Food & Drink on the railway

maire23 said:

There are some motorway service stations that are very good but few and far between. Gloucester service station is fantastic- it has a farm shop which sells fresh produce from local farms and their handmade pasties are sublime. Far nicer than the usual Ginsters type fare.

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yes, it's interesting why the business model, going back to stations - esp the large highest turnover ones, is dominated by the big chains, little in the way of smaller independent retailers.

maire23 said:

There are some motorway service stations that are very good but few and far between. Gloucester service station is fantastic- it has a farm shop which sells fresh produce from local farms and their handmade pasties are sublime. Far nicer than the usual Ginsters type fare.

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But is absolute rubbish if you just want what you normally get from a service station, e.g. the main shop doesn't even sell paracetamol.

I don't mind it at Rheged as a tourist destination, but it's garbage as far as motorway services go.

WesternLancer said:

yes, it's interesting why the business model, going back to stations - esp the large highest turnover ones, is dominated by the big chains, little in the way of smaller independent retailers.

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Station catering is by and large one company - SSP - licensing the brands from the various large companies. I don't know how this became the case, it probably goes back to privatisation of Travellers' Fare.

Bletchleyite said:

Station catering is by and large one company - SSP - licensing the brands from the various large companies. I don't know how this became the case, it probably goes back to privatisation of Travellers' Fare.

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Good point.

Could a moderator contact me please, regarding my last post not being approved.Thanks?
Since the 1970s, I never purchase food or drink on the trains. I take my own food, whether sandwiches; or Salad and meat in containers!
A jar of coffee in tescos is £4, a cup of coffee on a trolley is £2.25p...I take a flask, milk coffee and sugar for a lot less. Look how much we are saving.
Beer £4 a bottle of beer in the buffet, I can purchase, and take with me 4 cans/bottles for £6.00p

Retired Driver said:

Could a moderator contact me please, regarding my last post not being approved.Thanks?
Since the 1970s, I never purchase food or drink on the trains. I take my own food, whether sandwiches; or Salad and meat in containers!
A jar of coffee in tescos is £4, a cup of coffee on a trolley is £2.25p...I take a flask, milk coffee and sugar for a lot less. Look how much we are saving.
Beer £4 a bottle of beer in the buffet, I can purchase, and take with me 4 cans/bottles for £6.00p

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I always take my own food and drink on trains too. I also take my own sandwiches to work, unlike a lot of people who think they are getting a bargain by wasting 10-15 minutes of their lunch break to go and buy a £3 meal deal from Tesco Express. That's £15 a week. I spend a fraction of that preparing my own lunch at home.

Iskra said:

The Greggs on the station at Wakefield Westgate is slightly more expensive than a high street Greggs, so they also raise prices but not to a ridiculous extent.

The Greggs on my former uni, was actually cheaper than a high street Greggs

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The one at Manchester Vic (actually inside the station) charges £4.00 for a Meal Deal, whereas normal Greggs charge £3.25 (23% markup).

M&S, when they do the meal deals, charge £4, whereas in stations, they charge £5 (25% markup).

gimmea50anyday said:

Captive market, supply and demand. Typical of the capitalist society that modern day Western world thrives in....

Could be down to higher cost base from retail unit rents or for cost of dedicated logistics supplies, staffing and equipment maintenance for on board

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And train companies in socialist countries are so well known for their better value and quality food...

Metal_gee_man said:

So if you've every wondered why Airports exist it isn't for the convenience of the passenger, its purely a profit making exercise from their retail provision, they make more money from retail than the landing fees for the aircraft (so in effect its a shopping mall with a long piece of tarmac attached to it to park an aircraft)

This is even more true when you find out that Travelex (who supply foreign currency at Heathrow) pay in excess of £50m in fees and rent to Heathrow each year to be there! They take part in a profit sharing contract that means they take a % of the profit, forcing them to pay the staff minimum wage, and open nearly 20 hours a day! 364 day a year
The same system applies at Eurotunnel, and again at Dover Ferry Port etc...
I would be shocked if Network rail didn't run a scheme very similar or at least charge extortionate rents forcing prices up.

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Travelex make a lot of profit anyway at normal locations, never mind at the airport. A typical retailer such as M&S make about 5% on FX, and the profit increases as for how 'exotic' the currency is, so a £100 Israeli Sheqel sale gets more profit than a £100 Euro sale.

