McDonald's and Wetherspoon head Hero Award winners

McDonald's chief executive Steve Easterbrook received the Leadership award for his company, for the way the business has set new industry standards, particularly in the way it develops its people.

John Hutson, chief executive of JD Wetherspoon, was also on hand at the presentation lunch following Peach Network’s annual 2020 conference in London, to receive the Evolution award for the pub group, for the way it has continued to innovate in successfully adapting and developing operations in changing times.

All the Hero awards, apart from the Consumer Choice category, are judged by a panel of industry leaders, and run in partnership with Coca Cola, Royal Bank of Scotland, Coffer Corporate Leisure and the National Skills Academy for Hospitality.

The Consumer Choice trophy was presented to Carluccio’s, the Italian restaurant group. Each year, Peach conducts research among a representative sample of over 2,000 consumers, including asking them which restaurant, pub and fast food brands they use and most importantly how they rate their “experience”. Carluccio’s topped the ratings, of 35 leading brands, with the highest positive consumer score.

Novus Leisure won the Webmasters award for using the internet not just for successfully promoting its business, through its latenightlondon.co.uk site, but also developing for its recruitment site, greatbarjobs.co.uk.

The award for Breakthrough Brand went to last year’s newcomer winner, the high profile and quickly expanding Jamie’s Italian. The Newcomer trophy for 2009 was picked up by Bills Produce, the Sussex-based all-day café cum grocery store concept, now under the wing of the owners of Cote Restaurants, which now plan to grow the concept from its first two sites.

The awards judging panel was made up of Tony Hughes, former managing director of Mitchells & Butlers Restaurants, Ian Neill, chairman of Wagamama, Caffe Nero chairman Gerry Ford, Novus Leisure chairman and industry investor John Barnes and Peach Factory founder Peter Martin.

Commenting on the process, Gerry Ford said: “I think its valuable if once a year you stop and recognise a lot of hard work from people and recognise what quality is, and also where new ideas are coming from.”

The event also saw Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, creators of such legendary restaurants as the Ivy, Le Caprice and The Wolseley, collect this year’s Peach Network “Industry Icon” award in recognition of their outstanding and continuing contribution to the UK’s restaurant market. See Wolseley and Ivy founders Corbin and King made Industry Icons

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