Pepper Collective announces slew of projects

Temper founder Neil Rankin and former Benugo CEO Handley Amos are heading up a restaurant division that will provide investment and expertise to restaurateurs to launch new ventures.

The Pepper Collective is part of partnership and experience agency Salt, and is working with the likes of Rob Roy Cameron, Tom Brown, Alyn Williams, Jasmine Hemsley, Gizzi Erskine and Italian restaurateur Antonio Civita to open new venues this year.

The collective will provide help with concept development and location sourcing to marketing, staff training, design, quality control and F&B strategy.

So far it has worked on Rankin’s plant-based restaurant Simplicity Burger, which opened at the tail-end of last year on London’s Brick Lane.

Forthcoming projects lined up for 2020 include the launch of Veda Baby, an all-day ayurvedic restaurant from author and chef Jasmine Hemsley, that is due to open Soho’s Wardour Street in the spring.

The collective is also working with Gizzi Erskine and Rosemary Ferguson to create a permanent space for their plant-based burger concept F!LTH, which is slated to open in London’s West End, also in the spring, with a high street rollout under consideration.

Other projects in the pipeline include Pillar, described as ‘a fully integrated wellness concept’, that will combine a digital fitness studio, a space to monitor health and wellness and a restaurant, when it opens in the summer.

It has also identified the first three sites for fast casual restaurant brand Root, a sustainable, healthier version of the classic British chip shop chip, with a franchised roll-out model planned.

Salt CEO Andrew Fishwick said: “I have known Neil and Handley for years and they think like I do about the future of hospitality; we all know our sector is changing beyond recognition and we believe that by working with the best, by being at the vanguard of the new movement and by incorporating new ways of thinking, we can create a group that makes a difference.”