Five Loaves, Two Fishes and Six Chicken Nuggets

by Barry Gibbons

  Today, we are going to talk about a couple of acres that qualify as the planetary epicentre of quick-service. A-ha! Already I can hear the debate amongst my American readers – with the threat of open warfare breaking out between the supporters of the food court in that huge shopping mall in Minneapolis and that Strip Center in Chicago that has wall-to-wall fast food and seems to go on for miles.

  Well, here’s the bad news. It’s neither – and it’s not even in the USA. It is certainly not in the UK or Europe. It is in Marrakech, in Morocco, in north-west Africa.

  I’ve obviously got a soft spot for it – many of you will remember our hit record Marrakech Express when I was a member of that enlightened rock band Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young and Gibbons. That aside, it is a gorgeous place to visit. It is a largely Muslim country, but the second thing that hits you as you get off the plane – after the sunshine – is the stupidity of much modern rhetoric and stereotyping. There is no animosity, in fact quite the opposite. Hail a petit taxi and ask the fare to your hotel and you will probably get a smile, a shrug, and be told ‘Que vous voulez’. When did that last happen to you in a cab from Heathrow?

  On to quick-serve subjects. After living for twelve years in the US, people often ask me what I admire most about the nation and its people. Included in my long list are the happenings in the mid-game break in the Super Bowl. Within twenty minutes, a serious metropolis is built from scratch, illuminated, covered in fireworks and people, sung upon, and then dismantled and completely removed. Impressive, but it is as nothing compared with what happens in the late afternoon in Place Jemaa el Fna, a three-acre car-park in the centre of Marrakech.

  I have never been sure of the collective noun for quick-serve restaurants – so let’s call it a gaggle. From nowhere, as the sun begins to sink, a massive gaggle of QSRs arrives in flat pack form on the back of all sorts of unlikely conveyances (including donkeys). They are assembled, fired up, illuminated, and then thronged (if there is such a word). By midnight, they are all gone. About half the acreage is given to these, and the rest to an eclectic mix of acrobats, snake charmers, street doctors and dentists, fortune tellers, musicians, and loud – and I mean LOUD – drummers. The whole thing – content and process – is astonishing to witness and gets my vote as our planet’s quick-serve capital.

  Wandering amongst the stalls, it is quickly evident that many of the basic principles of QSRs, as we would understand them, are present. Much of the cooking is with a simple broiler, and much of the hard work and prep is done off-site. They follow the universal quick-serve rule that anything that can’t be made into a sandwich can be fried, and sometimes you can do both. Beyond that, there are many differences. Perhaps there are some lessons for us.

  Let us first of all get the ugly stuff out of the way. Yes, there are things on display that even I don’t want to know about – notably assorted animal heads and varieties of offal. But if we ignore all that, we can start by looking at the provision of drinks. The people being Muslim, the drinks are non-alcoholic, and one side of the whole square is taken up by stalls just pressing fresh oranges. The resultant juice is just gorgeous – and an entirely different animal from the pre-packaged, processed stuff we are generally served in the West. The only alternative drink is hot mint tea, usually served with tiny pastries. The combination is sweet for most Western tastes, but you quickly get used to it. These two simple options make the usual fountain soda, processed juice, and long-dead coffee options of most Western quick-serves seem (at best) uninspired.

  They are also big on soup – notably harira, which is a meal in itself, containing lamb, lentil and chickpeas. Why don’t we make more of soup? It has an almost infinite range of flavours and viscosity and is perfect for the quick-serve process and market need. One problem, of course, is the litany of puerile brand names that have surrounded it in the past – usually involving some version of ‘Souper’. It’s tough to take anything seriously with that on the store front.

  At the core of the Marrakech QSRs is the excitement of blending sweet and sour. The basic soup (above) will be served with honey cakes and dates, and most meals offer some glorious combination of contrasts. Pastilla is a startling light pastry pie, filled with pigeon – along with almonds and raisins and then dusted with sugar. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.

