New Forest Collection.
Location.
Hampshire.
Services.
A country house hotel. A historic manor. A townhouse. A rural inn. Each with its own character, location and guest mix. Each surrounded by the landscape, stories and local pull of the New Forest.
What the group needed was not one blanket F&B answer.
It needed a strategy that could connect the collection, respect each hotel’s individuality and unlock stronger commercial performance across the estate.
The Brief.
New Forest Collection is an independent hotel group in Hampshire, with venues across Beaulieu, Burley, Cadnam and Lyndhurst.
Each property had its own personality and role. From upscale dining to a great British pub, the group already had a broad food and beverage offer. The challenge was making that offer work harder, both as a collection and within each individual hotel.
Auden joined forces with Rockingham Partners, hospitality asset management experts, to develop a food and beverage strategy for the group and its hotels.
The aim was clear.
Create a strategy that could improve performance, strengthen guest experience and give each venue a clearer F&B role.
The Opportunity
The opportunity was to find the balance between group consistency and local character.
New Forest Collection did not need every hotel to feel the same. That would have missed the point. The strength of the group was its variety.
But variety without structure can become messy.
Breakfast, suppliers, standards, digital visibility, local competition, underused spaces and outlet positioning all needed to be looked at properly. Some opportunities sat across the full group. Others were specific to one hotel, one meal period or one underperforming space.
The bigger question was this.
How do you create a group-wide F&B strategy without flattening the personality of each venue?
That became the thinking behind the project.
Auden needed to understand the estate from the inside out. Not just what was on the menus, but how each hotel worked, where guests moved, what locals wanted, what tourists expected and where the commercial gaps were hiding.
The Moments That Matter
Understanding the hotels properly
Auden carried out a three-day exploratory visit across the collection, spending time in each hotel to understand the food and beverage offer, guest experience and operational challenges.
Listening to the people closest to the business
Time was spent with key stakeholders and hotel teams to understand what was working, what was getting in the way and where each venue had untapped potential.
Finding the group opportunities
Some opportunities were bigger than one hotel. Breakfast was a clear example. There was a chance to create a more consistent, higher-quality breakfast offer across the collection, improving both guest experience and operational clarity.
Protecting local personality
The strategy did not try to make every outlet the same. Each hotel was reviewed individually, with recommendations shaped around its role, location, guest mix and commercial opportunity.
Looking beyond the hotel walls
Auden explored the local area, competitor set and hidden local gems to understand where residents and visitors were already spending time. This helped shape a strategy that could appeal to tourists, but also attract the local market.
Improving digital visibility
Back at Auden’s London base, the team reviewed the hotels’ digital footprint and online booking visibility, identifying where stronger presence and better distribution could support F&B performance.
The Result
New Forest Collection received a clear food and beverage strategy for the group and for each individual hotel.
The strategy covered group standards, local frameworks, supply chain opportunities, commissary thinking, digital presence and outlet-by-outlet direction.
It also identified ways to unlock revenue through underused spaces, stronger meal period planning and clearer positioning across the hotels.
Most importantly, the work gave New Forest Collection a strategy that respected the character of each venue while creating a stronger commercial framework for the group.
Not one answer copied across every hotel.
A clearer way for each venue to play its part.
“I was so impressed by how the Auden team really understood our operation in the hotels and took the time to build a rapport with our team to produce a fantastic strategy that helped us to reposition the food & beverage offer across the group.”
Simon Maguire, Managing Director
See our work.
