Cost Sector Catering: What have been Nayati’s challenges and main drivers? What trends do you see emerging?
Mark Reid: Our main challenges have been building the brand in the UK marketplace. The Nayati brand has been successful for more than 30 years throughout the rest of the world, establishing itself within top hotel chains and the finest Michelin-starred restaurants. Our largest key driver is to highlight the brand and its benefits with our customers in the UK.
Trend-wise, we are seeing more Asian-style food being introduced. What we have found is that there is no one that provides authentic Chinese woks except us, and we get a great deal of interest in them. We also get many requests for bespoke kitchen islands and provide a lot of them all around the UK as well.
Being eco-friendly is another trend that we consistently follow. For example, we have developed a ‘Blue Flame’ fryer that is very fuel-efficient.
What advice are you offering customers?
Our advice to customers is to try our quality, value-for-money offering. We pride ourselves in value engineering or, as we like to call it, value engineering without compromise.
We offer customers the chance to come and see our equipment on site to try it out, and we also bring in chefs to do demonstrations.
What are your bestsellers in the cost sector? Is there a particular sector you are targeting?
There are two areas that stand out for us at the moment: bespoke cooking islands, as we can cater for any size, shape or budget, and these are very popular at the moment; and our professional Asian line. We manufacture our own woks – gas and induction, Teppanyaki and Yakitori grills.
Are you currently working on any initiatives or partnerships relevant to these operators?
We are currently proactively working with high-end distributors and designers with a focus on the education sector and restaurants.
Recently, we were delighted to have worked with The Clink charity to support its newest restaurant in the women’s prison at Styal in Cheshire; we provided a big kitchen island as a centrepiece for it.
How much involvement does your parent company in Indonesia have in the UK business?
We work very closely with Nayati Indonesia, and our strong partnership helps us internally challenge ourselves to ensure we are always delivering high-quality products by regularly reviewing product performance and listening to customer feedback.
If you had one goal for the next 12 months, what would it be?
In the next 12 months, we will continue with our current plan with an emphasis on building relationships with all of our customers and clients, new and old; we feel this is important to cement our presence in the UK marketplace.