How it all began
Paul Hopper has hospitality in his blood: the son of caterers, he would often work in the kitchen of his parents’ catering company when he was growing up
You could say that there was an inevitability to founding a food business, but it wasn’t without a diversion when the City came calling.
Following a 6 year stint working as a financial analyst in the City, Paul decided to leave the world of investment banking to travel across South East Asia. Feeling tired and uninspired, he wanted to break away. Once on the road, his route was diverted due to a severe typhoon, resulting in a spontaneous and serendipitous visit to the bustling streets of Saigon. It was here that the seed for HOP Vietnamese was planted.
In between long hikes and motorbike rides, Paul was first introduced to pho from a busy street vendor; the rich, aromatic flavours, unlike anything he’d enjoyed before. The enthralling, intoxicating and relentless nature of a country that had experienced such hardship yet showed so much joy and warmth. The locals proudly shared secrets from their kitchens and offered a collective sense of community.
Having already identified and experienced the lack of fast, decent Vietnamese food for time-poor people lunching in London. Paul spent the rest of his trip drafting a business plan and working out what was needed to create a quick service, healthy and nourishing Vietnamese eatery in the City of London. Upon returning to LondonPaul set the ball rolling with competitor analyses, raising investment, food trials, and venue hunting.
Our Roles
We're Hiring Passionate People in London & Manchester! We like to bring the noise! Our energetic, hard working, teams keep the wheels from falling off... Can you see where you fit in?
HOPPER
You’ll work as part of our team to produce delicious food to our high standards every time. You’ll be efficient to keep up with the fast and exciting pace. You’ll learn the different sections in the kitchen and build an excellent understanding of HOP and everything we’re about. From the moment you start, you’ll be swept up into a fun, lively and supportive family.
HOP Master
Once you’ve earned your stripes at HOPPER level, you’ll swiftly move to become a HOP Master. You’ll be doing everything a HOPPER does, only with more responsibility. Your day will still consist of delivering the energetic and fearless HOP experience to our customers, but you’ll also be helping with such things as deliveries and customer feedback. You’ll also train the new team members and teach them everything they need to know to get to where you are. You’ll roll your sleeves up and get stuck into the daily banking procedures as well as helping your manager with stock control, wastage and daily reporting.
Assistant HOP Manager
By the time you’re appointed HOP Leader, you are motivating those around you and leading from the front. You take responsibility for stock control, ordering, and minimising food waste. Your confidence and ability when it comes to the finances is second to none. You know the business like the back of your hand and deal with challenges head on whilst supporting the HOP Manager in delivering top notch business performance across all areas of the shop.
HOP Manager
You’re top dog – the cat who got the cream. You are running a highly efficient and successful shop with an unshakeable team culture. Instrumental in helping the business grow, you report into and present to the senior team and founder regularly. We always look to internally promote our HOP Leaders into HOP Managers first, so the understanding of how the company wheels go round is unrivalled.
We have a clear progression plan for everyone who joins us as well as tons of perks which include:
- Free food on shift; generous discount when you’re not working
- Fair pay for all of our team members
- Part-time and full-time positions (no zero hours contracts)
- Paid break with free food on shift
- Regular team events and parties
- 20 days holiday a year + bank holidays + day off on your birthday + 1 extra day for every two years working for HộP
- Perk scheme that can save you ££
- Regular training and upskilling
- Development courses for management that will help them with their current (and future) roles on topics such as commerciality.
At HOP, we seek to be:
- Our adventurous spirit that inspires us to make authentic Vietnamese food in innovative ways
- A willingness to evolve and trust new ideas
- Uncompromising dedication to a remarkable product
- Team members who are empowered to communicate with their customers and each other
- The kindness, hospitality and co-operation we experience throughout our many trips to Vietnam
- Teamwork, mutual support and combined effort
- Our commitment to the KOTO foundation
- An extended family
- The vibrancy of a street-food market
- The desire to share an experience: not only amazing food, but a colourful, immersive way of life
- An atmosphere we bring every day and extend to our customers – through a genuine motivation to make a connection
- Relentless positivity
- Delivering to the highest standard, every time
- Quality of our ingredients and value for money
- Personable, capable and efficient performance of our team
- Unrivalled speed of service
Our Social Responsibility
Our Commitment to Ethical Sourcing & Sustainability. We're constantly reviewing where we're at and striving to be as low impact as possible. Below are 4 areas that we use as framework for doing good.
