silly things really. I mean, my grand was quite frugal, didn't have a lot of money,
and she'd kind of do things like take you down the alleyway at the back of the flat and dig up horseradish, and you'd kind of grate it with it, which if anyone's ever done that, it's kind of pungent times a million, isn't it? Yes. Your eyes just kind of all teering.
So I think as a kid, I got that one, and then I'm a massive West Ham fan. come on you irons. So you get dragged down to up some park and be given a terrible pie and I can vouch for the fact that despite the move stadiums the pies are still absolutely awful but again that's just part of association with food with fun things you do right so you're having a pie whilst watching the football is a thing for me.
A beer helps as well - But pies are pretty good. - So as a-- - New flavors now though, you can get like chicken tikka and all sorts of stuff that weren't around. - So what were the flavors that you had as a kid?
- Yeah, it's just more your standard kind of mince meat in a beefy type. Stop, probably oxal, you know? - Stake food, kidney. - Oh, oxal, a load of oxal and a load of mince that'll do, staking kids off you go. Yeah,
easy peasy. - So then throughout your teenage years, what were the types of food you had growing up? I lived in Saudi Arabia when I was really young, and then I used to come back on school holidays.
So even as a teenager, I'd be out there very different to Dubai and it's changed a lot now, but shawamas were a big thing for me. And actually, when I moved back to London,
really hard to find a decent one, you kind of got Edgeware Road where there's a load of stuff, but it's not the same as like a shawarma here or one that I remember from my childhood. And I ended up finding,
around the corner, from, you know, kind of Russell Square, all around there. And you got Little House, what other restaurants? You got the first Angela Hartnett Murano place,
and they used to be clients of mine. And then next to it was this little kind of takeaway shack, where the toilet was downstairs, you could kill yourself on this marble staircase going down. And they just did,
they just did like an amazing authentic shawarma, and it cost, I don't know, next to nothing, surrounded by this kind of high end dining environment, and there's me eating a shawarma before I go in to meet with Angela.
Nice. So it's real like a shawarma corner sir. Well, pretty much. From a young age. Yeah, pretty much. Love a shawarma. So then in education, when you were going to sort of university.
What path did you decide to take? Fluffed my A -levels, didn't do them so great, went through clearing, which I don't know is a thing now. GCSE is really easy for me.
I was one of those kids that kind of got a load of A's and B's and I thought, "Well, this is easy. I don't have to do anything." So then we did A -levels and thought the same process could happen. And of course,
it didn't and it didn't do very well. First lesson in life, you actually have to work us boats. And I went through clearing. I loved history, and I wanted to do something similar, but I couldn't find a course for it.
So I ended up doing international relations and politics, which has no use to me whatsoever, but learning about Dayton and the Cold War and stuff like that was still pretty cool. Wow. Yeah.
Had a boring job there because I was in Portsmouth, and you had the Portsmouth Historic yard and I stood there like an idiot for hours just selling little key rings and stuff because when I was there there was no tourists because I was there in the school,
in the kind of school where kids were in school but yeah. Should have stored them to the school kids on the side. The only good thing about Portsmouth is just the sheer volume of eateries and pubs and the tiny little two by four mile island and then you have Fratton Park and they've got a great song.
It just says play up, pompy, pompy, play up. So even if you don't support football, you can learn that really easily. Nice. Nice. So when was your first sort of foray into food and hospitality?
I fell into it. So my wife ended up getting a job as a fashion buyer and she was Greek and through university spent a lot of time in Milan and learned Italian.
And as a consequence of those two languages, when she decided she hated fashion, she ended up being nabbed by lethams. I don't know if you know lethams, they kind of do in the supermarkets in the UK,
they do merchant gourmet. They were really big and had some eccentric guys running the Mark and Oliver lethams. They used to kind of mark, used to kind of, perhaps on purpose, run down swans and then take them home as roadkill.
Beautiful. What a legend. Yeah. Okay. But they had brand, you remember some of that tomatoes, all that kind of stuff. So she became a buyer for them. And then Mark used to drag her all around Europe because he spoke fluent French and then she spoke Italian and Greek.
And we had no kids. So I'd just book annual leave and jump on halfway through the trip. And then we'd nick a couple of days either side. And it was great because you were learning from this guy that's been in the food game for many years before me.
And I was a young man and you were just listening to what he said. And Then she moved to fresh olive, which is now Belazoo, and did a similar thing. And the guy who owned that was a chap called George, and then we went all around Italy in Spain,
looking at oils and olives and stuff like that. And I guess through her, because we were so young, I kind of got a passion for it. I mean, prior to that, I did have a job in a fish and chip shop, but you can't really count that one.
No, well, you could. You could. But what were your sort of your favourite memories going through Europe and sourcing these extremely amazing olive ores and talking to the farmers and the growers themselves?
Well, I mean, later on, I ended up sort of doing that for my own business, which I'm sure we'll get to. But, I mean, that initial insight was just meeting people that had been doing it and their families had been doing it for generations.
And the passion they had just for that one product, and I think That was really important for me. I remember Joe sourcing Nochalara olives for the first time, and they were new to the UK.
They didn't exist. And at that time, you had the kind of massive ones, and they only kind of went into... But they still exist, but they just cost so much more. They only kind of went in via fresh olive into Mission Cyre restaurants in London and nowhere else.
And of course, now you've seen that product go all the way down the kind of food chain of the food scene, I suppose, and are available here in Spinney's and God knows where else, in a small grade.
So it's just interesting to see those kind of food journeys and how food penetrates through markets and whether that be the food service market or any other and become just more normalized in people's lives,
you know. But it was meeting those people and seeing those olive groves and seeing people pick it and seeing the passion they had for it. And for me, it was all new and that was just exciting. But then,
you also had several different jobs in the FTSE 100, your NMD, you did strategic consultancy. That must have also helped you through your business career.
