Case Study
LEON Restaurants

Automate
Integrate
Consolidate
Leon

The history

From humble beginnings back in 2004, when there was a gap in the market with creating good food fast, to receiving three nominations in the MCA Retailers’ Retailer of the Year Awards 2022, LEON have been on a whole journey of their own.

They wanted to move away from the ideology that fast food was intrinsically bad for you and embarked on creating a menu with a difference and it was a huge success. One store became many, and retail products were created for the supermarket shelves giving consumers a different food option that was natural and nutritious when eating on the go or out and about with friends.

Expanding a hospitality business doesn’t come easy and since its establishment in 2004 the changes across the industry have been significant. The changes in consumer behaviour, which more recently have been accelerated by the pandemic has meant the digital transformation of this sector has been immense.

The role of technology has played a pivotal role in allowing Leon to move with these changes and build an agile organisation of the future.

Right from the beginning, we’ve been by LEON’s side. As an emerging brand back then, we understood what the company’s mission was, what operational issues they were starting to experience and what they wanted to achieve by continually investing in a technology platform (Centegra Plus), that would enable the business to grow.

With a broad menu, it was important that they had real time data to analyse and make informed decisions about specific menu design and new product development. It was also vital that the performance of each store was able to be compared and improved upon, where necessary.

To help with this process, LEON have from the start of our relationship, used Centegra’s Managed Service option where we look after all of their product and price changes, allowing them to focus on what they needed to, in order to grow the business.

What LEON Says

Glenn Edwards, Managing Director – LEON Restaurants
"Centegra are not just good tech partners, they are part of the family. They’ve been by our side as we challenged the parameters of what’s achievable in a new digitised restaurant environment. From the basics of a low-cost POS solution in 2004, to the more complicated infrastructure and reporting requirements that support kiosk ordering, app and loyalty, third party integration, full KMS implementation and BI tools they’ve been by our side the whole time. Centegra think like operators, not POS people. Now that’s invaluable."

The Process

 As the popularity of LEON grew, so did their Centegra Plus solution. The consumer market moves at an incredible pace and as more integrations were needed the platform was able to evolve to meet these additional needs. The initial POS installations grew with more analysis reporting, using our BI cube, which was especially useful when they migrated from our legacy POS to Silver POS giving them the ability to view data, no matter which POS had been used to enter the sale. We have given LEON the ability to continually track, analyse and improve.

More recently, Centegra have completed a full digital roll-out, with Centegra Plus being central to their ongoing digital strategy. Whether an order is placed via Silver POS, Kiosk, Uber, Deliveroo, Just Eat, or Click and Collect, all the information is consolidated, then delivered in real-time to a fully bespoke Kitchen Management Solution and to their Enterprise Reporting.

LEON has grown and evolved with Centegra and is a true success story of a long-standing relationship.

In fact, this relationship between Centegra and LEON was further strengthened when they presented us with their first Super Supplier award in 2018. A great honour and recognition for the partnership we have built together.

Last year LEON was bought by EuroGarages and their expansion is increasing rapidly throughout the UK and Europe. We have recently installed Centegra solutions in their first Drive Thru site near Leeds, in a food court operation in Asda in Milton Keynes, and also in Honswijk in The Netherlands.

These developments have been recognised with the nomination for ‘The Best Use of Technology’ for its Digital Screens and Drive-Thru Tech, and the ‘Evolution Award’ which recognises their move into Drive Thru.

The Centegra Plus technology has been at the heart of this progression, further demonstrating the importance of flexible but innovative tech solutions working to empower hospitality brands to achieve success in new markets.


What LEON Says

Hugo Engel, Head of Digital – LEON Restaurants
The digital operations of LEON have helped transform the business and working alongside a partner like Centegra and using their Centegra Plus platform has meant we are able to continually adapt to the fast-changing consumer environment, to evaluate performance and have complete control over every part of our business operations.

A platform that consolidates all digital partner sales channels, as well as traditional walk-in sales including like for like, is integral to us gaining a much wider understanding of the organisation, being able to drill down to gain further insight in specific areas and streamlining our operations.

They recently supported us in our Digital transformation process, taking time to understand what we wanted to achieve and delivered on all aspects of it, on time with constant communication along the way”

As we continue to move forward with growth, we look forward to continually working alongside Centegra Plus.

What Centegra Says

Jon Horsfield, Managing Director – Centegra Ltd
At Centegra we are very proud of our longstanding partnership with Leon Restaurants. It is a testament to our continually evolving technology platform, Centegra Plus, award-winning support offering, and the constant communication between both of our companies that we are still working together so closely, after 18 years."
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