People are sharing, people are experimenting, people are looking to save, people are looking to watch their consumption – all trends that fit right in with the move to more small-plate offers on menus.

Small plates are getting big on menus all over the UK, and the bite-sized trend indicates that restaurant chains have not downsized their ambitions but are pursuing a bigger share of a slow-growing foodservice market.

Small plates’ potential popularity is one of several reasons why Technomic predicts quick-service restaurants, food-led pubs, and the travel and leisure segment will lead much of the growth in the commercial sector of foodservice in the UK this year. Starters and shareable main dishes are more at home on these establishments’ menus, and far more rare in parts of the cost sector, such as healthcare or workplace foodservice, where much lower nominal growth is expected in 2015.

Technomic’s MenuMonitor, which tracks the menus of more than 300 British chain and independent restaurants, hotels, retail outlets, and colleges and universities, found that small-plate offerings have increased 25% year-on-year as of the first quarter of 2015. The strategy makes sense for foodservice brands across the UK, as it gives consumers affordable and approachable ways to try new foods or to inject more flavour and variety into their normal rotation of restaurant favourites, all at a time when they are cautious about their spending. For example, ethnic small plates are showing up more on restaurant menus because they allow customers to sample and share items that are unfamiliar to them without having to commit to ordering a full-size, full-price dish.

Small plates also ensure restaurant owners’ flexibility to offer several types of food categories at different price points, which increases their ability to coax consumers back to their stores. Many customers do still need convincing: in a Technomic UK consumer survey conducted last autumn, almost six out of ten people described their spending habits as either “I am on a careful budget” (29%), or “I am still mindful of my spending but starting to treat myself to small indulgences again” (28%). More than a third of consumers are either “more focused on saving and have cut out more non-essential purchases” or “buying only necessities”.

Consumers’ prospects are not terribly optimistic for the rest of the year. When surveyed about their outlook for the next 12 months, roughly one in five respondents agreed with the statement, “The United Kingdom’s economy will improve”. Only one in seven agreed that “The EU’s economy will improve”. They regard their own situations similarly, with one in five consumers responding, “My personal finances will improve”, and a slightly smaller number (18%), “Our household will be able to spend more when we dine out.”

As such, most of the sales growth in the UK foodservice industry will come from segments that happen to be more suited to smaller portion sizes and smaller price points. Quick-service restaurants are projected to increase sales by 3.7% in 2015, against a 3% increase for full-service restaurants. A wider gap will occur between food-led pubs, expected to grow sales 3.5%, and drinks-led pubs, which are forecast to record a 0.9% decline in sales this year.

Supermarkets and convenience stores, which continue to improve their offerings of fresh prepared foods, are also expected to be a bright spot, increasing sales 3.6%. That is higher than the predicted rise at full-service restaurants, which increasingly face the threat of supermarket prepared foods as replacements for their meals.

Do not be surprised if the fastest-growing restaurant brands in the UK continue to be coffeehouses or patisserie concepts that specialise in affordable indulgences such as a premium cup of coffee and baked goods. 

Of the handful of hot culinary trends that Technomic predicted for UK restaurants in 2015, four are suited for small plates and shareable starters and mains.

The first is a strengthening focus on alternative diets. The forthcoming allergen labelling requirements have begun to spur operational changes as well as menu innovation at restaurants. While restaurant and pub owners should become more transparent about ingredients to comply with the regulations, they could also leverage the focus on healthfulness by rolling out new small-plate items that satisfy people seeking gluten-free, peanut-free or dairy-free options.

Many people do not want to commit to an entire meal of vegetarian or vegan food, but perhaps they could be enticed to try a starter or dessert built around some health descriptor. Moreover, smaller portion sizes legitimately offer customers the chance to limit their calorie intake by picking and choosing from several parts of the menu.

Small plates also let customers in on the trends for regional British cuisine or bolder ethnic flavours from all over the world. Operators have rediscovered rustic preparations and classic dishes native to their parts of Britain, giving them another chance to highlight local flavours and ingredients on their menu. Regional favourites are also showing the ability to cross over and appeal to diners in other parts of the country, and this again is an opportunity for small plates to provide a low-cost, low-risk way to try unfamiliar foods. 

Technomic has noticed culinary inspiration from across the globe as well on British menus, especially smoky and spicy flavours, the kinds of taste profiles perfectly suited for small plates and bite-size starters. Cuisines inspired by global street foods, ranging from barbecue in the US south to Latin American tacos to dumplings in Asia, have gained in popularity and will show formidable staying power.

A fourth culinary trend Technomic projected for the UK in 2015 was the rise of “unexpected” foods, which, unsurprisingly, favour continued innovation around small plates and micro-menu items. Chain restaurants, as well as independents, have been experimenting with hybrid foods and new applications of traditional dishes to appeal more to adventurous Millennial diners, as well as expand into new dayparts such as late-night dining.

