Event Details

In March, the Food & Beverage industry in China has experienced a considerable fall in demand during the epidemic outbreak. People have resulted in bringing their lunches to work, and with the added issue of virus prevention and impact on supply chains, restaurants throughout China have been severely impacted.


On 19 Jun, British Chamber Shanghai's Hospitality, Leisure, Food and Beverage Committee invites two entrepreneurs from the food and beverage industry - Nat Alexander, the Founder and Owner at Homeslice Pizza, and Franklin Yao, CEO at YouKuai Group International to share the success stories of their businesses over the past few months.

Nat will talk about the critical moments in how his business has had to adapt and how restaurants need to change to the 'new normal'. Franklin will bring us the latest information about his plant-based meat business in China and how he established this innovative food company. Homeslice & Z-Rou have teamed up and launched a Z-Rou plant-based meat pizza in March.

 

Please join us on 19 Jun to listen to these fantastic success stories and to exchange idea with your fellow peers and of course, enjoy the pizza!


Agenda:


6.30 pm -7 pm: Registration

7 pm - 7:05 pm: Welcome and Introduction

7:05 pm - 8 pm: Panel Discussion and Q&A

8 pm: Wrap-up and Closing Remarks,Networking

8.30 pm:Event Ends


Notes:


Homeslice & Z-Rou vegan pizza and drinks will be served at the night.


Participants can send their questions in advance using the registration form.


In case of cancellation, please kindly note you must email the BritCham Shanghai Event staff Hilary.Wu@britishchambershanghai.cn before 6:30 pm, 18 Jun. Due to the service charges of Event Bank and online payment platforms, we can only partially refund up to 90% of your ticket price and payment will be processed within 14 days after the event via your original payment method. However, it is non-refundable for cancellation request made beyond the above mentioned timeframe.


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Related Readings:


Nat Alexander and Homeslice: One of the Restaurants Impacted By COVID-19.   

(Excerpted from Nat's interview with TimeOutShanghai during April 2020)


'TimeOutShanghai: How is the COVIC-19 outbreak affecting your business? 


Alexander: We had closed two of our stores for Chinese New Year, but ended up having to close all of them for a further ten days, reopening for delivery only last week. We didn't have enough staff to open all of them. Several of our staff were unable to leave their homes, so we only had about one-third able to work. Even when the rest of the staff can come back to Shanghai, they can't work for 14 days. We are unable to offer in-store business, except to customers coming to collect orders, so that has a big effect. Commissions on delivery always eat into profits, but only doing delivery will mean a bigger hit. has closed two of their store for Chinese New Year, but ended up having to close all of them for a further ten days, reopening for delivery only last week. They didn't have enough staff to open all of them. Several of their staff were unable to leave their homes, so they only had about one-third able to work. Even when the rest of the staff can come back to Shanghai, they can't work for 14 days. Also, the restaurant was unable to offer in-store business, except to customers coming to collect orders, so that had a big effect. Commissions on delivery always eat into profits, but only doing delivery would mean a bigger hit.'


Click here to view the original article 


As Nat said, the consumers are returning to restaurants slowly, and the businesses are resuming. 


Homeslice announced their Summer pizzas at the end of May in a very delightful tone: 'After an unpredictable Spring, Shanghai has burst into life again in the run-up to summer; schools are reopening, restrictions are lifting & bars and restaurants are getting busy once again, so what better time to announce our new seasonal specials, than the first official day of Summer!'


Homeslice has also been working with Stepping Stones for a few years, ( i.e. 10% of the sales of each guest chef pizza goes to this NGO whose mission is to improve the education and general welfare of disadvantaged children).


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Franklin Yao and Z-Rou: Plant-Based Meat: Buzzword, Hot investment or Tasty Food? 


'Plant-based meat' has been a buzzword that's not only dominating headlines but also a newfound food in more restaurants, it is also a hot investment for investors.  Ever since the US plant-based meat company Beyond Meat was listed on Nasdaq in May 2019, the capital markets' response to the meat alternative was nothing short of a frenzy. The market for plant-based foods are booming, the business accelerates rapidly, due to a few environment, health and safety reasons.  


