Frequently asked questions

A food and beverage consultancy develops and improves the commercial food side of a business. In practice that spans feasibility and financial modelling, concept development, restaurant and kitchen design, product ranging and merchandising, recruitment, training and operational standards. Ford McDonald Consultancy delivers all of these, which means a client does not have to coordinate several separate advisers who may not agree with each other.

Earlier than most clients do. The two points where we add most value are before a site is committed to — when the commercial model can still be changed — and immediately after opening, when small operational problems are cheap to fix and expensive to live with. Bringing us in after the kitchen has been installed limits what can be corrected.

A focused operational review or feasibility study typically runs two to six weeks. A full concept-to-opening engagement runs 12 to 24 months depending on construction and fit-out. We scope the work in stages so you can stop, continue or change direction between them.

Either a fixed fee for a defined scope — a feasibility study, a range review, a training programme — or a staged fee across a longer project with agreed milestones. We agree the scope and the deliverable before work starts, and we do not work on commission from suppliers, so our recommendations stay independent. Contact us with your requirement for a scoped proposal.

Yes. We have delivered projects in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, including Moscow, Dubai, Istanbul, Dublin, Copenhagen and Hong Kong. Remote review work is possible where travel is not practical, but site visits matter for layout, kitchen and ranging decisions.

That is core work for us. We define the range by category, price architecture and margin, decide what goes on which fixture, identify suppliers, develop own-label products where they make sense, and set the retail operating standards that keep the floor consistent. We have done this for department store food halls including la Rinascente, Harvey Nichols and Tsvetnoy Central Market.

From footfall and catchment data, comparable operations, dwell time and basket size, cross-checked against the actual capacity the site can serve. We would rather test the assumption hard at feasibility stage than discover the sales forecast was optimistic after the fit-out is paid for.

Yes. For The Savoy we evolved a range of luxury food packaging with Pentagram that carried the hotel's heritage and quality while giving guests something worth taking home. Own-label development usually combines product sourcing, packaging design direction and the merchandising that makes the range read clearly on shelf.

With the numbers behind the menu and the kitchen. We establish dish-level contribution, kitchen throughput and the real cost of the current service pattern, then change things in order of financial return — usually menu and purchasing before layout or decoration. We have delivered this kind of turnaround for hotel and standalone restaurant operations.

Yes, including full back-of-house design matched to your foodservice requirements, and the planning, supply and installation of bespoke kitchens. Because we also run operations, our kitchens are designed around how a service actually flows on a Friday night rather than how it looks on a plan.

Yes. For Park Plaza Westminster Bridge we developed the food and beverage strategy for a hotel with 1,019 guest rooms, needing to serve breakfast without creating a banquet hall, alongside banqueting for over 1,000 covers without disturbing other guests.

Yes. We recruit senior management and head chefs, build full opening teams, and provide the induction and communication package that gets a new team working to the same standard from day one. We have recruited internationally for hotel and department store projects.

From novices to experienced staff: product knowledge, service standards, food safety practice, supervisory skills and the documented operating procedures that make standards repeatable. Training is usually written around your actual menu and range rather than a generic syllabus.

Yes, and we recommend it. We typically stay through opening and the initial trading period — for The Quince Tree that included operational and strategic support for 18 months after opening, plus the launch of a second site.