Should Have Instead Stayed Home Awards

•Frankie Cocozza and Jodie Marsh win the public vote for celebs who should have stayed home last year
•Over 4,000 Just-Eat customers cast their votes in alternative celebrity awards ceremony

As awards season rolls around again and celebrities gear themselves up for 2012’s red carpet festivities – the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Academy Awards – over 4,000 customers of Just-Eat, the UK’s largest online takeaway ordering service, have nominated the famous faces from 2011 that they think should maybe have stayed at home last year: the SHISH Awards – Should Have I Stayed Home.

Topping the poll are some of the year’s more talked about celebrities, including Frankie Cocozza, Jeremy Clarkson, Jodie Marsh and Rebekah Brooks. The ominous image of a Just-Eat SHISH award (instead of a Golden Globe, BAFTA or Oscar) will serve as a reminder that next time, they might be better off staying in.

According to Just-Eat’s research, Frankie Cocozza was the male celebrity who suffered the most by stepping into the media spotlight; with 24% of those polled feeling the Brighton boy most deserved the SHISH gong. In the female category, Jodie Marsh’s efforts as a bodybuilder were deemed particularly misguided by the British public, with 21% saying the former glamour model should simply have stayed at home.

Others who received plaudits from voters for their not-so-incredible achievements in 2011 included Jeremy Clarkson (for his outburst at public sector workers on The One Show – 20%), Ryan Giggs (for the super-injunction – 14%) and David Cameron (for his European veto – 10%). The runners up in the female category included the likes of Rebekah Brooks (for the phone hacking allegations – 16%), Kerry Katona (for launching a ‘Next Chapter’ series – 14%) and Princess Beatrice (for her unusual choice of hat at the Royal Wedding – 11%).

David Buttress, Managing Director UK for Just-Eat comments: “Our SHISH list proves that we all have bad days. Sometimes we’re better off admitting that today just isn’t our day, and keeping a low profile at home with a takeaway.”

And The Winners Are… Just-Eat’s SHISH Awards 2011

The Men

1. Frankie Cocozza, for his bad-boy X Factor antics – 24% of the votes
2. Jeremy Clarkson, for his outburst at public sector workers on The One Show – 20%
3. Ryan Giggs, for the super-injunction – 14%
4. David Cameron, for his European veto – 10%
5. John Galliano, for his outbursts in a Paris bar – 9%
6. Rupert Murdoch, for the pie in the face – 6%
7. John Terry, for his general mischief – 6%
8. Adrian Chiles, for Daybreak – 3%
9. Mike Tindall, for his night out in New Zealand – 2%
10. Ortis Deley, for his terrible presenting at the World Athletics – 2%

The Women

1. Jodie Marsh, for her creosote bodybuilding pictures – 21%
2. Rebekah Brooks, resigned due to the hacking allegations – 16%
3. Kerry Katona, for launching a ‘Next Chapter’ series – 14%
4. Princess Beatrice of York, for the unusual hat at the Royal Wedding – 11%
5. Kim Karshadian, for her much-hyped, short-lived celebrity marriage – 9%
6. Imogen Thomas, for the alleged affair – 8%
7. Kitty Brucknell, for all of her appearances on the X Factor – 6%
8. Cheryl Cole, shouldn’t have appeared on the US X Factor – 6%
9. Sally Bercow, should have stayed in the House of Commons, not the Big Brother House – 5%
10. Alexandra Burke, for her appearance on the X Factor – 4%

World’s largest online takeaway service investing in France with latest partnership

Just-Eat, the world’s largest online takeaway service, has announced that it will be undertaking a joint venture with Alloresto, the leading French online food delivery provider. The deal consolidates Just-Eat’s position as the world’s leading online service for takeaway restaurants and gives it access to local knowledge and expertise as it enters the French market for the first time.

The deal will have founder Sebastien Forest remain with the company as managing director for France. Founded in 1998, Alloresto can lay claim to being the first European online takeaway service, and currently partners with over 2,500 restaurants across France. As part of the deal, Just-Eat will be investing 20 million euros in the partnership over the next three years.

Forest said “This partnership is a fantastic opportunity for Alloresto and Just-Eat. By working with the industry’s biggest player, we will benefit from working with a highly experienced team with the technological expertise to help the business develop in France and continue our clear leadership of the local market.”

