The meeting brought the dedicated expert group together to explore the latest trends in retail, customer experience, and sustainability. The first day was kicked off by an introduction from Nick Gault, Senior Director Away from Home Customer and Commercial Leadership at Coca-Cola, who explained the objectives of the meeting and who then gave the group an overview of the ongoing trends in the “Away From Home” market. Jaime Tarrazon on behalf of UNIC then delivered an industry and policy update. .
The day continued with presentations from Andy Davies, VP International at Coca-Cola, and Matt Tuffee, Senior Global Key Account Manager at Costa Coffee, who shared insight and details from a retailer perspective, while giving input on how it could be best adapted to the cinema industry.
Prill Brewin from the Blue Stocking Partnership gave an update on the Holy Grail digital watermarking, a project to enhance recycling capabilities. Jaime Tarrazon provided insights on a carbon footprint calculator to measure the carbon footprint of a film from the start to the end.
The group then welcomed Michael Harrison, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer at Gravity. In discussion with Nick Gault, Michael provided the group with food and beverage updates when it comes to family entertainment, using the concrete example of his urban theme parks.
The end of the first day was marked by a presentation from Alex Sophocleus, Principal Global CPG and Alliances at Amazon, who introduced Amazon’s ‘Just Walk Out’ Technology, and the potential it represents for cinema concessions.
The second day started with a visit of the Amazon offices, where the group got to see in practice one of their frictionless stores which uses the ‘Just Walk Out’ technology, followed by some insights from the Excel Market Express, the first frictionless retail store in the UK, located in the Excel Centre of London.
The rest of the day was dedicated to visits of the cinemas Everyman Shoreditch and Vue in Westfield Shopping Centre. The group also got the opportunity to see Gravity Max in the Westfield Shopping Centre, London’s biggest urban theme park, after being introduced to it the day before by its founder Michael Harrison.
Huge thanks to the Coca-Cola Company and The Blue Stocking Partnership for co-organising these two days!