The art of re-invention key to staying ahead

It happens to everybody eventually. There comes a time, no matter how successful you've been, when your offer needs refreshing.

Such a moment arrived at Harvester, the Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) brand trading at 176 sites, in 2009. One M&B executive has talked about the danger the brand was in — it was teetering on the brink of irrelevancy, somewhere you might take your grandparents as a default, but unexciting, choice.

The aforementioned executive has even claimed that Harvester was entering Woolworths territory — we all knew it was there, but not enough of us wanted to use it on a regular basis.

Last week, M&B's interim chief executive Jeremy Blood reported that Harvester is now the best-performing brand in the stable with double-digit like-for-likes. It's a case study in how you can end up in a cul-de-sac, but find a way out.

A large part of the problem was that Harvester became boxed in by the discount culture that became widespread in the wake of the downturn. It offered an Early Bird special before 6.30pm. It found regular customers flocked to take advantage of the offer before the cut-off, denuding it of customers in the evening while posing problems in managing customer volume at Early Bird peak times.

It was caught in the double trap of declining sales figures and declining margins. "It was a bit of a mess we got ourselves into — we were trapped in the Early Bird discount model," Blood said. There was also, more broadly, a need to modernise the Harvester environment, and refresh the menu.

A large part of the Harvester offer had very solid, modern foundations though — an offer based around grilled protein and a salad bar. The Harvester fightback has involved evolving the offer.

There is a revamped salad cart, and customers now have the opportunity to build their own meal by combining a main course grill item, a sauce, a side and unlimited salad.

It's also introduced unlimited self-service soft drinks to bolster perceived value. The Early Bird time slots have been abandoned in favour of generally lower price-points (cheekily the brand claims that Early Bird now runs all day).

There's a renewed sense of confidence this year, evident in the introduction of breakfast

(at 37 locations) and takeaways.

Blood reports it's selling 75 takeaways a week per Harvester — it's enough to add 2% to 3% in like-for-like sales at each venue. Cleverly, it's offering customers who arrive for a takeaway the chance to have a soft drink while they wait for their food — and a free refill to take home.

The Harvester story is being replicated across the industry. The "turnaround" category in our Great British Pub Awards has attracted record numbers of entries this year as licensees set their stalls out to capture new opportunities. The eating-out market in the UK has grown by around 60% since 2000 and is now worth £42bn a year.

It's been back in growth since the last quarter of 2009. If your food sales are in retreat, it might well be time to refresh your offer.