What Gordon Ramsay Could Learn From Ronseal

I have never bought the Sun newspaper. Not until today that is. I did because the front page exclusive suggested that Gordon Ramsay has been a naughty boy (again). The man who built his reputation on cooking from scratch with fresh ingredients, who told The Times that his idea of food hell was ready meals, who criticised restaurants serving reheated meals, has in fact been serving ready meals in his own eateries. It turns out that "up to 50% of the menu...could be done off-site." This means £2 meals made in South London and delivered to The Narrow, The Warrington, The Devonshire and Foxtrot Oscar by white van man where they are sold for £10 accompanied by the message that all food is cooked fresh on-site.

There is now a danger that regulars at these gastropubs will feel conned. That viewers of Kitchen Nightmares will watch in a different light. GR has built a powerful brand. A brand founded on his creativity in the kitchen, and his energy, but most of all on his consistent pursuit of perfection. He has generated a great deal of trust, the kind of trust that takes a long time to build, that earns you a £60m empire. But one of the four major components of brand trust (discussed in an earlier blog on Brand Trust) is Competence - do customers believe it does what it says it will do?

It will be interesting to see how forgiving the gastropub regulars will be. That may well depend on how GR responds to remedy this breach of trust. A good place for Gordon to start might be with the Ronseal brand - it does exactly what it says on the tin.