Events: HRC 2022
Hotel, Restaurant and Catering (HRC) will return to ExCeL London on 21st to 23rd March as the UK’s biggest event dedicated to foodservice and hospitality professionals. Taking place alongside sister shows, International Food and Drink Event (IFE), IFE Manufacturing and London Produce Show, the combined event will welcome over 30,000 key industry buyers and showcase more than 1,500 quality suppliers.
For more than 85 years, HRC has been a trusted resource for hotel, restaurant and catering business owners to source the best products for their future growth and expansion. This year’s event will once again be split into four key sections to enable buyers to quickly and easily find the suppliers suited to their needs: the Professional Kitchen section, the Foodservice section, the Hospitality Tech section and, newly rebranded for 2022, the Design and Décor section.
This year's event will also incorporate some of the best-loved features of The Pub Show into HRC’s offering. These will include the popular Tap Room feature, appealing directly to publicans and bar owners in addition to restaurateurs and hoteliers looking to expand their bar and drinks offerings.
The Pub Show at HRC has partnered with On-Trade Consultancy (OTC) to bring a curated selection of pub-focused suppliers to the show and to run a number of ‘pub crawls’. These trend trails will focus on product categories such as ready-to-drink, spirits and hospitality tech.
Matt Steinhofel, managing director of OTC, said: “I am delighted that we are involved with The Pub Show at HRC this March. We are excited to be changing up the way traditional pub trade shows are run by adding innovative new drink products and tech services and interesting guest speakers, along with informative and engaging pub crawls for attendees.”
2022 will see the return of The Staff Canteen Live to HRC. Each edition sees some of the UK’s most skilled and creative chefs cooking their most well-known dishes and sharing their insights and experience.
Cara Houchen, editor of The Staff Canteen, added: "As ever, our chef line-up boasts a number of Michelin stars but also some great new talent. We are incredibly passionate about this industry and we want to be part of nurturing young chefs and offering them the spotlight at our live event. I can't wait to be sharing the stage with these excellent chefs again – it's been too long!"
All chefs will be joined by a team member they consider to be one to watch, giving onlookers the opportunity to meet some of the UK's rising culinary stars.
HRC 2022 will also host the 120th year of historic chef competition International Salon Culinaire, which is introducing a number of new competition categories for the occasion. These include the Apprentice Challenge, the Restaurant Home Meal Kit Challenge and Pub Chef of the Year.
This year’s event will have two main stages. The Vision Stage, designed by Harp Design, has been curated by EXP101 and will feature insights from big-name brands and individuals in hospitality, foodservice and design, including Yummy Pubs, Michel Roux Jr, Market Halls, Pizza Pilgrims and Grind. The Tech X stage, meanwhile, will be hosting insightful discussions around all things hospitality technology, featuring Honest Burger, Popeyes, Wahaca and many more.
In addition to partnering with EXP101, HRC is working with Tried and Supplied and Hospitality Jobs UK to introduce two stand-alone conferences for the event. They are the Better Hospitality Conference and the Hospitality’s Talent Conundrum conference.
"We're excited to be holding the Better Hospitality Conference as a live in-person event for the first time as part of HRC in March,” commented Domini Hogg, founder of Tried and Supplied. “Bringing together experts, operators, chefs and farmers from a wide range of business types, the conference discusses key challenges and opportunities for the sector in developing better practices across sustainability, nutrition, people and business resilience."
Hospitality Jobs UK Founder Dawn Bowstead described the reasons for launching the conference, saying: “The staffing issue is a real conundrum for the hospitality sector and is at the forefront of everything we do in hospitality, whether it be customer face-to-face, back-of-house or operational roles.
“At the Hospitality’s Talent Conundrum conference, we will be offering innovative solutions for hospitality businesses to attract and retain candidates. Expect leading industry figures discussing their journeys, their solutions and the successes they’ve had with attracting talented employees. We will also be sharing government incentives, apprenticeship opportunities and how industry charities are supporting the sector.”
2022 exhibitors
The event’s Foodservice section will be welcoming back exhibitors such as Britvic, Essential Cuisine and Major, plus new additions to the show such as Quorn Professional, Pact Coffee, UCC Coffee, Edmund's Cocktails and RSPCA Assured. A number of past exhibitors have invested in the event’s Professional Kitchen section for 2022, including Unox, First Choice Group, Euro Catering and Grande Cuisine, led by Foodservice Equipment Association chairman Stephen Hobbs.
New exhibiting companies for 2022 include Quintex, LLK, R-Tech and Fagor. Giuseppe Monti, Fagor’s European commercial director, commented: “Fagor is really excited to be entering the UK market. We have worked very closely with a selected partner in the UK over the past three years, not only supporting our brand in key accounts but also helping us to improve the technology and quality of our core product ranges. We are excited to be showcasing our products at HRC and will be welcoming visitors to our stand.”
Filta Environmental (P248) will be exhibiting its latest innovations in kitchen hygiene and environmental compliance, including the award-winning FiltaFOG Cyclone, a next-generation grease recovery unit (GRU). Designed for the circular economy, FiltaFOG Cyclone uses a unique patented three-stage separation process to deliver exceptionally high-quality recovered oil from kitchen wastewater - turning your waste stream into a revenue stream. It enables operators to recover approximately 2,000 litres of quality oil every year, worth £400.