  The big lesson, however, remains the same one I see everywhere else in the world, but which the US – and, increasingly, the UK – consistently ignores. It’s about portion size. All the stalls offer affordable fast food, but in every case, the portions are small. There is variety enough to provide for every taste, and enough food available to provide for the biggest appetite. But people graze rather than gorge – there are no bumper portions, no ‘two-fers’ and no up-sizing.

  And here’s the bottom line: whether it’s a result of the last lesson, or some or all of the others noted above, during a seven-day stay I can’t remember seeing a fat Moroccan.

  29. I’m all ears

  It is generally accepted that communicating and delegating are two of the critical skills needed by any modern business leader – whether the organisation be small, medium, large or American. It is also generally accepted that most people who ascend the leadership ladder need training in both at some stage. I certainly did. I attended a top business school.

  Where I lost the plot was when I found out that nothing I learned in business school on those two subjects proved to be of any practical use to me. Most of what I learned about delegation came from soccer – notably when I stopped playing and tried to run a (junior) team from the sidelines. But that’s for another day, another chapter. Today I’m going to talk about the source from which I learned most things about effective communication – my father.

  He’s been passed away for more than a decade now, and I’m still drawing on a full bank of memories. Being from Ireland, born on the banks of the Shannon in Limerick, he could talk the hind legs off a mule. A lot of it was harmless, meandering, charming, user-friendly, poetic, onomatopoeic rubbish – values shared by most Irishmen when they open their mouths and speak. They are also values shared by, in my observation, most pieces of business communication. The latter, you see, have become the science of giving out information – in a controlled, targeted and well-spun way. But that’s not what my dad taught me, despite him being a natural at it. He taught me that the more important communication skill, the one that’s often forgotten today, is the skill of listening.

  I saw him do this a thousand times during our time together on this earth. Somebody would engage him in conversation on a subject about which he knew nothing and he would immediately move into ‘super listening’ mode, his wonderful green eyes focused intently on the face. You might be talking about the habits of the fresh-water pond toad, about which he knew nothing and cared less, but you would be the only person in his world. Then, as you meandered towards the end of your first sentence, something amazing happened – he would echo your last three words as you said them. He would then end the sentence at exactly the same time as you and nod thoughtfully. You would be amazed and enthralled – at last you had found a fellow pond-toad enthusiast.

  This would be repeated several times, and then the two of you would part – he to repeat all of the above with somebody else, probably on the subject of medieval Turkish organ music.

  You would move on to a sunnier, happier day.

  No effective communication device in history – from smoke signals to e-mail – has been one-dimensional. All of them could or can receive information as well as transmit it, but the science of modern business communication has all but forgotten that. Today it is all about transmitting: glossy company reports; internal employee newssheets with cool graphics; PowerPoint presentations to analysts, investors, or bankers; e-mails to massive address lists; and media messages to the market. And most managers will acquire skills in public speaking from somewhere. In most big companies, the PR executive is glued to the hip of the CEO.

  Of course companies
receive information – they research their markets; there are employee suggestion schemes (‘If you have ideas, please put them in the Suggestion Box by the reception area … and don’t forget to flush …’). But very few companies I know are genuinely sound-sensitive – that is, capable of picking up the subtle and sometimes faint messages that come from deep inside what appear to be the homogeneous masses that are your employees and/or markets, and which can prove critical.

  Whichever God you believe in (and I’m not going down that road) – and/or the Darwinistic evolutionary process that shaped modern life on earth – gave most of us two eyes, two ears and one mouth. That’s four organs to receive information and one to give it out. That’s a rule of thumb I’ve followed all my life in day-to-day business – spend four times as long listening and digesting information as you do spouting off and illustrating vividly that you do not have a monopoly on wisdom.

  Why do you think Sam Walton spent so much time in his stores? Of course he was an inspirational figurehead to the troops, and I’m sure he conveyed the shorthand version of Wal-Mart’s mission and values. But my guess is that he soaked up feedback like a sponge and never missed a sound or signal that was of any significance.

