Case study: How 1Huddle helped Prezzo and Lincoln Green transform hospitality training through game-based learning
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The Hospitality Innovation Lab was launched by the Hospitality Sector Council in partnership with L Marks and the Department for Business & Trade to help accelerate innovation across the UK hospitality sector. The programme brought together leading hospitality operators and emerging technology businesses to test new solutions in real-world environments and explore how innovation can address some of the industry's most pressing challenges.
One of the businesses selected to take part was 1Huddle, an AI-powered talent identification and workforce development platform that uses mobile games to onboard, train and upskill employees. During the programme, 1Huddle worked with Lincoln Green and Prezzo Italian to explore how game-based learning could help improve compliance training, menu knowledge and employee engagement across hospitality teams.
By replacing traditional e-learning modules with short, competitive mobile challenges, the pilot tested whether hospitality operators could prepare employees more effectively while gaining greater visibility into workforce performance and knowledge gaps. We spoke to Sam Caucci, Founder and CEO of 1Huddle, about the company's experience in the Hospitality Innovation Lab, the insights gained from working with two hospitality operators, and how the programme has helped shape the next phase of 1Huddle's growth.
Can you introduce your business and the solution you brought into the Hospitality Innovation Lab, and explain what motivated you to take part?
1Huddle is a talent identification platform that uses AI-powered mobile games to onboard and upskill workers. We brought our approach to game-based skilling into the program. Our quick-burst competitive challenges built to replace the click-next boring elearning modules and binders that hospitality operators have relied on for decades. We joined because hospitality has a performance problem disguised as a labor problem, and we believed we could prove that games get people ready faster. Ten weeks later, the data backed that up.
Which operator did you work with and what challenge or opportunity were they looking to address through the pilot?
We worked with both Lincoln Green and Prezzo Italian. Lincoln Green needed workers up to speed on compliance, fast, verifiably, and without the passive video-and-sign approach that everyone clicks through and immediately forgets. Prezzo had a different but equally common problem: menu knowledge gaps that show up at the table, not in the training room. Both challenges come down to the same thing, operators need people ready to perform, not just checked-off as trained.
Can you talk us through the pilot process, including how the solution was implemented, how it worked in practice, and any challenges, surprises or key learnings along the way?
See attachment for timeline. We built games directly tied to each operator's content — compliance protocols for Lincoln Green, menu items and specials for Prezzo — and launched them as competitive, mobile-first challenges their teams played in under three minutes. The biggest learning: when you make it competitive, participation takes care of itself. Workers played voluntarily. The surprise wasn't that games worked, it was how quickly managers started using leaderboard data to have conversations they'd never had before.
What results have you seen so far, and how has the experience influenced your solution, your business or your relationship with the operator?
The pilot delivered strong engagement and learning outcomes across both operator partners. At Lincoln Green, 58 employees played more than 2,500 games during the programme, averaging 48 games per person, while Prezzo saw more than 6,100 games played across 367 employees and engagement levels of 98.1%.
Across both pilots, skill scores improved significantly, with participants achieving measurable gains after less than 10 minutes of gameplay on average. At Prezzo, 88% of participants retained their improved scores after two weeks, demonstrating sustained knowledge retention beyond the initial training period.
The programme also generated positive feedback from employees, with participants highlighting increased confidence, improved customer service and stronger product knowledge. The results provided valuable validation of 1Huddle's game-based learning approach and demonstrated how short, mobile-first training experiences can drive engagement and measurable skills development in hospitality environments.
Looking ahead, what are the next steps for the project, and how do you see the solution developing in the future?
The next step is scale. What we proved in 10 weeks across two operators is a model that can run across an entire brand — every location, every shift, every new menu launch or compliance update. The future isn't one pilot. It's a live, always-on intelligence layer that tells operators exactly where their people stand on any given day. That's what 1Huddle is built to be.
Overall, how would you describe your experience of participating in the Hospitality Innovation Lab, and what value do programmes like this bring to hospitality innovation?
Programmes like this exist because operators can't always find the best solutions through a standard procurement process, and innovators can't always get in the room without a proof point. The L Marks lab solves both problems. For 1Huddle, it was 10 weeks of structured proof — real operators, real workers, real results.