Klaus Nyengaard, CEO of Just-Eat, said “The online takeaway market in France has huge potential, and Alloresto is clearly the market leader. As we look to expand into new geographies and grow Just-Eat, tapping into local expertise and knowledge is absolutely critical to ensure success. Sebastien and his team have built a strong brand with loyal customers, and we’re delighted to be partnering with them.”

The Alloresto partnership follows a period of intense expansion by Just-Eat, which saw the company make seven acquisitions in 2011, in the UK, Italy, Switzerland, Brazil, Canada and India. This rapid growth has been supported by a $48 million round of VC funding in March, and the appointment of John Hughes as Chairman.

John Hughes CBE joins company as Chairman as expansion continues

Just-Eat, the world’s largest online takeaway ordering service, has appointed John Hughes as its new Chairman. John takes over the role from Klaus Nyengaard, who continues as Group CEO.

With more than thirty years’ experience leading businesses operating on an international scale, John will work with Klaus and the rest of the senior executive team on the strategic vision of Just-Eat. Previously, John held senior positions at Thales Group, Lucent Technologies and Hewlett Packard, leaving him well placed to guide Just-Eat as it consolidates its position as the global market leader in online food delivery.

John said “It’s an exciting time to join Just-Eat as it expands globally. I’m looking forward to working with the team in helping the business grow and putting in place a strategy that benefits both our business and our customers.”

Klaus Nyengaard, CEO of Just-Eat, said “As we look to continue our expansion, it’s important that we get the right mix of skills and experience on the board to make the right decisions. I’m excited to be working with John and being able to call on his wealth of experience as we drive the company forward in the coming years.”

As well as his chairmanship of Just-Eat, he is also chairman of Telecity Group plc, Spectris plc and Sepura plc. In addition, Mr Hughes is an Ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Society, and was awarded the CBE for services to international telecommunications in the Queen’s 2011 New Year Honours List.

This month the X Factor dominates the televisual world, to help this along Just-Eat have commissioned some stunning Pizza’s of the X factor stars.

Online
AOL Lifestyle
British Business Finder
Daily Times
Daily Star Online
First News
Heatworld
Daily Mail Online
Mail Online
Metro
MSN
OK Online
Pizza News
RTE Online
Sky.com
The Sun Online
TNT Online

Offline
Northern Echo
Daily Star
Liverpool Echo

TV
X Factor Final

As the office Christmas party season reaches full swing, the London Fire Brigade is launching a new safety campaign to encourage young people not to cook after a night out drinking, a campaign Just-Eat is happy to be a part of and help support.

Adverts featuring the slogans ‘Last Night a Burger Saved My Life!’ and ‘Fire Safety Equipment’ above pictures of burgers are appearing in central London tube stations, in free newspapers and magazines and on social networking and listings websites from today (12 December). They aim to encourage people to get a takeaway instead of cooking at home if they have been out drinking.

New analysis by the Brigade estimates that the equivalent of around 33 million pints of beer or 75 million shots of vodka will be drunk by Londoners this December. The young, well-educated, professionals (18-35 year old Londoners), being targeted by the campaign cause more than a quarter of all accidental house fires in the capital, often by attempting to cook at home when drunk.

The Brigade is launching the Have a Takeaway campaign ahead of Friday 16 December, which experts predict will be London’s busiest day for Christmas parties and late night drinking. Cooking when drunk greatly increases the risk of someone having a serious fire which could destroy their home or, even worse, kill them.

London Fire Brigade Commissioner, Ron Dobson, said:
“In the run up to Christmas, many people will be out drinking more than they usually would, whether it’s at the work Christmas do or catching up with friends. Our message is simple, if you’ve had too much to drink, don’t go home thinking you’re on MasterChef. Too many fires start when someone has passed out, leaving a pizza in the oven or a pan on the hob and it can be fatal. If people are planning a big night out, they should plan on having a takeaway on the way home.“

Show your support and win a £25 Just-Eat voucher

You can show your support for the campaign by ‘liking’ London Fire Brigade’s Facebook page here and uploading pictures of their takeaways by midnight Monday 19th. The tastiest takeaway picture will receive a £25 Just-Eat voucher.

On the 10th episode of the fourth season of the ‘The Apprentice TV3′, the apprentices’ task revolved around creating a television advertisement for Just-Eat.ie, Ireland’s leading online takeaway ordering service.