As a fact, interest is growing - and companies within and outwith China are responding.  In April, fast-food giant KFC test-launched its vegetable chicken nuggets, which are made by US agri-food behemoth Cargill and Starbucks added new plant-based options to its menu at about 4000 Chinese outlets. The dishes included a Beyond Beef Pesto Pasta and an Omnipork Vietnamese Style Noodle Salad.  There are an increasing number of domestic start-ups and traditional veggie food companies joined the plant-based meat competition, the following picture is a collection of these products have been launched in China market in the past 12 months: 


China Market: Not all about the adoption of Western ways.


When the buzzwords dominate the news these days, the criticism from Chinese consumers is increasing. From many people's perspective, plant-based meat as 'artificial meat' is just another form of soy products. Also, for centuries, religious people living in China have chosen vegan and vegetarian diets for centuries. There are records of monks eating tofu-based meats as early as in the Tang Dynasty. 


Franklin Yao, recently said to That's Beijing  'When you look at fake meat in the Buddhist sense, you are not trying to be the same as the meats you grew up with. But what Beyond and Impossible have done is taken an iconic American product – the hamburger – and allowed you to eat it vegetarian in as close of sense as possible. And this is the same thing we're doing with ground pork. What we want you to do is be able to enjoy the dishes that your mother or grandmother made, or the spaghetti Bolognese that you'd go out to eat in a restaurant, in a better way. And I think that's really the difference between where we were before and where we are now." At the event, Franklin Yao will discuss his opinions of selling plant-based meat products to local foodies and ways to adopt Chinese food culture.

Speakers

  • Franklin Yao (CEO of YouKuai Group International)

    Franklin Yao

    CEO of YouKuai Group International

    Franklin Yao is Founder and CEO of YouKuai Group International, whose premium plant-based meat brand Z Rou carries tasty, healthy and sustainable meat alternative products.

    Franklin is an entrepreneur who has founded 3 successful businesses in China over the last 15 years. Prior to YouKuai Group, Franklin was Managing Director of Greater China for Yext, an NYSE-listed technology company, where he built the business from scratch and developed partnerships with all of Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Dianping, Sogou and 360. The company acquired over 40 leading multinational brand clients for the Yext platform including Adidas, Starbucks, Apple and Marriot.

    As Managing Partner and co-founder of Smith Street, a China-focused strategy consulting firm, Franklin advises global clients on their China market-entry, market growth, value chain optimization, customers and e-commerce strategies.

    During his earlier years in China, Franklin set up the Shanghai office of Opera Solutions and oversaw an eight-fold growth in its size. He was a strategy consultant at Mitchell Madison Group, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young and Inductis in New York.

    Franklin received a B.A. in Economics and East Asian Studies from Yale University.

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  • Nat Alexander (Founder and Owner of Homeslice Pizza)

    Nat Alexander

    Founder and Owner of Homeslice Pizza

    Nat Alexander is from Bath in the south-west of England. After studying at Oxford University and then working for KPMG in the UK, he opened his first restaurant in Shanghai in 2010.

    Nat opened Homeslice Pizza in 2017 in Huangpu District’s Found 158. Proudly born in Shanghai, Homeslice makes huge 20” New York-style pizzas, using the best-imported ingredients and their own special recipes and now has three stores in Puxi, with more on the way.

    Homeslice has won multiple awards for its pizza, with high ratings from local and foreign customers alike. Expect a mix of traditional and innovative toppings served on a unique slow-fermented sourdough crust.

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  • David Markham (Vice President Operations, East China at InterContinental Hotels Group)

    David Markham

    Vice President Operations, East China at InterContinental Hotels Group

    David has been working with InterContinental Hotels Group for over 30 years. This has been across the UK, Africa, Asia and the Middle East but predominantly in China where he has lived and worked for the last 20 years. David’s core passion is not only to provide true hospitality for all but develop and nurture talent especially in the China context.

    As an At-large member, David will bring a passion to grow talent and providing life changing opportunities for members and the broader community. With IHG’s diverse hotel ownership profile across a spectrum of SOE, major real estate organisations and high net worth individual hotel owners, David will bring a deep understanding of building effective partnerships that enable and drive high performance levels.

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Tickets

Member Ticket
Member Price RMB 100
Non-member Ticket
Standard Price RMB 200

Venue

BritCham Shanghai Office

静安区成都北路333号 招商局广场 南楼 1108室

Room 1108, South Tower, M Place, 333 Chengdu Bei Lu, Shanghai

Shanghai, China

If you have any questions please contact Hilary Wu

Contact Organizer

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