Yeah, of course. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of very different. That was kind of thousands of people that were working for you, implementing policy, process, monitoring, driving efficiency,
if you like, driving growth through sales teams and that's that side of stuff as fun as food if you like because it's just for me, the whole thing is just about people, their behaviour,
try to inspire passionate people. It's no different in kitchen, right? If you're an exec chef of some really busy restaurant and you've got this massive brigade, you might have the vision about how that plate looks but actually to get everyone in that institution to deliver that plate I mean,
that's, that's the key. So, uh, and that just translates into financial performance, doesn't it? So you get it right. The front house are all working hard and the back of house are doing their bit.
And all of a sudden you've got a little successful restaurant. So it's no different in any business. And Chef Middle East and my experience is before that are the same. So the other thing that I'm particularly interested in is that something called the Chef's deli.
Yeah. Yeah, so we yeah, this is interesting So tell me all about that because you were involved with some heavy hitters in London, especially with Michelin starred restaurants Yeah, it was good.
It was so I got a big bonus We did a kind of business turnaround and I could have paid I guess most of my mortgage off and I said to Joe my wife,
you know, what do you want to do? And I think she she said look, you know, maybe it's time we do something else. We didn't have kids at that point, so it was a slightly easier decision. And we thought, you know what, let's do this for ourselves.
And we initially just started off with a couple of balsamic vinegars, to be honest with you, just because you've got to kind of start somewhere. But they were different. They were slightly different ones. You had less different now, but they were back in kind of 2008.
You had kind of had, you know, a pomegranate vinegara, you had this thing over there, and a really high end sort of using old money, you can't really use it anymore, kind of 25 -year -old -type bout,
so it's been again. I remember we got Tom Aikins as a customer, and it was our first client. He was an intimidating chap initially, and then you kind of got to know him. And I remember kind of delivering it in the back of my car thinking,
you know, well, this might work, because first thing we got, and then we started looking gaps at the market. And at the time in the UK, you had Brandisa doing a lot of Spanish stuff,
you had a company called Gastronomica that was doing Italian version, but it kind of wasn't to the same quality. And we just thought, you know, I wonder if you can take a bit of that kind of fresh olive business with the olives,
a bit of this kind of cheese business with Gastronomica and just create some market share with charcuterie and be a bit of a or I suppose a bit like Chef Middle East is,
but really super niche. And then we just started developing a range. Mainly around, I mean, it grew, but we ended up doing, for example, started off with Bill's restaurants when there was only four of them.
And then before you knew it, there was 82, and I had vans going to Aberdeen. And that was an interesting journey, but we started off with slow food products. So even with them in that instance,
whilst it was very different to a Tom Akin's experience. You know, they were using, they wanted a vegetarian hard cheese. So instead of using some plastic type product, we, they fell in love with a product we sourced from Sardinia and it was from Olzai,
which if you look at Sardinia, it's like, imagine it like a dartboard, it's right in the center. And there was three generations of people, four people in total working in this dairy with only 250 sheep so by way of context two milkings a day in the winter they can only do 16 rounds twice a day in each milking but in the summer they could do a few hundred because obviously the sheep are eating more grass hope to
produce more milk and you have to schedule all that stuff in so where bills were growing at such a rapid rate we were scheduling this little artisan slope food Pecorino that was completely vegetarian made with that kind of artichoke essence to the roll out across all their restaurants and stuff like that excited me.
So for people who have never heard of it, give me the details about what slow food is or was in the UK for people to understand. It was more of an Italian movement and I think that generally it was started off in the kind of 1980s a knee jerk reaction to McDonald's opening up in Rome,
I think it was a case of, you know, we don't really want this fast food stuff. What we want to do is we want to protect the way that people make things and protect that history and celebrate it and we want our food to be good,
clean and ethical. And that's really for me, that passion for food, that passion for how things have always been made and keeping it as such is the crux of what I get excited about when I think about food.
And that can transcend right the way through to where do you get your vanilla from? You know, your vanilla pods. You know, are they from Madagascar? Is it a fair trade item? You know, it was,
you know, always made in that country, always grown in that country. Let's support the people that are doing it in the same way they've done it for hundreds of years. But why are you so passionate about it?
Because I think that if you don't do it, you lose your food culture and you lose your food history. And I think that that, for me, is important. I think that there was a Lincoln Shear pig, a Hairy pig.
I remember seeing it on documentary years ago as a breed of pig. And I think there's now one similar that's kind of been Hungary, but we've lost the one in the UK. It doesn't exist anymore,
as a breed, as a product, and if you don't celebrate these things and you don't promote those types of food, food, that food history, then you lose it,
and then it's gone. As globalization continues, as people's diets and food cultures change, things just get dropped off all the way. So with that business,
how did it then start to progress to bigger and better things within the London dining scene? Well, penetration. So you started off with and talking about product rather than price.
So every time I'd go and see a chef, I'd be bringing something that's interesting. I've got something for you, by the way, for later. But every time I'd take something which was a talking point that I actually genuinely believed was a great product.
I remember I had a product, for instance, from Sicily, a guy called Giacomo. He used to have this ancient breed of goats, Giugentano is the goat, and it's a white hairy goat with these big long curly horns that go up kind of two foot above its head,
and it was the native breed of goat to Sicily, and he was the only guy who had a herd exclusively of this breed, There was only 80 goats, and he'd produce this amazing goat sheath that the texture would linger in your mouth.
It'd get preserved in a fig leaf, and because there was only 80 goats, I could only sell so much of it. So I'd be selling a year in advance, so I'd be kind of going to, you know...
But do you have exclusivity? Yeah, yeah, but just out of default through relationship because they were small farmers, you know. So be going around London restaurant, let's say for example at the time there's a guy called Ben Tissues to work at Salt Yard Group and yeah he was always open to new products and I'd go and sit with him and say you know hey Ben you know what do you think of this?
Oh mate that's amazing you know I remember going to caravan restaurants with another restaurant group and I had some wild boar spec that was from Valli di Oster and I had this goat's cheese and a fig balsamic,
and I ate a meal there, and they weren't a client, and I just asked the waitress for a little plate, and then I popped on this wild boar speck, put this fig cheese that I'm referring to over the top, and a little bit of fig balsamic.
