Track: The Shift

The supplier relationship is undergoing a profound shift. In this session, expert voices analyse how purchasing priorities are changing, what today’s end customer demands, and how to align product, service, and costs. A conversation to understand how to make better supply decisions in a more complex and demanding environment.

In conclusion, key insights on procurement, suppliers, and strategic priorities are synthesised, providing clear criteria to make better decisions, optimise costs, and align offering, customer, and profitability.

The procurement function now operates in a radically different environment, marked by geopolitical instability, persistent inflation, and constant cost pressure. This new landscape redefines the rules of negotiation, strategic priorities, and risk management within the supply chain. In this roundtable, we analyze how decision-making criteria are evolving, how supplier relationship models are changing, and which purchasing strategies are required to ensure competitiveness, resilience, and adaptability in HORECA businesses.

The role of the Purchasing Director has evolved from a tactical position to a key strategic role within the HORECA ecosystem. Driven by technology, this profile now leads decisions that directly impact competitiveness, brand positioning, and business profitability. In this talk, we explore how their priorities have changed, their relationship with suppliers, and their ability to generate smart savings, strategic vision, and sustainable advantages in a context of high cost pressure, supply challenges, and market demands.

The shift in the relationship with suppliers is key: purchasing priorities, customer demands, and decision-making processes are changing. This session provides context for this new logic in supply.

Procurement is no longer just an operational function, but a strategic decision. This roundtable analyzes how restaurateurs build an intelligent purchasing mix by combining purchasing groups, distributors, strategic suppliers, and local products. A hybrid model that makes it possible to maximize competitiveness in price and terms, gain efficiency, and at the same time preserve value-driven relationships with key suppliers while generating differentiation through local sourcing aligned with brand identity, storytelling, and positioning.

THE NEW STRATEGIC POWER OF SMART PURCHASING

Purchasing is no longer operational, it is pure strategy.

You will learn how to optimize costs without sacrificing quality, negotiate better, standardize processes, and build resilience.

A Focus Session to understand how supply decisions directly impact margin, brand, and competitiveness, especially in independent restaurants.

INDUSTRY LEADER: TBC

Restaurant management does not end in the kitchen or the dining room. Procurement, food distribution, urban logistics, and waste management are all part of an external ecosystem that is becoming increasingly regulated, demanding, and complex, both in urban and tourist environments. This roundtable explores the major challenges that take place beyond the restaurant walls and how they directly impact costs, operations, sustainability, and overall business viability. A key conversation to understand why managing the invisible has become a true competitive advantage.

Cities are redefining how the urban food system is organised to address challenges related to mobility, sustainability, coexistence and efficiency. In this roundtable, different municipalities share how they are designing new models for sourcing, distribution and waste management that create a real balance between restaurateurs, distributors, customers and residents. A win-win approach that demonstrates how public-private collaboration is key to building smarter, more viable foodservice ecosystems aligned with new regulatory and social demands.

We are facing an operational and environmental shift that forces us to rethink how products are delivered, how we manage waste, and how we operate efficiently in an increasingly regulated and demanding urban environment.

Logistics, urban distribution, waste, and sustainability are part of a key operational shift. This roundtable addresses these challenges from an expert and cross-functional perspective, analyzing how to better manage the invisible complexity of the hospitality business to reduce friction, hidden costs, and increase efficiency.

CITIES, LOGISTICS, AND THE NEW URBAN FOOD PACT

How can the cities of the future be fed better?

You will learn about urban models, smart logistics, applied sustainability, and public-private collaboration.

An inspiring Focus Session to understand how food service fits into the new urban design and what opportunities are opening for agile and conscious operators.

INDUSTRY LEADER: TBC

A conversation about the new tourism landscape, addressing the evolution of destinations, connectivity, emerging consumption habits, and the role of the different actors in the value chain within a context of global transformation. In a country approaching 100 million visitors, understanding who comes and how they consume is key to designing more profitable, coherent, and sustainable HORECA models in each destination.

Inflation, product costs, and labor costs now form the Holy Trinity that determines the survival of restaurants and hotels. In this roundtable, we approach, from an economic and strategic perspective, how these three factors are reshaping margins, forcing changes in operating models, and requiring uncomfortable but necessary decisions. A conversation to understand what is really happening, which impacts are coming from outside the sector, and which levers remain in the hands of business owners to protect their company, their team, and their medium-term viability.

We are experiencing an economic and global shift that directly impacts margins, costs, and daily business decisions in the HORECA sector. This session provides context, criteria, and clarity to understand what is changing and why.

As an executive summary of this session, we bring together the key economic factors, cost pressures, immediate trends, and the impact of source markets, drawing practical conclusions to adjust business models and make better decisions today.

THE FACTORS REDRAWING GLOBAL HORECA

In this Focus Session, The Shift opens the discussion to understand which economic, political, and social forces are reshaping tourism, hospitality, and consumption.

