Enabling customers to make the most of their time while their car is being serviced, independent Porsche dealership Autofarm recently began offering a complimentary travel service to and from a nearby luxury outlet mall.

Rather than waiting out the four-hour car service at the garage, Autofarm will arrange for customers to be driven the four miles to and from Bicester Village to enjoy its outlet boutiques and restaurants. According to Autofarm, the service is designed to cater to the growing number of female Porsche owners, especially mothers. Autofarm’s Workshop Manager, Robin Bartholomew explains: “Getting the car serviced often falls to the lady of the house. Children understandably get bored waiting, but this provides an opportunity to go somewhere suitable, rather than being trapped in a car showroom or workshop waiting room.”

It takes little tread off Autofarm's tires to offer the service, which provides a substantial value to their customers and is a great example of what our sister site would call a brand butler offering—something extended to consumers that helps make their lives easier and more enjoyable. How can your brand drive customers to new heights of satisfaction...? ;-) (Related: Hotel perks for Mercedes drivers – Fiat offers electric bikes as loaner vehicles — Volvo dealership loans bikes instead of cars.)

Website: www.autofarm.co.uk
Contact: porsche@autofarm.co.uk

Launched at this year's Future Everything digital arts festival in Manchester, RememberMe is a collaborative project between TOTeM (Tales of Things and Electronic Memory) and Oxfam which infused personal history into donated items by enabling people to attach stories to them using RFID tags.

People donating items at an Oxfam store in Manchester were asked to tell a story about the object into a microphone, including when and where they acquired it and any personal stories associated with it. The audio clips were linked to an RFID tag and QR code and items tagged with a story were added to the shop's stock as part of the in-store exhibition. Visitors to the shop used their own smart phone or a bespoke RFID reader to listen to the stories through speakers in the shop, and were invited to purchase the story-tagged objects.

Beyond the Oxfam project, TOTeM’s free iPhone app gives purchasers anytime access to attached stories, and can also be used to scan, comment and add location to things in the wild. Consumers can also tag their own items at the TOTeM website, linking any object to a snippet of video, audio or text describing its history via printable QR code tags.

The concept steers people away from thinking of an item's value as purely financial, encouraging them to realize the sentimental value of objects and (maybe) think twice before throwing things away. It's also a retail concept that would no doubt appeal to authenticity-seeking consumers everywhere—one to implement on a permanent basis? (Related: Secondhand store in Tokyo showcases previous owners — App lets users attach digital content to any barcode.)

Website: www.talesofthings.com
Contact: info@talesofthings.com

Spotted by:  Jane Macdonald

Just as chefs are forever seeking out new ways to fill our bellies, the food industry shows a insatiable appetite for novel concepts, as can be seen in our food & beverage database. Here's a selection of new innovations designed to appeal to those hungry for a more unusual dining experience:

1. LE TROISIEME LIEU — Stealing a tradition from music and comedy clubs, Paris bar Le Troisième Lieu has declared Mondays as 'open kitchen nights': any aspiring chef can register to be the venue's cook for the evening. All meals cost EUR 12.

2. PUBLIC PIE — Dutch mobile kitchen Public Pie features ovens that are integrated into the outdoor benching that is provided for patrons, meaning customers get exactly what is promised by the company motto: 'Fresh apple pie with a hot butt'.

3. PATTY'S PIZZA — Santa Monica pizza maker Patty's has done away with its brick-and-mortar eatery altogether, and moved its retail operation entirely online. On top of that, customers can choose to have their gourmet pizzas delivered baked or par-baked, giving them the option of completing the process their own oven.

4. LOBSTER PUSHER — How to make a sandwich more exciting to consumers? The Lobster Pusher's answer is to make the act of buying one emulate a drug deal. Customers interested in The Merchandise—a lobster bun—must first become a member of a Facebook group. Orders for product are conducted by SMS, and handovers take place surreptitiously on street corners.

Spotters: Elisabeth Dien, Food Inspiration, Jim Stewart, Erin Lindholm

If Fortnum's can keep bees on its roof and sell the hyperlocal honey they produce, it stands to reason that other purveyors of food should be able to make the most of their rooftops in a similar way. Enter London grocer Thornton's Budgens, which just began selling organic produce grown in a rooftop garden of its very own.

Dubbed Food from the Sky, the rooftop garden project is a collaboration between Thornton’s Budgens, The Positive Earth Project and the local community. In late May, a crane lifted up the necessary materials onto the roof of Budgens' Crouch End store, including 10 tonnes of compost, fencing, trees and over 100 pallets. The project is collaborating with the heritage seed library to grow a number of endangered species of food; it also plans to run food growing workshops on the roof and provide seeds from the harvest free of charge to residents and schools. The garden's first organic fruits and vegetables just went on sale in Budgens, all grown and harvested by volunteers. All proceeds from the not-for-profit venture will be put back into the project; plans for the future include the addition of chickens and top bar bee hives.

As urban areas continue to sharpen their focus on sustainable and local production, it's not hard to imagine food retailers large and small setting up rooftop farms of their own, buoyed also by consumers' love for a good still-made-here story. Other grocers around the globe: what about you?

Website: www.thorntonsbudgens.com/social-environment/food-from-the-sky
Contact: andrew.thornton.tle@gmail.com

Spotted by: market.se via Maria Dahl Jørgensen

Much the way FoodHub aims to promote the buying and selling of locally grown food by connecting those on both sides of the purchase equation, so OpenPop-UpShops.com strives to do the same for pop-up retail by helping retailers, building owners, shoppers and others find each other at just the right time.

We've been covering the pop-up retail trend for years now, of course, and it's clearly still going strong. But typically, it can be difficult for would-be pop-up retailers to find space that's available when they need it, and for consumers to learn about fleeting stores while they're still open. OpenPop-UpShops.com aims to change all that by providing a central place for all interested parties to meet. Launching today, the South Carolina-based site lets retailers, landlords, designers, contractors, journalists and consumers around the world register for free. Once inside, they can create or search listings for property that's available or desired, or for pop-up stores past, present or future. Listings cost USD 10 per month, and a variety of press releases and other promotional aids are also available for USD 10 or less. OpenPop-UpShops.com will soon launch a blog, a printed magazine and video content as well, it says.

If there was any doubt the pop-up trend is maturing, this should help put such concerns to rest. Now, all those involved in pop-up ventures of their own: time to log on and make the most of these new connections! ;-) (Related: High-end clothing brand only sells on tour dates — Partnering with Crunch, pop-up Gap store focuses on fitness for a month — Nationwide network of pop-up marketing spaces.)

Website: www.openpop-upshops.com
Contact: www.openpop-upshops.com/contact.asp