Gastro-marketing going green and Gen Z

This article is available for reading in Trade magazin 2025/2-3.

This time the main topics were generations (mostly Generation Z) and gastro-marketing.

Zsuzsanna Hermann, President of the MMSZ Green Chapter, and Krisztina Bódi, Operational Manager of the HoReCa&Event Chapter, co-chaired the November joint open meeting, which was attended by more than 70 participants in the conference room of METRO Gasztroakadémia

Diverse teams work best

Noémi Felker
business development
consultant

Business development consultant Noémi Felker, who belongs to Generation X, told: she has achieved most of her business success with Generation Z, albeit in diverse teams. She recognised that while her own generation was task-oriented, those in Gen Z were experience-oriented. In order to illustrate what kind of attitude she expected from workers when dealing with customers, she took her colleagues to two restaurants.

Ákos Bősze
HoReCa-business development
executive
METRO

In his presentation Ákos Bősze, HoReCa business development executive of METRO stressed that baby boomers are increasingly unable to afford restaurant services. It is young family earners from Generation Y who are currently bringing the biggest sales growth, but 23-27 year olds will soon take over. Healthy and free-from food is important to them, and it is noteworthy that by 2030 more than 50% of consumers will suffer from some kind of food intolerance. Vegetarian and vegan eating are also more and more frequent.

A culinary trip to the countryside

Miklós Forrai
restaurant owner
Alessio

Miklós Forrai from Alessio restaurant told that guests are looking for complex but casual dining experiences. It is important for the chef to be involved already in creating the design of the restaurant and to communicate well. It is an advantage for Budapest that there it is easy to define the target group and with a good concept a restaurant can be really successful. Rural gastronomy is like a trip: a coffee here and a lunch there – for these guests are willing to sit in the car and drive to places.

Markus Jafet talked about the GeoGo app, an innovative tool that contributes to a healthy lifestyle by offering hiking and sports activities and measuring health data. It has more than 25,000 users and 1,400 validated hiking trails, which are available both in Hungary and internationally. It is an important connection of the app with the HoReCa sector that hotels and wellness centres can integrate their own tour offers into the system.

Dr. János Rákóczi (OPERA GIN), David Dani (Vaj Bisztró és Vendégház), Adrienn Vári (GasztroÉn), Orsolya Huszár (Pasaréti Közösségi Ház) – moderator Attila Kaszás (Viwa)

Wine is losing ground

There was a roundtable discussion about communication in the HoReCa and Event sector. Dr János Rákóczi (OPERA GIN) highlighted the role of quality, design and the so-called “feeling”. Chef Dávid Dani (Vaj Bisztró) called attention to the marketing challenges of wine-based catering in the Villány region. The decline in wine consumption is compensated for by the popularity of gin and whisky. Adrienn Vári (GasztoÉn) focused on the niche market of free-from meals. Orsolya Huszár (Pasaréti Community House) shared community experiences and spoke about using modern communication channels such as TikTok. 

After a METRO store visit the conference’s topic was the wholesaler’s sustainability efforts.

Tímea Tulkán
head of private label and 
commercial activation
METRO

Tímea Tulkán told: METRO seeks to get rid of 10,000 tonnes of plastic packaging by 2030, increase the proportion of recycled plastic in its private label packaging to 30% and introduce 100% recyclable, compostable packaging.

Péter Perendi
head of quality assurance
and sustainability
METRO