It’s important to us that our team are treated fairly. We have a very transparent approach, are considerate and have proudly created a great place to work. Here are some of the plus points to working at HOP:
We have a clear career progression in place and offer regular training and development courses for GMs that will help them with their current (and future) role, such as on commerciality. We always look to recruit internally before looking outside the company, nurturing the talent we have.
- We ensure a safe and enjoyable place to work and provide all team members with at least one free meal per shift
- We ensure equal pay for equal roles and pass on all customer tips to the team.
- We provide fair wage for all of our team members which are paid weekly. We have no zero hours contracts or have staff working unpaid overtime.
- We have a known grievance policy and system for feedback and complaints that is accessible to all team members.
There are strict requirements and procedures in place to ensure a safe place to work that all team members are trained on initially upon starting at HOP as well as regular retraining throughout employment. There are lots of fun things too, such as a perk scheme & discount at HộP outside of work hours, day off for your birthdays and memorable team parties.
Community
We want to use our position in this exciting industry to influence those around us and help who we can in both our close and wider community.
We fundraise for London charities around key dates throughout the year. For example, we donated 25p from every HộP Small sold in the week’s run up to Pride in London to help keep the festival and help support London’s LGBT+ community.
We were involved in Action Against Hunger’s last annual campaign Love Food Give Food. Action Against Hunger are a charity who help malnourished children under 5. They’ve been around for 40 years and work across 50 countries. They save the lives of children and work with their communities before and after a disaster strikes. We raised a total of £555.40 throughout September & October 2019 by donating 10p from every Veg Pho sold to this cause.
We recruit team members through charity, ELBA, who help to place disadvantaged Londoners into jobs.
Industry
We work with ByWaters, London’s leading sustainable waste management company to ensure applicable recycling streams both front and back of house. We train our teams so that everyone working knows the appropriate way to dispose of waste.
- Encouraging the reduction in of single-use cutlery used by our customers by keeping it behind the till. This means it’s there if people need it but, based on our testing, it seems that by not having it available to grab, people consume it less.
- Opting for bagasse as our material of choice when it comes to takeaway packaging – it’s made from a sustainable source that is made using less energy than the paper equivalent.
- Selling reusable coffee SoL cups. HộP SoL cups are made from hand-blown glass which is a sustainable and ethical manufacturing process as well as being 100% plastic free.
- Using compostable paper straws in our cocktails
- Undertaking regular reviews of our suppliers and the due dilligence of our supply chain and work with them to achieve high impact changes forthe most low impact on the planet and people on it.
This is about taking responsibility for our full impact on global issues.
We send no waste to landfill. All general and non-recycling waste is processed by energy from waste facilities, incinerating the material instead of sending it to take up valuable space at landfill. The energy generated from this process is fed back into the National Grid, so our waste is used to power the UK instead of occupying valuable land, contributing to overall sustainability and preserving the environment for future generations.
We measure food waste and set reduction targets. We separate food waste, and ensure it is disposed of appropriately via ByWaters, through anaerobic digestion, composting and biogas generation. These methods carry a lot of benefits, from providing fertiliser for agriculture to fuel for vehicles and energy for the National Grid.
We have a collaboration with Notes Coffee whose beans are always direct trade, straight from the farmers who are paid fairly to be financially sustainable. We support Notes in their encouragment of producers to invest in organic handling across their estates resulting in sourcing coffee morally with high quality farming management, which has a huge impact on the entire community.
We have increased our veggie and vegan range to encourage meatless meals, knowing that meat consumption is a leading factor in climate change.
