But, whatever route you take, it is essential that you take advice from the professionals. You may consider your site has the right sort of customers and plenty of them, but it takes a trained eye to determine long term success.
Neil Simms, category development executive at Cuisine de France, highlights one of his new customers ¬ a forecourt site in Wales ¬ that is taking £2,000 per week having started last year from nothing.
“I like to sit down with the owners to discuss equipment, ideas, design and their perceptions of the concept,” he adds. Offering a food to go option is definitely a business builder Simms says. “For every £1.50 spent on food there¹s nearly always a soft drink, sweets, crisp and chocolate sale, too.
And we do lots of meal deals as well. Recently we offered a bottle of Lucozade and a Savoury Slice for £1.79. It went down very well,” he adds.
Cuisine de France also prides itself on being willing to exchange units as customers trade up their food to go operation.
“Self service really makes a difference. You can have staff to prepare the food who can also work in the store,” Simms adds.
But, whatever solution you go for, space will always be a crucial factor. “Give us a minimum space of 3m x 5m and in return we will build you a complete, fully branded in-store foodservice solution containing everything you need to run a successful food to go operation under licence,” says Martin Hayes, business manager at Country Choice which market Bake Œn¹ Bite.
“What do we ask from you in return? An investment of between £25,000 and £35,000, profit margins of between 45% and 60% and a quick, realistic, payback period of as little as 12 months. The only other thing we ask is that you commit to buying Country Choice products and ingredients. Otherwise, all we need from you is the space and the will to succeed!”
The symbol group operators are all involved and, for its part, Spar is testing the Kitsu Noodle Bar ¬ something it has imported from Japan. The first unit is up and running in Belfast and more will be rolled out this year.
The Spar express store at the university campus in Tsukuba spotted a demand for nutritional meals at affordable prices for its students. And now the concept has been adapted for western tastes says Jayne Dainty, food implementation manager.
“The benefit of the noodle bar is that it is wholesome, nourishing, simple to prepare, quick to produce and provides either a ready-made meal or snack depending on the appetite. The concept is internationally useable.”
She says the Kitsu offer provides Spar retailers with a ready-made turnkey solution that can be adapted in size to suit store capacity and demand.
Spar has also upped its involvement in the fresh coffee sector with Censa 100% Fairtrade coffee sourced from Central and South America.
“The concept is positioned as a quality, authentic, great-tasting coffee,” Dainty adds.
“Spar prides itself on offering its customers a great cup of coffee, which is why we have created Censa. It has been developed to cater for varying sizes of stores with different locations and is supplied with a full POS kit,” she adds.