You will gain the insight to anticipate trends, read the context, and make smarter decisions in an uncertain environment.

A session designed to move from reacting to playing with an advantage.

INDUSTRY LEADER: Inma de Benito

We are experiencing a competitive shift: the rules of the game have changed. This session provides context on how business models are evolving and what new factors determine success in the hospitality sector today.

High competitiveness is not improvised: it is designed. In this talk, two major high-volume operators —one from organized dining and the other from on-the-go/rest stop dining— share the lessons that can only be learned when managing thousands of services a day. Suppliers, people, processes, technology, and customer relationships are viewed through the lens of total effectiveness. The goal is not to copy industrial models, but to translate their learnings into the context of independent restaurants. A session to understand which decisions make a difference today, how to gain efficiency without losing identity, and which practices have become essential to compete successfully in an environment radically different from just a few years ago.

Hospitality no longer competes solely on cuisine, service, or location. It competes on model, structure, and adaptability. In this roundtable, key perspectives from the sector —independent restaurateurs, restaurant groups, and branded dining— come together to examine how the way of competing has radically changed. Costs, talent, scale, brand, experience, efficiency, and resilience all come into play from very different realities. An honest conversation to understand which factors are redefining competitiveness today, which models withstand current pressures best, and which strategic decisions will determine the survival and growth of the hospitality business in the coming years.

In a highly competitive environment, the difference between surviving or growing lies in the design of the business model. This talk explores the role of the consultant as a strategic figure to create, evolve, or scale HORECA concepts more quickly and with greater guarantees of success. Methodology, structure, tools, and experience help shorten the entrepreneur’s learning curve, identify critical competitiveness factors, and make better decisions. A key reflection on how external vision and professional methods strengthen the Business Power of businesses.

In this interview, Jennifer Pettinger, founder of the Global Restaurant Investment Forum, invites us to step beyond the local framework to understand how a HORECA business is evaluated today in the most competitive international markets. From Dubai, one of the world’s leading laboratories for restaurants and hospitality, we explore what investors look for, which models inspire confidence, which mistakes capital penalizes, and which attributes make a concept scalable, or not. A key conversation for operators who want to attract investment, expand internationally, or approach their business with a global mindset.

A strategic and inspirational session on how Food & Beverage is evolving to respond to new consumer demands and an increasingly complex business environment. From independent concepts to hospitality, cruises, retail, and corporate spaces, we will explore how F&B is used as a key activation point to create experiences, differentiation, and brand value, and how it is becoming a decisive lever in strategic decision-making.

WHEN THE BEST RESTAURANT NO LONGER WINS, THE BEST MODEL DOES

Discover why some businesses grow, scale, and attract investment while others, despite being brilliant, fall behind.

In this Focus Session, we will analyze models, efficiency, structure, and business mindset.

You will take away practical insights to rethink your business, make it more profitable, and design it with a future vision without losing its soul.

INDUSTRY LEADER: Joan Jover

From survival to selective growth

This keynote will map the global trends and benchmarks redefining hybrid business models and outline the strategic implications for operators in 2026 and beyond.

The boundaries between HORECA and Retail are blurring, giving way to new strategic alliances that open opportunities for growth, visibility, and diversification. In this roundtable, we explore how restaurateurs and retail operators are learning to work together: how these collaborations are built, how they are negotiated, which models work best, and the challenges they pose in terms of brand, operations, and control. A key conversation to understand how these alliances are redefining customer access and expanding the playing field for both sectors.

How retail and hospitality are redefining the stomach share to capture new consumption occasions, breaking the traditional boundaries between purchase and experience. We will analyze how new habits, format hybridization, and technology integration are creating unprecedented moments of consumption.

The hospitality sector is experiencing a hybridization shift, where traditional restaurants, retail, automation, and vending coexist. This session focuses on understanding this new landscape and its real implications for business.

As a synthesis, the key elements of the new hybrid environment are outlined, identifying risks and opportunities, and drawing practical conclusions to adapt business models, diversify revenue streams, and compete more effectively in a transforming market.

In this talk, we explore how an iconic product can become the foundation of a solid and scalable multichannel business model. From retail to foodservice and major transit hubs such as airports, the conversation reveals how opportunities are identified, formats are adapted, and multiple channels are managed without losing brand coherence. A talk to understand how to think about distribution, business models, and expansion when the product is the starting point, but vision is what makes the difference.

WHEN HORECA, RETAIL AND AUTOMATION COME TOGETHER

The borders have fallen.

In this Focus Session, you will discover how restaurants, retail, and new hybrid formats are creating real growth opportunities.

Cases, partnerships, and models that work.

A session to open your mind, identify new channels, and understand how to play on multiple boards without losing identity.

INDUSTRY LEADER: Pablo de la Rica