I said, "I recognize," 'cause I'd done the homework, the exec chef was behind the parts. I said, "Can you take that over to him?" Anyway, within kind of five minutes, you're sitting and having a chat, right? - Nice way to sell,
though. As it turned out, we didn't get that business, but nonetheless, it's a great example. It's very innovative to think that way. I mean, he was a lovely guy, and we got on really well, and we didn't get it.
The owner didn't want to move from the existing. But the point I'm making is that you're no longer talking about price when you're actually talking about something that you're passionate about. And I kind of felt that those producers were passionate about their products.
And the only thing that I could do to give justice to that was to try to be as passionate about it and go and see each one of these places where I was imported, meet their families,
meet the sheep or the goats or whatever it might be, or see the mill where they're producing the flour, and then bring that back, bring that story back and try and give it to the chef.
Because if the chef is then passionate about that story, then that goes into his end product. Yeah, 100%. And I think that's the key, is talking about the product itself,
and once tasting it, if it's phenomenal, the chef will 100 % take it. Yeah, and they're clever guys, right? They are clever guys. They can work out a food cost. So if they're buying something at,
I don't know, 60 durums a kilo, and you're offering something at 120 durums, if they like that product and that product fits, they'll tweak the portion size, they'll change the dish,
they'll make it work because they like you, love the product. - And their, you know, chefs are essentially artisans. - Yeah. - And they love to tell stories and what better way to tell a story through an incredible dish and ingredient,
right? - That's it. - So what happened with that business in the end? - It was a nightmare. It was an absolute nightmare in the end. It was such a shame. I think we had several accounts, light bills, for example,
that just stretched us and stretched us and stretched us. And you've got two choices. You can go with it and say, right, I'm gonna keep on doing this growth. And I tried to sell 'cause we end up depo in Leeds.
We had a little satellite place in Bristol. So, you know, to support this infrastructure. - We're quite big. - It got all right, yeah. But I mean, still like, you know, Michelin Bibb, Michelin Star, and then some chains,
which then helps which then helps facilitate the net worth. That's it. So, it's still quite nice stuff. But Brexit, because we were growing, growing, growing, there was no money left in the bank,
you know, and Brexit then shrained it. I remember going to Ottolenghi and telling them, "Guys, I've got to put your Barata price up because of Brexit from,
I think it was £1 .43 a ball to 169. Oh my god. And they were selling it for like 13 .90 a plate, right? And the irony is... Cheeky. No, no, they've got their own overheads,
got everything else. That's the model. And the irony is the dish, I think it might even still be on their menu. The dish that they had it on was with orange and cardamom seeds,
because it's that kind of quirky type of food, isn't They when I presented the barata to them in a restaurant that I had I presented it with orange and fennel seeds So it's a little bit But that was the point of the restaurant to kind of give ideas and then people run with it But I put this price up because of Brexit and they said look guys we just can't do it and And I'm like surely you can just add 30p on
to that 13 19 Exactly work. No, no, we have to work Local percentage margins were a group now, and it pushes it outside of our price bracket. So using that example, we started to lose business because of Brexit.
That we could have kind of got over, and then COVID hit. - And then-- - And when COVID hit, everything collapsed. - It was decimated everything. - And I moved into food packs. That was interesting.
I did a load of these podcasts, but there was me with an iPhone. Sometimes with my daughter holding it, sometimes with my wife holding it, just trying to sell the food, right? And she would pack the orders because everyone else was on furlough.
She'd wake up at 4am and pack all these orders. I'd drop the kids to school, get there in the van and then we restricted in areas kind of northeast London type zone because it was just too far otherwise.
And I'd then start the first delivery round and and keep going and keep going. I'd be doing that to like eight at night and she'd go and get the kids. And that was our life during COVID. The good thing is you had weekends off.
- Okay, so at least you had a bit of a break. - Yeah, yeah. Still had a couple of wholesale clients, but I think in the end it was like, I think three. I mean, it was ridiculous. - But you also mentioned earlier,
Ben, that you had a restaurant. - Yeah. - Tell me about that, please. - Well, I ended up with four and a half. What was the name of the restaurant? The Bombetta, it was called, and it was in Wonsted,
which is on the central line, really cool little site. I think had it been in Soho or Shoreditch, it probably would have flown. We were very lucky. We had Fame Master review it.
We had... It was in the evening centre a couple of times in GQ Magazine. Who's the other evening standard? Fame semester, when she retired, and then you had the weekend edition,
"Oh God, it skates me, another lady." Anyway, so we had a load of people review it. But in essence, I was trying to look for something that wasn't pizza. I had a load of pizza clients,
I had home slice, I had pizzeries, they'd be some of the top ones, which was part of our house group. I had a ton of them, and I didn't want to compete against them. I also didn't want to be judged by them with the quality of my pizza.
So I thought, "Well, what do I do?" So I opened a Bombetta restaurant and I called it Bombetta London, and a Bombetta is a product and it's from southern Italy, Puglia, around the kind of Ostuni,
Cisterino, Martina Franca type area, which is halfway between Bari and Brindisi. And you get all sorts of versions, primarily it's pork and you flatten pork collar,
and you put cheese inside, a bit of herbs, you roll that up, you then roll round that to sort of tie it together, either prosciutto or pancetta. So it becomes like a cheesy kebab.
Right, okay. And you cook it over the grill. Right. And that was the concept of the restaurant. That was the concept. Then we would have, I don't know, 15 ever -evolving small plates. Okay. So you'd have a starter and a main.
So it'd be like a tapas bit. Antipasti I don't know anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would invite chefs down, you see. Attached to it, I had a cheese production site as well as a separate unit, and that was raw wholesale stuff,
because by then I was selling cheese boards, pre -done, a level below, you know, so kind of gastropubs. Right, okay. But they didn't want to buy a whole cheese. Oh, Polpo, I used to slice all their meats there as well.
Right, okay. So you'd have this production site, it was all glass, and then you'd sit in the restaurant, You sit around the bar or on the tables and underneath these chandeliers that I'd imported from Milan And you'd eat these bombetta and these these 15 type of anti -pasti dishes So I'd invite chefs down from central London and they'd come and sit with me there Which is weird because you know half the guests they
didn't even know who they were But they would probably love to be eating in their restaurants. All right, right, right, right and say right okay Choose what you want and We focus on the anti -pasty bits and in each anti -pasty dish there might be three or four ingredients and I would say 90 % of those would be from me.