Some of the most interesting findings of the MenuMonitor tracking service are small plates that cross over several of these trends, such as:

• The traditional Peruvian foods made with British-sourced produce at Pachamama, including saddleback spare ribs, Cornish lobster, lamb belly and sweet plantains

• All Bar One’s recent small-plate additions, such as ginger teriyaki chicken skewers, salmon bruschetta and sea bass ceviche

• Crispy crumbled halloumi, Bill’s giant green Gordal olives and Bill’s cheese plate, all recently introduced at Bill’s

• The cicchetti bar recently added to Piccolino Ristorante e Bar, which includes Venetian-style tapas, crudo and ceviche

Overall, the rise in small plates comes at an advantageous time for restaurants in the UK. The economies of both Britain and the eurozone appear to have weathered the worst of the most recent recession and stabilised, but growth in many consumer segments, including foodservice, is not expected to be very robust. Some parts of the foodservice industry, especially the cost sector, will be flat at best this year. But operators can broaden their appeal to budget-conscious consumers by shrinking their portion sizes, while simultaneously setting off renewed creativity in the kitchen that lets brands get in on emerging culinary trends.

Consider two pieces of recent news in the world of beer. One was that BrewDog, the iconoclastic Scottish guerrilla marker, brewer and retailer, was coming together with three other brewers, Beavertown, Camden Town and Magic Rock – two in London, one in Yorkshire – and the distributor James Clay to form a new organisation called the United Craft Brewers Association. The other was that Carlsberg is reviving its still fondly remembered “Probably” advertising campaign.

Which one of these is going to have the most impact on the bar trade? With respect to the United Craft Brewers, while their news certainly excited the beer geeks, the answer is, obviously, the Carlsberg initiative. The Copenhagen-cum-Northampton brewer has some 15% of the total UK beer market, or more than 8 million hectolitres – that is to say, more than twice as much as the entire “craft” sector, defined as broadly as possible, put together. As James Lousada, chief executive of Carlsberg UK, underlined when Propel met him, the company is going to spend £12m on Carlsberg this year just on media – television advertising, mostly. That’s three times BrewDog’s operating profits, used just to promote one brand. 

Nor is Carlsberg some lumbering giant when it comes to advertising impact. The “guerrilla marketing” event of the year, so far, wasn’t any stunt by BrewDog, famous for being able to garner masses of media attention for very little spend, but the Carlsberg “Probably the best poster in the world” day in April in Brick Lane, East London – the heart, incidentally, of craft beer hipsterdom – when a Carlsberg poster was pouring free beer for passers-by. The stunt had 60 million YouTube views around the world, newspapers up and around the UK covered the story, Time magazine wrote about it, and sent a tweet to eight million people – all for the price of a 48-sheet poster site for a day, several kegs of lager and a security guard on hand to make sure the event did not run away with itself.

Operators, those at the rockface, know how hugely important big brands still are to the pub market, despite all the noise made by the BrewDogs and their like, and that is a fact we in the media are sometimes guilty of forgetting. The average punter will never hear of the United Craft Brewers Association, and while he or she might possibly have heard of one or two of its members, it is much more likely they will be ordering a pint of Carlsberg the next time they are in a bar than that they will be ordering anything by BrewDog. The standard lager market may be falling overall, but again, as James Lousada emphasised to us, the standard Carlsberg brand is seeing growth in the on-trade, and the company is very far from any sort of “management of decline” strategy. “Carlsberg is our bread and butter, and remains our bread and butter,” Lousada told us. “We’re investing this year in Carlsberg in a way that we haven’t in the past five years. We fundamentally believe that Carlsberg has a major role with consumers and in our business.”

The return of the “Probably” campaign, five years after the company dropped it, is a vote of confidence in the brand’s strength, rather than a desperate attempt to return to something that worked once in the hope that it can work again. Carlsberg was perhaps surprised, and certainly delighted, to discover through research that consumers still remembered their favourite ads from a campaign that first started more than 40 years ago. Advertising agencies do not normally like working with something that they never thought up themselves, but marketers are entirely happy to use the tools that do the job, and if drinkers still associate “Carlsberg” with the word “probably”, and remembrance of witty, clever ads from times past still puts a warm halo around the brand when they think of it, it would be positively wrong not to try to capitalise on that legacy.

Not that Carlsberg intends to push its mainstream brands at the expense of the rest of the market. Its powerful position in logistics and porterage to the pub trade is an area that, again, Lousada told us the company is determined to take advantage of. Thus we have initiatives such as its “Crafted” range, the promotion for which includes a 96-page book written by the former Beer Writer of the Year, Pete Brown, and which includes nearly 40 craft beers, most of which the snootiest hipster bar would be happy to take. At the same time, Carlsberg’s market knowledge enables it to see that, in fact, craft is not necessarily the area with the greatest potential for growth. It is lucky to be in a position to take advantage of the fact that “world beer” continues to boom – the San Miguel brand “has been an absolute train for us in the last three or four years”, Lousada told us. It is also trying to ensure, perhaps belatedly, that it does not miss out on the flavoured cider boom, via the Somersby range, launched 18 months ago.

All in all, then, the reaction has to be: “United Craft Brewers Association? Meh. But Carlsberg – now that IS interesting.”

Martyn Cornell is managing director of Propel Info