The original premise behind the Leon ‘naturally fast food’ chain was “If God did fast food …” explained its co-founder John Vincent at the Annual Hospitality Conference 2025 in Manchester.
It was a simple yet radical idea in 2004 when the business launched: to provide familiar dishes loved by the public but without the environmental damage often associated with fast food supply chains.
In 2021 Vincent and his co-owners sold Leon, which had grown to around 70 outlets, for £100m. The restaurant chain is now owned by the supermarket Asda.
Vincent commented: “Today I wouldn’t say it’s worth £100m, because the way it’s run today is not the same.”
Vincent had two key pieces of advice on how to create value for hospitality business leaders: first, to use the Enneagram for HR and leadership purposes, and secondly, to take an in-depth look at supply chains.
Know yourself and others
The Enneagram is a tool that allows people to better understand themselves and their personalities. He commented: “The first thing we employed in Leon was knowing yourself. The one tool we used to create a business not built on fighting, and competition. It leads to value if you treat people and your partners with love.”
The Enneagram states that your personality is not your true self but the result of the predominant fear that you have developed in your lifetime, Vincent explained: “My biggest fear is being controlled or harmed by others.”
Other fears identified by the Enneagram are of not being perfect, not being loved, not being successful, not having a self-identity, not understanding the world around you, fear of betrayal, fear of boredom, and fear of conflict.
“Once you understand the personalities in your team, it’s like an algorithm,” he said. “During Covid and under stress everyone in Leon played out exactly the role you’d expect them to. I had a ready-made understanding of how people were going to react. This has been very useful to me.”
Stay seasonal
Secondly, about supply chains, Vincent said: “Whenever we see an industry under pressure – and I think our industry is going to be under immense pressure in the UK – we need to understand the deeper partnerships throughout the value chain. In a crisis, business that understand the whole value chain are the ones that prosper.”
As an example, he said it was common to see asparagus on menus throughout the summer months even though the English asparagus season finishes by 25 June, so suppliers have to switch their sourcing to Spain and costs increase from £3 to £15 a bundle.
“In most corporate situations we are divorced from nature,” he argued. “And most of us don’t have a clue about the differing costs of different palette sizes on trucks. Sometimes we’re a bit narrow with our roles and not curious enough to truly work in partnership with the people who can make our lives so much better.”
More love, less destruction
There are two main problems with capitalism, Vincent said: first, that externalities are not measured or taken into consideration, and second, the pleasure trap.
The world is being run without love, he said: “We’re assuming that capitalism is a self-corrective thing that if we just focus on money then everything else will somehow take care of itself.”
The externalities not considered in balance sheets include destruction of nature, excessive gases, destruction of communities and mental health: “The planet is a silent stakeholder at board meetings that does not get the chance to speak up,” he commented.
The second problem is the pleasure trap: “We say customers want …. five metres of Mars bars before they pay for their petrol. The trouble is only part of you wants it. The part that stands on the scales in front of the mirror doesn’t want it.”
“Sugar, pornography, and cocaine are short cuts to dopamine response. But we say this is what customers want. Do they? Does the whole person want that?”
Martial art
Vincent also underlined the costs associated with running a business in the UK, especially in London.
Before selling Leon, 36p out of every pound went to the government in taxes, and 2p went back to shareholders “and you wonder why people don’t want to invest in our sector,” Vincent commented.
He lamented that most property ownership in London is still in the hands of just five corporations and rents continue to spiral upwards: “If one unit out of 40 goes up in rent, the law is that they must all go up in price. There is no other asset class in the world that is upward only – not diamonds, gold, wheat or oil - but somehow property is deemed to be an upward only asset.”
Faced with such issues, he acknowledged there is a limit to what one can do, adding: “The thing that keeps me sane is a martial art called Wing Chun, the only martial art developed by women. It is about not fighting and recognising that as soon as we are fighting, we are losing.”
“The Wing Chun martial art recognises that our only enemy is ourselves; the whole thing is built on love, and actually if we stay relaxed and don’t try to kill the competition, we’re better off.”
All quotes taken from the ‘Scaling with soul: driving performance without compromise’ session at the Annual Hospitality Conference 2025 in Manchester.