So what I was saying is try this barata, try this vinegar, try this and actually look, I'm selling it for this price and I've costed it to myself at the highest amount of money or the highest tariff that I have to sell to you.
So this is how much it costs out and the dead take that away and go and do their own thing with it and it just helped boost quite clever as a sales pitch I would say. It was also a lot of fun.
You know you were able to entertain them in a social environment. Yes. And actually just talk about food. How many covers did you have? It was tiny. We had it was about sort of 35 covers.
Nice. With a counter. Okay. Lunch and dinner. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It was good. It was exciting and I had a great chef who ended up buying the restaurants off me Victor his name was Victor Garcia and and he didn't come from a background of Italian food at all.
And actually it was my first wholesale client and that was great for me because we were just really open with each other and able to play with the product. So I'm like, look, mate, I've got this great thing here and I've got it from over here in this region And it's these people who make it and in that region they use it in this way But we don't kind of have to do you want to play with it a little while and
he's like yeah, no problem nice Arsenal fan that was the only thing that I do We all have our fault. Yeah, but what would you say were the toughest lessons?
About the restaurant trade for you back then with my own. Yes the toughest lessons. I think this is a strange thing, but it's staff planning and consistency,
I suppose. So when I was running Just Bombetta and we were using it as a facility to instate chefs, frequency of menus always changing every day,
which was quite cool, no? It was cool. Innovative. But in a suburban setting, which where I was, I think some bit more you had a load of people who were like, "Well, why is the Pigshead brisketta no longer on the menu?
I love that dish." And they'd always get angry about it. So there's a bit of that. It's just a bit about, I think, that choosing when you changed dishes and how frequent you do. I think that was a thing,
although, you know, for everyone that didn't like it, there was someone who did. But the staffing levels were key for me and understanding how the peaks and troughs work and how much you need to put in front by way of cost with doing prep work and then what that delivers by way of covers and actually,
you know, are you going to turn your restaurant twice? Are you going to turn it two and a half times or are you going to do one and a half times and just second guessing that constantly? But also,
Ben, just thinking London is not exactly the easiest place to trade due to the fact that there is a huge amounts of competition,
you know. So that must have also been a bit of a challenge, right? Yeah, there's always a new kid on the block opening up everywhere. And I think if you're in central London, right in the heart of it,
you've got higher expenses. However, you've got more footfall because you've got people who can jump on the metro underground, tourists and they all come in. So you just got this balance.
I mean, A lot of those guys were absolutely killed in COVID and had to restart and reopen different companies, all sorts of things, because the rent just accrued and accrued and accrued. - Right, right, right. - In suburbia,
you had less of that. So you ended up having to make sure your menu ticked a load of boxes. So, you know, I always needed a vegan dish, I needed a pescetarian dish, I needed a meat dish,
and then I'd add for each section of my menu at least one or two things that we really wanted to do. So you ended up, actually, ironically, with a much longer menu in some ways per section than you would otherwise have,
because you've got a smaller pond to fish it. But during COVID, did you pivot to also have, let's say, takeaway for people who were having dinner parties,
so on and so forth? Yeah, we kind of did. What we did is meals to cook at home, and they were great. New Year's or, you know, I'd cook something, show people how we cooked it,
do cooking instructions, put all the ingredients in the box, part cook things ready to warm up, do all that stuff, and we could do that. And that worked. By then, we also had a fresh pasta restaurant, and fresh pasta doesn't really travel that great,
and she kind of cooked it as a takeaway. You learned the hard way. Yeah, well, I didn't really want to go. I didn't want to do takeaway with that one. And it was also a lot bigger.
It was like 80 covers. And it was in Walthamstow, which was E17. E17, everyone is trendy and Hecney had a kid and then moved out of East London to Walthamstow.
And it was just busy. So we focused a load of our energy on that site, knowing that Bombetta was much more established and we could kind of leave that there. But we kind of incorporated the two because as a wholesaler,
no one knows who you are, right? So, you know, the people that are dining in a restaurant here in Dubai that might choose to have a meal that's produced by this really amazing chef using one of our ingredients,
they don't necessarily know who we are. They've got no idea. It's the restaurant and the chef that have really made that experience special for them. And it was the same for me in COVID, no one knew who the chef's deli was,
unless you were in the game. So we leveraged the restaurants to develop the food pack business rather than the wholesale business. So then you have obviously a lot of experience with chefs,
restaurants, business, dealing with people, logistics, produce. Tell me about your journey to the Middle East and working with Chef Middle East.
- So I just got to a point where in the restaurants, because the wholesale business would have cost me about half a million pounds to restart, just to restock it, having done everything. And it was a question of,
do I sell my house and do that again, and go through all that again? Or do I completely focus on the restaurants? And by then I had two kids, and I thought, you know I just,
I don't know if I've got the energy for it. And the restaurants were actually doing really, really well. So I thought, well, I'll stick with this. But staffing became a problem. A load of chefs in London went either home or came here during COVID because they came here because they could work,
right? Or they went home because they wanted to be near their family. So I ended up, one day I'd be the kitchen porter. I was working seven days a week for about two years and I was doing, I was kitchen porter one day, make sure to leave the next.
Hey chef another day. Sue chef the next day. I just did everything and I was just tired and actually I didn't really enjoy it anymore and when you start feeling that way you kind of think well I need to look for something else.
And I think what food distribution and finding products and sourcing products I think that's much more me and you know and whilst I enjoyed that restaurant experience And I think it's really helpful for me in terms of rounding off my knowledge about whom my customer is I started looking again and I had such a great childhood in Saudi Arabia I was on the Red Sea side.
So, you know, I'd be sailing with no one else on the beach because back then just you just meet Love in life much you could jump into one of these old Chevy blazers and literally drive it onto the I mean You can't do that on kite beach,
right? Drive a shiny blazer on there and stick your tent up, and we'd be sailing on there, camping on there, scuba diving on there. So you missed the region. And I missed the region.
