I have known Ben Bartlett for nearly a decade – initially during my time as Editor of the Morning Advertiser (2000-09) – and always found him the consummate food professional. He is extremely knowledgeable about food trends, and what sells in pubs. He is also a barbecue expert (and acknowledged as one of the world’s top barbecuists). He has written numerous articles for me, including one recently for BIIBUSINESS, and they have always been well received by readers. Ben is enthusiastic and very easy to work with, and I value my professional relationship with him.

Ben combines his skills as a chef with a sound grasp of the commercial realities of running a pub or restaurant business, a relatively rare combination which enables him to offer effective, practical advice to operators. I have regularly used comments and advice from Ben in articles designed to help operators develop their food business, as well as working with him on activities including cookery demonstrations at trade events, and judging for The Publican Awards, where his insight into the businesses under scrutiny was invaluable. Ben was a stalwart member of the Beer and Food Matching Panel which I assembled for The Publican, regularly providing interesting and imaginative matching suggestions for a very popular regular feature in the magazine’s food pages. On a personal level, my barbecue skills have been improved immensely by the opportunity to learn from the Master!

Ben was the “go to” person on food within S&NPC. His personal and coaching style allowed him to inspire many of our lessees to develop their food offer and he used his extensive knowledge of the food category to grow lessee profits in our pub estate. Ben has a massive network of contacts in the food industry who he used effectively to enrich and develop our food support marketing. I would recommend Ben for any projects or roles involving the training and motivation of independent businesses to push their food offer to the next level. I do not know of anyone more passionate and knowledgable than Ben in this field.