  Listening skills govern your management style. If I visited a region or country in which Burger King operated, it became known I wanted to start the visit as far away as possible from the epicentre of corporate power. When I put my business update on voicemail to everybody each week (‘BK Radio’, as it became known), I invited everybody to press the reply button and let me know their thoughts. And boy did they ever – but it was wonderful input.

  One last thing, however: Doing nothing with the input is actually worse than not listening in the first place. So, the message is not just about listening – it’s about listening and responding.

  The key to this whole communications thing is integrity. As my father practised, and as Tony O’Reilly of Heinz fame once (jokingly!) told me, once you have learned to fake integrity, you’re home and hosed.

  30. Me? Pose in the nude?

  This chapter started out as a tale of two mayors who have as their fiefdoms two of the world’s great cities. It ended up somewhere between a Dixie Chicks anti-establishment tirade and an Alf Garnet-style rant. See if you can figure where I lost the plot.

  First, the two mayors: Messrs. Livingstone of London and Bloomberg of New York. Both these guys have introduced controversial legislation that has affected the daily lives of most of their city’s inhabitants. Although not directly affecting the quick-serve industry, the legislation was introduced in a way, and with a motive, that suggests that it might become fair game in the future.

  Ken Livingstone, a treasured member of Britain’s Loony-Left and the elected mayor of London almost by default, introduced a congestion charge (which is now running at £8.00 per vehicle visit) for all vehicles entering the city. There was widespread scepticism from almost all points of the political compass, and we all sat back and eagerly anticipated chaos. Amazingly, it worked like a dream and confounded everybody. City traffic is down by 20%, and average speeds have risen to the fastest in a century. Revenues are being generated to improve public transport, and all we ‘I told you so’ merchants have gone quiet.

  As an example of one man writing his name all over a city’s way of life, the parallels with what Mr. Bloomberg has done in the Big Apple struck me immediately. In that city, of course, smoking is now prohibited in all public places, including bars. But it was only when this was expanded to Boston and then Ireland (and now Scotland) that I realised that this, although linked with London’s congestion charge in that it also caused controversy, was a different kettle of fish. What is happening here is a prime example of governmental Nannyism, the seemingly infinite desire and ability of those in power to prevent us from harming ourselves.

  Let me state upfront: I am a lifetime non-smoker and detest the habit. If and when I stand in front of the Pearly Gates, I will play this card early in my negotiations to get inside – largely because I have few others. Well, no others, actually. But we have to remember that smoking per se is not a sin. In fact, not only is it within the law, it is a legal activity that props up – via taxes – most national economies.

  Why, therefore, can we not leave it to the good sense of the citizenry to determine where it does and doesn’t take place? If there is a demand for non-smoking bars and restaurants – as I am sure there is – then some owners will make their market distinction on the back of that position, and people will be free to choose. Put one restaurant or bar on each block that is non-smoking, and that’s where you will find me.

  And guess what: if it’s full every night, and the others are empty, then soon there will be two on the block – and so on. This should be no different than some restaurants insisting that men wear a tie. If you are comfortable with that, fine. If not, go someplace else. There’s plenty to choose from.

  The role of government includes the protection of the governed – but only to a degree and only from predatory or illegal activities. There is a peculiar mentality, however, that seems to invade human bodies as soon as they achieve any governing status – which is that we the People have to be nannied. As I write, the New Labour Government in the UK has just passed its 700th new piece of legislation during its eight years in power.

  Nannyism carries direct potential threats for quick-service – one example being that bodies already exist that would like to do away with all ‘drive-throughs’. Any business that purveys food that is popular, largely processed, and contains elements of fat, salt and sugar will attract nannies – and, as I have said many times, the industry deserves (and can stand) a lot of criticism for some of its practices. But the key is to get all the information about content and process in the public domain and then let the people choose. Time and again history has shown us that informed free choice is better than regulation.