And I've got kids now, and I'm thinking it's warm, it's safe. Let me look in that market. So I reached out to Steve, our CEO, and we just had a few chats. And then next thing you know,
I was on a plane coming out and had another couple of chats. And then I was here. And actually, I think it's a massive opportunity. you know, this business, like the city, has just grown and grown and grown and grown.
And some of that, a bit like my bills experience, is where it's been dragged up by its own customer base. And therefore, we've got some exciting chances to review our range and develop it.
And in some ways, that's providing a more basic product for some of our clients. And in others, it's, it's how do I get this version of that Sicilian Goach G's back into our product mix,
whether it be fish or anything else. - This podcast is proudly sponsored by Chef Middle East. Ever wondered if your culinary creations could reach new heights? Chef Middle East delivers ingredients that serve up inspiration.
Let your creativity flourish with an unmatched quality of specialty ingredients and cutting edge kitchen solutions. For over two decades, Chef Middle East, a chef's warehouse company,
has been the go -to distributor for chefs and culinary professionals across the Middle East and beyond. For more information, go to www .chefmiddleeast .com Now back to the episode.
So for your position now, what is the key objective that you want to drive whilst here in the company? - I want to drive a real passion for product and food.
I think that's important and to do that by actually working with our kind of sales team to be in the market and look with honesty at our entire range to say,
why are we doing this but not this? Let's try and find that product because it's missing. And then equally, what's new? What's do, what's exciting, what can we talk about where we're talking about it with real passion rather than talking about,
"Oh, I'll beat that price for you. I can match that price for you." Because those conversations will happen. It's inevitable that's part of what we do, but part of what every distribution business does. But it's so much more fun to be talking about something that's exciting.
I mean, I've got this new route to market which is coming out. You might remember Mitch Tonks, fish guy. Right, so Mitch has a load of restaurants, one on Bricson Bay,
and then he's gone into partnership with Noel the Fish, whose Noel was a big hitter out of Billingsgate, and a guy called Vernon, who started Secrets Farm with that Greg Bull guy.
So I know Vernon and Noel really well, and I only know Mitch a little bit, but They've got these three boats out of Bricson Bay, Bricson Market,
and then because they're there, they've got direct access on the port to all the other boats that are there. And all that fish normally goes from, which is the largest market outside of the fish harbour in England,
not the UK, but in England. All that fish normally goes to Billingsgate and then goes to various different distributors and then eventually hits London restaurants. So we're going direct to the market using their three boats,
using their men on the ground who get in there buying, seeing the fish at 5am, accessing that stuff, getting it to Heathrow so it doesn't go to Boone's Gate and then straight to Dubai. And that's kicking off soon so we're now looking at some seasonal,
line -court, exciting product that's all coming here. And it's just a supply chain route and a load of relationships for people that I knew in London. It doesn't have to be London. It could be from anywhere. I was going to say,
but those relationships must really help to also bring them here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're keen. They're keen. They're excited. They trust. And now we just need to, I mean,
and then other relationships. So Dario, who's the, I'm sorry, Davide, who's the general manager at He'll burrow I knew him when he was at our house as an assistant front of house guy right when I was supplying those guys and You've got Amelia within our team in sales then talking to head chef there and he's got a fish problem And this chef doesn't know me from Adam,
but I do know David it so I was able to have a three -way conversation with him saying Well, you know as David I will tell you I don't bring anything if unless I know the qualities there, and you're interested in this,
and we've got this coming, this fish offer, will you give it a go? And we're hopeful that they're going to be a little bit of a guinea pig to just kind of test the route for us, you know? But I wanted to get your thoughts on one thing.
Obviously, you know the scene in London extremely well when it comes to dining. What are your thoughts on the dining scene here in the country? It's different. There's a lot of caviar and a lot of truffle. I've noticed that.
and it's exciting. You know, I think there's more diversity in terms of, well, I wouldn't say diversity, but every single option that you could possibly have is here and available for you.
And I'm still exploring it, right? I mean, I've only been here five months, but I've been to a number of places and it feels to me that some of it is very driven around producing a dish which looks expensive,
feels expensive due to that caveat, due to that truffle. And some of it is just real kind of genuine earthy stuff with chefs doing their best. But all of them are busy.
And that's the key for me, is understanding how we tap into both of those bits. And I think that the exciting bit is that, actually, if you can find these products which do add value and are niche and are perceived to be higher end,
there's a massive market for it. Well, yes, absolutely, because I mean, just in Dubai, you probably already know the number 13 ,000 restaurants plus Abu Dhabi is doing extremely well,
Ras al -Khaimah is doing well. And Fujairah, we obviously have the oysters there happening. But what I'm excited about is you are developing constantly all the time,
right? So for me, I want to sort of sort of know from your perspective what really excites you here at the moment and sort of I know that you're going through a large expansion,
you're having these, you already have a massive warehouse. There's another one being built as we speak. And another one in Amman and another one in Qatar, you know. So where we're investing is we're investing in warehouse space.
Now, what we don't want to do is fill that with more of the same product. We've got 4 ,000 lines and if you're a hamburger joint, we can do every element of that hamburger for you.
And if you're more of a fine dining institution, we can equally provide you with ingredients so you can be creative. So, what we want to do is do more of both. So, what my role isn't is,
okay, Ben's going to come And he's only going to bring us niche stuff because I mean, let's be honest It's not going to pay for the warehouse truth So, you know, I've got to achieve both and I've got to provide all chefs no matter where they work within our industry With options.
How do you go about sourcing those specific products? I think it's a mix between fridge food shows recommendation travel Existing relationships, and they're not just mine are hastened to ads.
I've got 15 direct reports, which are in two different sections and they've got their own teams. So I've got a whole supply chain purchasing team and they're very functional.
But I've got these really exciting people who are category managers who treat the area of expertise they're in, like their own business. That's quite cool. It is cool. So I've got a lady called Marie who works for me.