Add onto that the extortionate spread in rates between buy and sell, and the buyback guarantees which is just pure profit, they can definitely afford it.

Bletchleyite said:

Station catering is by and large one company - SSP - licensing the brands from the various large companies.

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Do they effectively have a monopoly that makes it very difficult if not impossible for any independents to get involved in offering food?

_toommm_ said:

The one at Manchester Vic (actually inside the station) charges £4.00 for a Meal Deal, whereas normal Greggs charge £3.25 (23% markup).

M&S, when they do the meal deals, charge £4, whereas in stations, they charge £5 (25% markup).

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I guess that reflects the additional cost of renting retail space on a station as compared with the High St and, possibly, the need for additional staff to cover extended opening times in the railway environment?

Peter Mugridge said:

Do they effectively have a monopoly that makes it very difficult if not impossible for any independents to get involved in offering food?

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No, NR or TOC’s can decide who they let their retail units to. Independents may not want to take a risk on the high rents involved though. There are independents in units on some stations.

maire23 said:

Gloucester service station is fantastic- it has a farm shop which sells fresh produce from local farms and their handmade pasties are sublime. Far nicer than the usual Ginsters type fare.

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I've visited Gloucester services once and thought it was a horrendous experience - the fact it didn't seem to have been cleaned for weeks didn't help.

Come back Hilton Park - all is forgiven!

_toommm_ said:

The one at Manchester Vic (actually inside the station) charges £4.00 for a Meal Deal, whereas normal Greggs charge £3.25 (23% markup).

M&S, when they do the meal deals, charge £4, whereas in stations, they charge £5 (25% markup).

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Absolutely nothing wrong with those higher prices. I'm no apologist for capitalist greed but nor do I think that passenger convenience (or laziness) is a matter for controlling incidentals like food pricing whilst travelling. Every traveller has to decide how much they really need food on the go.

Currency and food are different. As mentioned, the actual food and drinks cost a handful of pennies and selling prices are many multiples of their cost - the profit goes towards the fixed costs/overheads. You know what the profit will be on every item sold and you manage your inventory so that you only order the fresh items you expect to sell, and you sell most of them every day or even run out.

If you are offering currency, you would have to have paid collateral for the full value of every banknote at the time you obtained it, but the actual value of your stock goes up and down all the time in terms of your operating currency. You need to keep large amounts in stock but your actual trade will be low as a proportion of your stock. While for common currencies you might be able to expect a fixed profit if many people buy and sell them every day, for "exotic" currencies you might only get one customer a week or less, and if you didn't have an outrageous markup you could easily be forced to buy something "back" at a higher rate than you previously sold them. There is a fixed maximum number of products you can offer, unlike a food shop where you can make new items if customers start to get bored.


And talking about getting bored, the problem I have with UK stations is that the food and drink is boring, it's mostly the same chains everywhere, independent shops are rarer and in any case they still tend to sell the same things as the chains. I find packaged sandwiches disgusting so there's very little choice available for me. I guess M&S has an acceptable range but I have probably tried most of their offerings I am willing to try and it's getting boring too.

In continental Europe bakeries are common in stations, and to me the range of palatable options is much wider, even if they are chains. I don't think I am being biased as I spend roughly the same amount of time in UK stations as I do in mainland Europe stations. I mean there are bakeries in UK stations too but the offerings just don't seem very inspiring, plus the prices are high for what you get compared to France or Germany. (Switzerland is not expensive if you think in terms of francs. But then I have Swiss francs and I do not convert them from pounds when I go there.)

As for drinks, as I avoid alcohol and coffee there is very little on offer in UK stations too. It's either going to be some overly sweet juice, or tea which is a ripoff (I do carry teabags around and sometimes ask for hot water.)

I don't go to McDonalds except very occasionally for breakfast if it is the only place around, or the only place open, but the prices certainly vary by 10p-50p even between locations less than a mile from each other.

paddington said:

Currency and food are different. As mentioned, the actual food and drinks cost a handful of pennies and selling prices are many multiples of their cost - the profit goes towards the fixed costs/overheads. You know what the profit will be on every item sold and you manage your inventory so that you only order the fresh items you expect to sell, and you sell most of them every day or even run out.