  I’m not really sure whether this confused position of mine is driven by forces from the right of Thatcherism or from the left of Michael Moore. I suppose, however, that to really make my point, I will have to pose, Dixie Chicks-style, naked on the front of a magazine.

  You have been warned.

  31. Fences of sausage

  Not long ago, Donald Rumsfeld – who looks to me like John Denver might have done had he lived to 120 – aimed both barrels at something he called ‘Old Europe’. It sounded intriguing, so I went to find it for you – and to see if there’s something inside it called Old European Quick-Service.

  Whatever Old Europe is (and I’m not sure Donald would know it if it bit him high on the inner groin), the river Danube is to it what the Mississippi is to the US. Drifting languidly along, it suddenly fools everybody by kicking south and heading for the Black Sea. Twenty kilometres south of this turn, the people from the hilly region on the west bank (Buda) decided to link up with the folk from the flat lands on the east of the river (Pest). Without, I suspect, paying a penny to ‘brand development consultants’, they came up with the name Budapest.

  It is as ‘Old Europe’ as it gets, and it had been ten years since I last visited. The place feels wealthier – but it still has many of the old Soviet-style apartment blocks, and there is still the occasional Trabant (the ‘East German Porsche’) coughing up blue exhaust smoke. Some of the old buildings are stunning – more so when you consider the place was virtually flattened during the Russian advance at the end of the Second World War.

  The usual born-in-the-USA quick-serve suspects are now present – Burger King, Macs, and two of the Holy Trinity: Pizza Hut and KFC. The latter two are in one of their joint retail operations and to me look just as uncomfortable together there as they do in Illinois.

  Budapest is, of course, the heart of an Old European tradition – ‘café society’. If you wander into a kavehaus, you are entering into the quick-service restaurant of Old Europe. Granted, there is a considerable space-time continuum between there and then and now and the USA, but there are two spectacula
r differences between the two experiences. The first one is about pace. Budapest is a modern city now, with hustle, bustle, big business, small businesses, government and tourism. However, the difference between eating and drinking in a kavehaus and, say, a BK is marked. For those of us who remember records, the difference is like that between 33 rpm and 45 rpm. People slow down in a European café. They look to the experience to charge their batteries, not to drain them some more.

  The second big difference is the quality of coffee. There is no excuse – none – for the vapid, vaguely brown liquid served up and described as coffee in most Western-based quick-serves. There are automated bean-to-cup machines available now that can produce an espresso-based drink of reasonable quality both cheaply and quickly. If you served thin mud in Europe, you would close within a week.

  Starbucks, of course, tried valiantly to recreate café society. Howard Schultz is on record somewhere as saying he believes Starbucks is more about being a ‘third place’ (other than the home or the office) than about coffee. Starbucks also brought quality coffee to the mass market. The combination of the two elements represents a fair attempt to turn the kavehaus into a quick-serve. Interestingly, it is the only area of explosive quick-service market growth over the past decade in the US and the rest of the West – but it is some distance from the real thing, and the gap is now widening again.

  I did find a quick-serve idea that might be transferable to the West – if it wasn’t for a tiny obstacle. To give you some idea of where I’m going, if you or I saw a wealthy area, we might say it had streets paved with gold. Not so the Magyars of Budapest. They would describe it as having ‘Fences made of sausage’. Quite.

  Yes, the quick-serve idea of the new millennium could be … the butcher’s shop! In Budapest, the ordinary butcher (hentesaru) has morphed over time and is now quite a sophisticated quick-service concept. Every Hungarian eats kolbasz (smoked sausage), and there’s only one place to eat it – the butcher’s. Apart from the refrigerated meats on display for sale, the butcher will have steaming trays and vats containing the day’s offerings. There will be a wide variety of sausages, hams and black puddings available, along with bread and mustard. There will also be bowls of pickled cucumbers and peppers marinated in vinegar. You can get snack or main-meal sized portions, and the locals usually arrive carrying a pocket knife. They then carry their meal to a counter and cheerfully begin hacking away. The minor downside to this experience is the spray of paprika grease that targets the front of your shirt.