She looks at speciality and she's found, for example, there's a lady called Francesca, I think her name is, and she's kind of half French, half Spanish. And she,
in her 30s, went back to Spain where her mom is from, and the local kind of Patanegra producer was basically in bust, and she's got into bed with them and started to celebrate what they do and what they've done historically,
but also had some new ideas. And she loves kind of Japanese methods. So you've got this traditional kind of sense of, right, okay, well, I've got these traditional Japanese methods here, got these traditional Spanish methods here.
How do I merge them together and use Spanish curing techniques, perhaps in a more of a Japanese style? And Marie's tapped into all of that. So I think when I met you last,
we were nibbling over a tuna heart, weren't we? - Yes, the tuna heart was amazing. - Yeah, and it blew my mind. - There's another one, which is really cool, which is a Japanese wagyu,
it's had all the stuff. You know, it's been, it's drunk beer and had massages and listened to classical music and all that stuff. And then it goes to Spain and these guys in Spain in this business that was nearly going bust,
then cure it in the same way as they would cure any beef in that part of the world. And so you got this blend of these two kind of food cultures and that perhaps isn't exactly this slow food piece I was talking about before,
but I am a sucker for a story and it's a pretty good one and the food that's coming out there is amazing. So Marie is driving that piece and she's really developing that and then similarly I've got Candice and He looks after our kind of meat and protein division and I was surprised to find out you know 46 % of all the kind of American beef which comes into the UAE comes in via us.
And then we've kind of not got a lot going on after that because that's been our focus because that's where the market always drove us. So what we're now looking at through Candice is we've got some come the summer We've got some really,
really, really cool Australian programs that are starting up. And we do a little bit already, but we've got some really good Australian wagyu, for example. But we've got some Australian programs that could come up. They're gonna give a different flavor profile,
gonna give other chefs a different price point, a different texture. And for me, that's just as exciting in a way because it's about expanding the offer. And it's her that's driving that. It's her that's flown to Australia. It's her that's met all those producers.
My role now is much more coaching. So it's really about, yeah, I can still do a bit of that, but I want them to come up with their own ideas. I want them to feel that passion, the way that I do,
about how to go about sourcing and building those relationships. So if I can steer them in the right direction and they can find you something like the tuna heart, then I'll feel that I've achieved and I've had a good day.
But look, Chef Middle East as a brand, as a food distributor, yeah, has a gigantic name already. How will you keep growing it and developing for this brand to become the very best?
And the reason I ask is because you guys are not only sourcing the very best produce, not only are you in some phenomenal markets, but the thing that struck me the most,
is when I spoke to Steve, is that if I'm really in trouble, your logistics guy is able to help me and open that warehouse at two in the morning if I need help.
Yeah, Steve does that bit. Yeah, it is. Because I'll be in bed, but Steve will go there with you. No, I'm joking. But I mean, I think it's a phenomenal thing to do.
The service is to do because not a lot of people will have the time, the service, or even the hospitality to take a call at 11 at night and say, "Listen, I really need your help." Yeah, look, our phones and emails are always on,
you know, and I think once you build a relationship with somebody, you know, ultimately, these guys working in restaurants and hotels, they pay our salary, and their teams pay our salary,
and we have to, as part of our culture, recognize that we are only in existence to support them. So it's a two -way and very symbiotic relationship.
So you know, we can't just, the job doesn't end once we've found a product. It doesn't end once we've delivered the product. What we have to do is develop the ongoing relationship. So there's that trust,
and then that helps us when we get round to the next menu change and saying, Okay, are you thinking about a menu change? Where are you at? Can I introduce some product? So you can think about that. And we should be working in that kind of symbiotic way as I've referred to where we're going out of our way,
not only from a food perspective, but from a delivery perspective too, but also from a development piece to try to be dovetailing in as much as we can. So, you know,
if you're changing your menu seven times a year or six times a then really I want to be seeing you six weeks prior to that to then while you're still thinking fresh about what you might do to be showing your stuff.
So you can then in your course of your menu development include that and I think that's partnership and that's where we want to get to. We want to be perceived as a real partner and as a broad liner in the true sense we want people to think that no matter where you are positioned in that market,
we've done our best to find the right product for where you're at, whether that be in Asian foods, whether that be in chains, whether that be in casual dining environment or fine dining.
And we've got some work to go because there's some perception pieces around that. And I don't think it ever stops, you know, that some people, some chefs might just see us as this. And I think,
or just see it as that. And I think that we don't help ourselves with that sometimes because our sales team sometimes, what they do is we've got 4 ,000 products, right? I mean, I kind of want 8 ,000,
but we've got 4 ,000 products. And they cherry pick the products that actually we think might be useful for you. So you don't really sometimes see a whole range. However, exciting news that we are now starting to trial very shortly,
our e -commerce website. And I think that will be a game changer because your prices would be loading onto there, you'll see all of our stock and you can browse it like Amazon,
right? And you can just dial in micro herbs and then urban leaf, which is round the corner from us pops up. And weirdly, we've got huge penetration with urban leaf in bars.
So we sell tons and tons of flowers. And yet the bulk of the sale will be in red vein sorrel or, you know, some other micro micro -highlights. And we hardly do anything. So, you know,
I think when our range opens up on that platform, we'll just have so much more speculative sale where people can see this vast catalogue of what we do. Because I was going to ask it,
you know, the amount of competition you have within food distribution is also no joke here. Yes. Full on. Yeah. So that's my next question is,
how do you stay relevant in an ever -growing market? And I think you just answered one of those questions very well, is to have a kind of application on the phone that has these 4 ,000 SKUs,
you know? Yeah, yeah. And be creative and keep on adding to that. And then the next bit is, I mean, that doesn't replace a salesperson, but it's equally getting the salespeople on the ground as excited about the product as my category managers are,
and then how they work together and how they go to the market together and how they actually do joint appointments together and because they share the same targets. So we have some amazing sales team that are really good at building the relationships and what we need to do is give them stories,
give them the tools, give them everything that they can do to make the chefs experience better using our product. Must be quite tricky for you in a way having to manage so many personalities and that they are all passionate about certain things.