If you are offering currency, you would have to have paid collateral for the full value of every banknote at the time you obtained it, but the actual value of your stock goes up and down all the time in terms of your operating currency. You need to keep large amounts in stock but your actual trade will be low as a proportion of your stock. While for common currencies you might be able to expect a fixed profit if many people buy and sell them every day, for "exotic" currencies you might only get one customer a week or less, and if you didn't have an outrageous markup you could easily be forced to buy something "back" at a higher rate than you previously sold them. There is a fixed maximum number of products you can offer, unlike a food shop where you can make new items if customers start to get bored.

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In regards to the currency bit, it is somewhat true, depending on your location.

I work for {redacted}, and, obviously withholding numbers for security reasons, the trade is certainly not a low proportion, and we can lose 50% of our stock over a Friday to a Monday in a busy branch. At the moment, the US Dollar is the un-nervy currency, whereas the profit on 'exotics' as we call them is fairly stable.

We don't work on ridiculous markups, and we have the best rates on the high street so it is somewhat untrue, at least in our bubble.

Anyway, I digress from the OP's point of order...

TUC said:

And train companies in socialist countries are so well known for their better value and quality food...

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You noticed that too. One of the best meals I have ever had on a train was in an East German restaurant car travelling through Czechoslovakia ..... and the cost, including a decent amount of beer, was absolute peanuts - wouldn't have got you much more than a bratwurst and one beer in West Germany at the time.

sheff1 said:

You noticed that too. One of the best meals I have ever had on a train was in an East German restaurant car travelling through Czechoslovakia ..... and the cost, including a decent amount of beer, was absolute peanuts - wouldn't have got you much more than a bratwurst and one beer in West Germany at the time.

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was that related to your spending power translated from 'hard' currency though? Compared with the wages of the avg diner in east vs west germany at the time maybe. Though cost and quality of a meal are not always connected in quite the direct relationship one might assume they ought to be.

As I recall things the other diners were locals, so prices were presumably acceptable to them. My main point, which I probably didn't make clear enough, was that the food was excellent quality - would have been well worth it even at 'West German prices'.

_toommm_ said:

Travelex make a lot of profit anyway at normal locations, never mind at the airport. A typical retailer such as M&S make about 5% on FX, and the profit increases as for how 'exotic' the currency is, so a £100 Israeli Sheqel sale gets more profit than a £100 Euro sale.

Add onto that the extortionate spread in rates between buy and sell, and the buyback guarantees which is just pure profit, they can definitely afford it.

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I can assure you that 5% is very optimistic, they make a maximum of 2.5% - 3% on Euro, US Dollar, Swiss Franc, Aussie Dollar & Canadian Dollar
Based upon working in an Independent High St bureau for 5 years, sadly the only thing remotely profitable is exotics, their pre-paid travel cards and the buyback guarantees beyond there the currency market outside of airports stopped being a profitable & easy way to put lots of zeros on your bank balance when it became a race to the bottom with businesses trying to cut their noses off despite their face years ago.
Service became secondary to price and people became more aware of the spot rate because of instant access to the Internet

Peter Mugridge said:

Do they effectively have a monopoly that makes it very difficult if not impossible for any independents to get involved in offering food?

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SSP are in the position of being large enough to be able rent units en-mass across the retail estate in a given station without each unit needing to generate a profit individually and by doing so can effectively control the price offering, all perfectly acceptable from a business perspective but not that great for the end customer. The monthly rents NR or TfL charge for on station units are truly eye watering which makes taking one a big risk for a small independent.

Tio Terry said:

I guess that reflects the additional cost of renting retail space on a station as compared with the High St and, possibly, the need for additional staff to cover extended opening times in the railway environment?

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Also you have to factor in the likelihood of the station unit being a franchise and having to provide a profit for the franchisee and master brand, the on station M&S's are run by SSP as franchises which is probably the root of the markup vs high street branches. Greggs, Boots, Sainsburys and McDonalds are all directly run at stations and noticeably markup less than other outlets.

Bletchleyite said:

There is food that microwaves well - VTWC are selling some of it in their "shops" now. You're talking pots of chilli, curry, bolognese etc. Or for breakfast "bean stew" type dishes. Not gristleburgers or bacon butties.

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On a long journey , sitting next to a fellow passenger , after they have eaten bean stew . No thanks.

w1bbl3 said:

SSP are in the position of being large enough to be able rent units en-mass across the retail estate in a given station without each unit needing to generate a profit individually and by doing so can effectively control the price offering, all perfectly acceptable from a business perspective but not that great for the end customer. The monthly rents NR or TfL charge for on station units are truly eye watering which makes taking one a big risk for a small independent.