Head of Marketing for Just-Eat.ie, Emer McCormack, and Just-Eat CMO, Mat Braddy, both appeared on the show to provide their expertise and feedback on the TV adverts created. The task proved to be a challenge for both teams, who struggled to promote Just-Eat’s numerous benefits succinctly and ‘on-brand’ within a 30 second advert.

Watch the whole episode here and see if you agree with the Just-Eat judges thoughts:

Anyone fancy a ‘Little Mixican Hot’ or a ‘Hamelia and Pineapple Lily’? As the nation prepares to spend the weekend watching the latest X Factor winner being crowned, Just-Eat have once again teamed up with food artist Prudence Staite to create pizzas immortalising the finalists.

According to Just-Eat’s research, 87% of the UK will be watching the final and over four fifths (88%) will be ordering takeaway. Just-Eat expects this weekend to be the busiest this year, with over 250,000 meals being ordered this Saturday and Sunday across its 10,000 takeaway restaurant partners in the UK.

Just-Eat’s customers also revealed again that pizza is the ideal accompaniment to the show, with 34% of those polled grabbing a slice of the action while watching the final. So to celebrate the weekend, Just-Eat has once again challenged Prudence Staite with recreating this year’s finalists, like the cheesy tributes to One Direction (One Dough-rection) and Cher Lloyd (Mozz-Cher-rella) last year.

With the competition wide open this year, it seems that the UK’s opinion is evenly split! 28% of Brits are backing Marcus Collins to win the competition, followed by 27% for Little Mix, 22% for Amelia Lily with only 12% backing Misha B. Last year, Just-Eat’s X Factor poll correctly predicted the placing of the four finalists with Matt Cardle as the shows winner, Rebecca Ferguson coming second, with One Direction and Cher Lloyd coming third and fourth respectively.

“Last year, Just-Eat’s customers proved to be an accurate barometer of who the nation felt had the X Factor”, said David Buttress, Managing Director UK for Just-Eat, “With the show proving to be a much closer affair this year, similarly our customer’s views are much more evenly divided.”

Frankie Cocozza is the contestant from this year’s show whose music career is thought least likely to go the distance, with 55% of Just-Eat’s customers thinking the cheeky Brighton boy is in fact the most likely to end up as a pizza delivery person instead. Cocozza was not so closely followed in the poll by Jonny Robinson (13%) and Kitty Brucknell (7%).

Buttress continues “The massive popularity of the X Factor each year delivers a welcome boost to the takeaway industry. This is our way of celebrating the must watch TV event of the year.”

With this year’s show including a revamped judge’s panel, new head judge Gary Barlow has come out as the most popular with 45% of those polled citing the Take That front man as their favourite new addition to the show. Tulisa Contostavlos came in with 35% of the vote, while Kelly Rowland only got 22%. Looking ahead to next year’s show, Louis Walsh once again was voted the judge we’d most like to see replaced, as he only received 16% of the nation’s support. Popular choices for a replacement were Robbie Williams (13%) and Katy Perry (11%), however the overwhelmingly popular choice was to bring back Simon Cowell, with 25% voting for Mr. Nasty to return to the panel.

This month continues the news of Just-Eat’s acquisition of Urbanbite and also on a lighter note some of the funny names of restaurants.

Online News
The Sun online

In the Papers
Business XL – Urbanbite acquisition
The Grocer – We should value fast food eateries
The Sun – Hahappy Eaters

The first in a series of Q&As with Just-Eat Group CEO, Klaus Nyengaard. Questions were suggested by Just-Eat.co.uk customers and the most popular/interesting were answered by Klaus. As the series continues he’ll be answering questions from customers in other Just-Eat countries.

What’s a typical day for a CEO? Daniel Wagg
Busy, hectic, intense with plenty of good laughs and small drops of big thinking (usually not my own thinking, but I quickly claim it anyway).

Will you keep up with the competition and add PayPal? Daniel Dalley
We don’t see a lot of demand for PayPal to be honest. We have also asked consumers and there are quite a few other things that are in higher demand, also related to the payment process, e.g. improvement in favourites functionality and saved card features.