Yeah, I mean everyone's different, right? It's a beauty of life. It's also the challenge. Yeah, yeah. Because as you said, it's kind of like you mentioned previously, kind of being in a kitchen and managing everybody.
That's a different thing. Yeah, of course. And also... And you'll always get this guy that burns the chicken legs or whatever. Exactly. And also, learning the different cultures,
yeah, all that kind of stuff, you know, I think it's absolutely phenomenal. Now, for you, yes, only been here for five months. Yeah. But what would you like to see in the future for the dining scene here?
What are your predictions? It's tough. Well, I think, you know, I always used to like, I guess I do. I used to always quite like really great food, but is less about the environment.
I'm really interested to see whether that happens here. Here everything is kind of, you know, it feels like it's marble and gold encrusted restaurants that are all immaculate and perfect and I'm still exploring.
So that assumption could be a little bit wrong, but I'd like to see more kind of earthy stuff that just kind of flows out. Now I've found this, this is great and you've just got almost like an old warehouse type thing where someone's operating kicking out great food.
Yeah. And you get that in the UK, you get that in New York, you know, those types of places. I don't know whether Dubai is the right environment for that, but it would be interesting to see if it becomes more.
So go and check out a place called Al -Sarcal Avenue. Okay. In Al -Khus. Okay. It's kind of the industrial area. Yeah. There's loads of really small, tiny, super cool restaurants that are kind of of doing exactly this and it's amazing.
- Is it? - Yeah, so that's the top tip, I'll take it. - I'll have to hook me up in the recommendations. - So then when it comes to the future of Chef Middle East and the business,
how do you see that moving forward? - Well, we want to continue to gain market share. I think that what we need to do with that is we need to provide more offers in terms of more options for people.
And we have still big investment, but that's not just in infrastructure. That's also in people, right? So we need the right resources to substantiate our future growth. And we've done great by kind of growing at least 30 % every single year.
And over the next few, we want to carry on that journey. And as the UAE and the wider region continue to evolve and food changes, we need to make sure that we've got the pieces in the jigsaw to be able to do that.
We also need to look, honestly, ourselves and our competitors and say, actually, you know, we think they're really good at that, we need to develop ourselves in that area and that's the process that I'm driving.
- So then my final question, before we get to the dreaded quick fire questions. - Okay. - I want to talk about Crave. - Yes, an amazing event that you have for the industry.
Now, for those people who haven't been there, the only way I can describe it is like an incredible food festival for the industry. There is no hard sell. It's very organic in the terms that the growers,
the suppliers are there themselves and they are talking about the product. Now, you as the head of commercial development. How will you develop that?
How will you develop this event even more in order for more chefs to be aware, potentially more restaurants and bars to be aware,
because I think the event is amazing, but there's always room for improvement. How will you do that? I think we need to get a bit of a end with it.
And I think that's what we're working towards in terms of just generally what we're showcasing there. Because obviously these events, you know, we have some suppliers that really want to promote what they do. So they're supportive in us putting the event on.
But for every one of those, we've got a tiny little business over there that actually doesn't have the means to do it. But actually, their product is just super, super cool. And with my more Sheffy hat on,
I really want to be focusing on those lines, so by default, I think that we need to select these types of products that are symbolic of our top tier, because even if you can't afford to buy it,
everyone likes looking at a Ferrari, and then thereafter, once you're falling in love with the Ferrari, you can then start looking at the other options, maybe a Fiat Ciccuchento or something. We do a bit of that,
but coming towards the next event, we want to be doing much more of it. Looking forward to it because I think it is amazing. Good. So are you ready for the quick fire? Don't for it. No, not really,
but go for it. So I've given you the most difficult question, first and second one. Okay. Favorite ingredient? Oh Jesus,
cheese. What type of cheese? Pecorino. Because? Pecorino in fossa, particularly. Because? Pecorino Because, because it just tastes like you've had an explosion go off your mouth,
okay buried underground I asked salved of oxygen. Ah, okay. So so it is incredible. It's incredible. I asked Steve the same question Yeah, what's your favorite department? my own Are you sweet or salty salty?
Fish and chips or pie and chips? Pie. Even the rubbish pie, still a pie. Still a pie. Very good. Tarama salata or fresh pesto?
Fresh pesto. Now, at the moment as it stands in the present day, what are your top three cuisines to eat that you love to eat right now? Right now, Italian,
um, shawarma. How Can I forget the shawarma? - And I really like kind of fusion, Asian kind of fusion type food, I suppose.
That, you know, so not Asian exclusively, but just using some of those ingredients in a different way. - Who would you say are your top three culinary heroes and they don't necessarily need to be chefs?
- I think, so some of these restaurants I thought were terrible in the late years, but in the late 1990s, early 2000s, everyone wanted to be Jamie Oliver,
right? He was kind of cooking at home and he'd slide down his staircase and jump on his Vesper and go to Lena's stores and buy a load of ingredients for your mates. I think just the way people thought about food,
I think he was a bit of an inspiration with that. Absolutely. He was a huge catalyst for getting people in the industry. So less about the cooking, just about the influence. I think, oh, what's his name? Mr.
Floyd with his slurping of the wine, with Floyd. He's just a god. And I heard that he did all of his videos pretty much in like a take, right?
So it's just, here we go, now we've got to put this in here, right in there. It'll be slurps of wine and clive. Yeah, just Uh,
and then probably because he, well, there was two guys that died recently, which I was, you know, it was a bit of a shock to me because they, they weren't that much older than me.
And one was, um, Bill Granger, uh, the Australian sort of TV chef and coming back to that kind of Asian food, he was great at that because you'd have the kind of Asian influence,
some Greek, Italian, as as well as more kind of generic kind of Australian English, I suppose, and he kind of blend those three together. And Russell Norman also passed away, who started all the kind of polpo sites.
And they, that was a bit of a shock. Both of those, I know I've never given you four, but I remember meeting Bill Granger before he opened his first London site in a church opposite his first site.