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Is that what has killed off the sort of place that I was referring to the other day ( below )?

Peter Mugridge said:

I am not so much bothered by the price but the general deceasing choice and quality these days.

Who remembers Gingham's at Paddington? Or the Guv'nor's at Glasgow Central? We need a few places like those back on the stations.

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Peter Mugridge said:

Is that what has killed off the sort of place that I was referring to the other day ( below )?

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Paul Salveson has a web page on independent station cafes (and bars). I mentioned Hebden Bridge cafe earlier. Batley has the Jo Cox cafe, Wakefield Kirkgate has the Tastebuds cafe, all fairly local to me. I see that the Lady Foley tea rooms at Great Malvern are not closing after all as presumably Network rail has agreed a lower rent increase. I imagine this is not cheap (years since I was there) but not part of a chain.

All those are cafes, though - not the sort of establishment that Gingham's and the Guv'nor's were - which is what I'd like to find on my travels.

Bletchleyite said:

At Network Rail stations, filling your own bottle up with perfectly good tap water - £0.00. Should be installed at more stations, though I'm not convinced that they need the expense of the fancy electronic systems, a push tap and a sink would do the job!

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Retford Station now have one of these installed in the waiting room on London side platform.
Every mainline station and airport etc should be forced to install these, I first saw them installed in San Francisco Airport so you could take your empty water bottle through security and then refill it on the other side.
So one of these at station will save a lot of plastic bottles nation wide

lincolnshire said:

View attachment 64274
Retford Station now have one of these installed in the waiting room on London side platform.
Every mainline station and airport etc should be forced to install these, I first saw them installed in San Francisco Airport so you could take your empty water bottle through security and then refill it on the other side.
So one of these at station will save a lot of plastic bottles nation wide

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When you have to empty your kids' water bottle before airport security then have no choice but to buy bottled water on the other side....

Metal_gee_man said:

I can assure you that 5% is very optimistic, they make a maximum of 2.5% - 3% on Euro, US Dollar, Swiss Franc, Aussie Dollar & Canadian Dollar
Based upon working in an Independent High St bureau for 5 years, sadly the only thing remotely profitable is exotics, their pre-paid travel cards and the buyback guarantees beyond there the currency market outside of airports stopped being a profitable & easy way to put lots of zeros on your bank balance when it became a race to the bottom with businesses trying to cut their noses off despite their face years ago.
Service became secondary to price and people became more aware of the spot rate because of instant access to the Internet

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Getting 5% on a Euro trans must be very achievable for some of the companies in the airports, even more so when they were selling the euro at less than one to the pound.

I got talking to someone in the post office when I was doing my passport, and they use the same company as we do to get their currency (CMS and FRES) but make a lot more profit due to setting lower rates. They rely on it a lot more so have to be able to cut a lot more profit from it.

lincolnshire said:

View attachment 64274
Retford Station now have one of these installed in the waiting room on London side platform.
Every mainline station and airport etc should be forced to install these, I first saw them installed in San Francisco Airport so you could take your empty water bottle through security and then refill it on the other side.
So one of these at station will save a lot of plastic bottles nation wide

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Of course drinking fountains were a common feature of stations for may years - and I suspect Railway Heritage Trust had a part in the recent restoration of this one at St P
https://www.ingram-consultancy.co.u...-fountain-at-st-pancras-international-station

Only relatively recently (since the 80s) did fashion seem to come to pass that plastic bottled water everywhere was a norm - wonder who had a financial incentive in that....makes me wonder if we even drank water back in the 70s

Mind you - I recall drinking fountains, from which you could have filled up your own bottle, being pretty standard at US airports in the late 70s.

Maybe drinking fountains started to get removed at the 'suggestion' of the bottled water industry in the 80s? Not that such fountains were so common in the milder UK climate.

Peter Mugridge said:

Do they effectively have a monopoly that makes it very difficult if not impossible for any independents to get involved in offering food?

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An example of this is Reading. After the renovation, the best coffee and ice cream outlet (IMHO, and probably shared by most of the railway staff) were not even invited to bid for one of the footbridge units. Consequently their footfall dropped and they ceased trading.