Filta Group is an environmental kitchen specialist that helped to save 26,500 tonnes of carbon emissions for clients last year, which is equivalent to planting 1.46m trees. It has committed to net zero operational impact by 2035.
Other solutions on display or available for operators to discuss with the Filta team at HRC include FiltaFry fryer management and cooking oil services; FiltaSeal, offering commercial refrigeration seal replacements in one visit; and its training, education and specification services to support Fats, Oils and Grease compliance.
On Panasonic’s stand (P340) will be its range of microwave ovens, with the SCV2 Speed Convection Oven taking centre stage. A wide range of hot goods to-go with a beautifully crisped and browned finish can be provided from a single item of equipment, with a small footprint.
Hot, toasted, sweet and savoury pastry goods can all be served straight from the Panasonic NE-SCV2 speed convection oven, as it will grill, toast, bake, re-heat, cook, brown, fry and poach. It doesn’t need extraction either, therefore it can be located anywhere, even in the smallest of kitchens.
As well as a number of daily cooking demonstrations, there will a chance for visitors to win a masterclass for two, including lunch, at the new Café Spice Namaste, with highly acclaimed chef Cyrus Todiwala, OBE, DL. All visitors need to do to enter is go to the Panasonic stand to enter the free draw. The winner will be announced after the show.
Live on the stand P205 will be Meiko’s MiClean undercounter with heat recovery and Remote GiO reverse osmosis water treatment, which is ideal for bars and counters because of its low height. The new Bottle Wash System takes 16 standard bottles at once, or 640 per hour, allowing caterers to use their own bottles.
Meiko’s new UPster H500 hood type dishwasher features built-in AktivClean water softening, or GiO reverse osmosis water treatment. AktivClean ensures non-stop working, even when regenerating with salt. Both variants save space and improve sustainability. Automatic hood dishwashers, the latest rack and flight machines and biomass food waste handling systems also feature.
Meiko is also offering in-depth dishwashing analysis. Its experts can visit and advise on energy saving, ergonomics, protecting staff welfare, hygiene, maintenance, and dishwash planning and design.
Rational (P405) will be showcasing the iVario Pro and iCombi Pro cooking systems at the HRC exhibition. The iVario Pro replaces bratt pans, kettles, deep fryers and pressure cookers. Visitors will hear how they can boil, braise, fry and deep fry up to four times faster and using up to 40% less energy than conventional equipment. Experts from the company will be in attendance to consult with customers, as well as focusing on their software platform ConnectedCooking and service support.
Valentine and CuisinEquip (P519) will be putting the spotlight on the new Lightfry commercial air fryer, the latest tabletop fryers from the Valentine portfolio, authentic pasta makers from Bottene, money-saving filtration from Vito and energy-saving induction from HWM.
Visitors will have the opportunity to view and observe live cooking with Speed-X, the world’s first self-washing combi speed oven. Following the global launch at Host Milano 2021, the Unox UK team (P461) has big plans for unveiling this state-of-the-art oven technology on the London stage.
On show will also be Unox’s patented hot food preservation system, Evereo, a unit featuring the latest technology, which, when stacked with Speed-X or a ChefTop Mind.Map, delivers a complete cook-hold solution.
The Foodservice Equipment Association (P143) will be promoting its Ask the Experts. For drilled-down, specialist advice on specific areas, users will be able to scan a QR code that will take them to a list of equipment companies who have expertise in the area they are interested in, and who are exhibiting at HRC.
Welbilt (P240) will display the latest in combi oven innovation, the Convotherm maxx pro, the award-winning espresso machine Crem EX3 and the high-speed Merrychef conneX oven. The stand will feature a live cooking area.
From variable temperature individual chef’s drawers to meat ageing cabinets and multidecks, Williams (P205) will be highlighting the versatility and breadth of modern foodservice refrigeration. The company will be sharing the stand with sister company Falcon Foodservice Equipment. Part of the display will highlight the two companies’ ‘perfect match’ capabilities – for example, a Chef’s Drawer will be shown with a Falcon appliance stacked on top.
Henley Bridge (F438) is a food ingredients distribution company stocking over 1,500 products from more than 90 brands. It will be attending to help chefs, chocolatiers, bakers, ice cream manufacturers, and gelato and dessert parlours create moments of magic.
As one of the leading independent ingredients distributors in the UK, it stocks a large range of brands including Belcolade, Chocolate Madagascar, Dobla, Dilmah, deZaan, Essential Cuisine, Léonce Blanc, Norohy, Pidy, Rebublica del Cacao, Sosa and many more.
The newly rebranded Design and Décor section of the show will be hosting returning exhibitors such as King of Cotton, Typhoon, T&G Woodware and Elia International. In addition, it will be welcoming new suppliers including Geberit, Villeroy and Boch, Bolsius, Play Shufl, Intent Productions and Drinkstuff.
Over in Hospitality Tech, new exhibitors include Sunday, Workforce.com, Seven Rooms, Slerp and Fourth, and the show is pleased to welcome back leading tech businesses including Kobas, Planday, Tevalis and PointOne.
You may also be interested in…