And I was giving him this ricotta that probably cost three times the amount of any other ricotta on the market at the time. And he is a lovely soft voice with his blonde hair. He said, "Hey,
mate, that's a wig, and I need a load of that, and I can't make you do the exit." And I didn't realize how much he meant. And then there was cues around the corner of this Portobello restaurant, waiting for these, used to make these ricotta hotcakes with maple syrup and banana.
And they were open there from, I think, from half seven in the morning till midnight, basic lining, and it was just packed all day long, and I literally had half a van, big,
massive long -wheelbase transit van, half a van going two or three times a week just with a ricotta for these ricotta penguins. But yeah,
no, he probably him. Okay, all incredible guys, really incredible guys. Now, if it was your last day on earth,
what would be that meal that you would have? Anything barbecued. I just, anything barbecued. I just, I love, I mean, you know what,
that's what I miss when you came most. My bar, I got this great setup. You walk outside into my garden and you look right and you got a pizza oven and then you look left and you've got this big Italian barbecue. And I just love cooking with them.
And sometimes using both at the same time, simultaneously. - Nice. - Multitasking. - Yeah, multitasking. And I just love that flavor profile that comes from wood and charcoal.
So yeah, anything on a barbecue. - You're in the right place in the world. There's so much going on, there's the barbecuing here. And cooking in the sand, so - Yeah. - So yeah,
you're in the right place. - Can't wait. - There's loads of cool things happening. So from all of your years within the hospitality industry. - Yes. - Now I'm specifically talking about being involved with chefs and restaurants.
- Yeah. - What would you say has been your funniest ever, either restaurant incident or kitchen incident that you've seen or been involved in?
- I think there's been built alone, but I think probably I remember rocking up for a coffee in in Bombetta, which was our first restaurant early one morning and any person that was there was little Gino who was cleaning just before we opened up and next thing you know there's about six riot police all barged in out of nowhere.
And I'm like, "What the hell's going on?" And they're just screaming at me, "Where's the bomb? Where's the bomb?" And I'm like, "What are we talking about? I haven't got bomb. There's no bomb. There's a bomb. The bomb's been reported." And it transpired that we'd had a bread delivery.
And to abbreviate the name "Bombetta", they'd written "bomb" on a bag. And stuck it out the front. So, and we were next to a London Underground site. So, as these six police We were all in kind of this special gear or dashing up for a loaf of bread.
It went on the radio and stuff, and I googled it once, and I think either it was on Colombian TV or something like that. It kind of went pit -fieril, but in hindsight it was funny.
At the time, it was just bizarre and probably a bit scary when there was no big thing. I was going to say, potentially it could have been good for marketing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was definitely a talk of town.
What advice would you give to a 16 -year -old Ben Milner? I think the advice I'd give would be to really kind of expose yourself and listen and learn as much as you can from everything that's around you and work as hard as you can.
You know, I could have been, I may not have been head of commercial in Chef Middle East. You never know, I could have been anything if I'd done those A -levels a little bit better, but I'll work hard. And actually,
you know-- - Look, I love being head of commercial in Chef Middle East, but yeah, I think you just need to be consistent and just work hard and put your all in. And the day you stop doing that,
that's when you fail. - Look, I think that's phenomenal advice. And the other sort of question I wanted to put to you. Now I've come to think of it. During your interview with Steve,
did you talk about politics because he also studied politics? Yeah, well, yeah, I think we didn't actually know. Okay, so on the next podcast we have, be you and Steve talking about politics,
so we'll get that lined up. Your viewing count will go right down. If people want to get a hold of you via social media. Yeah, how can they do that? You get me a LinkedIn,
Ben Milne. I do have an Instagram account, benamilne. Or you just drop me an email, benmilne @chefmedalese .com. Done deal. I'll put all of that in the show notes so everyone can get hold of you.
Now, Ben, I just wanted to recap our incredible conversation. From your childhood years, football obviously is a big one. Massive. Massive.
Pies, I think you need to start developing some pies potentially. Fish and chips, we haven't talked about that, but we'll discuss that later on. Talking about all your incredible experiences with your wife going to Europe to then coming back,
having that sort of lust for food, which is phenomenal. Then working with all these incredible restaurants and chefs, being involved in so many things,
having your own incredible restaurants, going through COVID, which I'm sure we all know was not easy at all, to then, you know, having this phenomenal job here with Chef Middle East,
developing the brand, developing the people and everything that you stand for, I think is amazing and really exceptional. I just wanted to say say on behalf of the ChefJKP podcast,
thank you very much for taking the time to be here. I've learned a lot. Our listeners, of course, will learn a huge amount. And really, I wish you only the very best of luck for the future. I can't wait to see what you're going to do next.
Mate, thank you so much. I've enjoyed it. Thank you. I just loved that conversation. And what I really admire about Ben is that he's fully committed to his team,
the business, and the customers. At the same time, he is also massively committed to bringing an even better guest experience. Imagine over 4 ,000 products,
which means you have to know the origin, the stories of every single supplier at all order, but you don't get to Ben's position without hard work, dedication,
and fully throwing yourself in at the deep end. The lesson I took away from here is, upsell the product first, discuss the price later. And by the way,
the Crave event's happening later on in the year, so don't miss out. Simply sign into their newsletter or contact them directly to get an invite. This place,
this event honestly is just amazing. You get close up and personal to the owners to some of the very best food on the planet. It's conversations like this that can really open our minds and think about the entire ecosystem of hospitality.
Doesn't matter if you're a chef, waitress, bartender or not even in the food game. You would have been able to learn something totally new and something that may have not even crossed your mind.
I cannot wait to see what the future holds for Chef Middle East and if you want to see more of what Ben is doing, I'll place all of his details in the show notes. A big thank you to JJ and the entire team at Podcast Now for producing the show and don't forget you can now watch us on YouTube.
If you haven't already, make sure to follow, share and subscribe. I would just like to ask a small favour, if you like the show or think someone you know, could learn a few lessons from the guests and the conversations we have,
please share away so that we can reach as many people as possible. And who knows, perhaps these episodes can inspire someone to take action and be the very best at what they do.
And finally, muchas gracias for staying on and listening to the entire show. Until next time, food is is memories.