FOODSERVICE Prepared Food + Hot, Cold, Frozen Dispensed Beverages
HOW TO
How to Leverage Coffee All Day Long By Bob Phillips
Call tO aCtIOn: Foodservice 101
• Maintain a well-organized, neat and clean coffee station. • Always stay in stock with the top-selling coffee varieties (maximum: four) and specialty coffees. • Offer a comprehensive customization program featuring creamers, sweeteners, syrups and toppings that your customers prefer. • Never sacrifice quality by saving a few pennies on coffee that has gone beyond its shelf life. You need to recognize how important a successful coffee program is to the overall success of your foodservice operation.
I
f there is one constant in the ever-changing convenience store landscape, it’s that coffee is king. Coffee, together with cigarettes and petroleum, comprise a winning trifecta at c-stores, attracting customers and, with good planning and effective promotion, providing solid profits. Traditional hot coffee (including flavored) accounts for more than 74 percent of all hot dispensed beverage sales in c-stores, according to the latest Convenience Store News Foodservice Study. This month, the CSNews How To Crew of experts offer guidance on how to make your coffee sales sizzle — particularly during the winter months that are upon us. “Coffee is the most important foodservice item in most convenience stores,” advised How To Crew retailer Chad Prast, senior category manager of fresh foods and dispensed beverages for Murphy USA Inc. Prast noted that a unique coffee your customers can identify as specific to your store/chain can be a key driver in other consumer spending patterns. “A good cup of coffee can help drive fresh food sales in the form of combo meals,” he said. “Coffee is not only critical, it is foundational,” added How To Crew retailer Jack Cushman, director of foodservice for Corner Store operator CST Brands Inc. “Without doing [coffee] right, the food simply doesn’t follow in terms of customer appreciation and lift.”
44 Convenience Store News | DECEMBER 2015 | WWW.CSNEWS.COM