What’s the point of the point shop? Why not have a loyalty scheme? i.e. Spend £20 or make orders from the same restaurant and get a £1 discount next time. Wolfington Fayle & David Lee Dyer
We have an internal discussion about whether the point shop in it’s current format is the right concept for this, and we are undecided. That is also why we don’t use it in our marketing. We are not quite happy with how it works, so we are looking at a replacement, But the trick is that we only get around 10-12% of the food sales as our commission, so if we for example did what you propose, then almost half of our revenues would disappear and we would soon be out of business. People with more creative minds than me are looking into this, let’s hope they soon send out white smoke …

Did you expect JE to be so popular? Ash Speight
I was not one of the co-founders, but I can assure you that none of them had any idea about how big it is becoming. I joined spring 2008, and I felt I was thinking bigger than anyone when I started, but I have also had to continuously upgrade my view of how big our company can be.


Why do you have 2(!) smartphone games but not 1 app? Yeah yeah you have a mobile site but it’s rubbish and nowhere near as good as an app could be. Anon
I agree that our mobile site is still not the world class product we want it to be, but I don’t agree that the App technology is the only way to achieve a great product. We believe that (to become a bit technical) a mobile site can as great as an App if you mix XTML5 with thin clients, check out Financial Times’ awesome mobile site for a great example of this. We will get there in 2012.


As a start-up business owner (http:\\hubb.it) what is your advice for getting investment? Catherine Morris
Most important for you is to have a great team, secondly you need a good idea & concept, and when that is secured dream up an ok plan. Notice the priority, and notice where the words “great”, “good” and “ok” is used.


Any plans for better postcode use? Maybe looking into the actual distance instead of first part of postcode? i.e. I live at NR5 8JB, but delivery charge may be £2.50 for NR5 (as nr5 is a large area) whilst NR1 may be charged at £1, even though it can be further away! Also when I put in NR5 also, it comes up saying I live somewhere that is about 3 miles away! Ben Hagger
Yes, that is an improvement we are designing, you will probably see this coming in one form or another in Q1 or Q2 next.


How rich are you? Anon
I am rich on hopes, dreams and most importantly I have three lovely kids. But I am sure it was not this Hollywood version of my richness you asked about, so in terms of liquid assets I am as middle class as most of us: very limited cash left in the bank. Plenty of paper money though, but that is not something I can use today, and I don’t want to sell any Just-Eat stock anyway, because we will only become bigger, and bigger, and bigger … fingers crossed!


How did you come up with the idea of just-eat? Anon
I didn’t co-found our company. The story behind Just-Eat is that two Danish start-ups doing the same thing in back in 2001 decided to merge and launch together. One company was called Foodzoom, and the other one, Just-Eat, was the continuing company. But as one of the co-founders told me, then the idea behind Just-Eat (“online takeaway ordering”) was already back then not a novel idea. There are plenty of companies that started before Just-Eat (one of them, UrbanBite, was acquired by us recently), so the real success story is not first mover advantage but the fact that we execute better and more energetic than the rest. Today we are the world leader and active on 4 continents – an achievement we are proud of, but we also know there is still plenty to do.


What is your favourite takeaway? Laura Pritchard
I have several: butter chicken, nigiri sushi, hawaian pizza


Could we not get some sort of calorie listings on the typical types of food so that we can start to see how many calories are in some of these foods! Laura Pritchard
We would like to and discussing various models, but the key problem is that we are not cooking the food, i.e. we don’t control exactly how the food is being made. A chicken korma might vary from restaurant to restaurant, and almost all of our restaurants are independents or small chains, and they don’t have this information. Maybe the solution is to give an approximation to how many calories there typically is in a chicken korma, but that also exposes us legally in all kinds of ways. We are still pondering on this one.


What markets are you considering for farther expanding? Eastern Europe maybe? Anon
No, I think it will be outside of Europe. Both Asian and LatAm are booming, and we are already in most of the interesting markets in Europe.


Do you fart in the bath then laugh? Andy Armstrong
No, but my kids do, and then we all have a good laugh.

Urbanbite Acquisition:
Vator News
Growth Business
TechCrunch
TechCrunch Europe (a more in-depth article)

GrubCanada Acquisition:
TechCrunch

Other Business Activity:
FT.com – Stephen Pritchard podcast
FT.com – online interview with Klaus
Real Business.co.uk – Questions to pose at job interviews, suggestions from Klaus
Sky News – Jeff Randall Interview

‘Spice Census’ Heat Map Coverage:
Sun Online

Offline Activity:
Financial Times – Business profile and Klaus interview