brew A G U I D E F O R FA R M S H O P S & D E L I S | 2 0 1 9 - 2 0
HOW TO RUN A SUCCESSFUL DELI-CAFÉ A supplement to
in association with
Proper Strong
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A SUPPLEMENT TO FINE FOOD DIGEST
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For all the polished-steel allure of an Italian espresso machine, there’s more to a successful deli or farm shop café than shiny kit. For this special supplement, we’ve picked the brains of leading deli-café owners and consultants throughout the UK, asking them: • How can you compete with slick chains like Costa and Caffè Nero? • Where is the money made – or potentially lost – in foodservice? • How can you use the café to boost your retail sales too? • Where should you pitch your offer, between the mainstream and the ultra-specialist? Those hours of interviews have then been condensed down into Brew: not a technical
WELCOME manual but a compendium of tips and smart thinking about café operations. As the best independent retailers know, creating a point of difference from those clever, cloned multiples is rarely about big capital investment. It’s about serious product knowledge, great communication with customers, a flair for visual presentation and a good dose of personality. It’s also underpinned by a keen eye for the bottom line. As several interviewees told us, it’s quite hard to lose money on hot coffee and tea – the margins are so much higher than on most packaged retail lines. But get staffing levels wrong, or become over-generous with portion sizes
Creating a point of difference from those clever, cloned multiples is rarely about big capital investment
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EDITORIAL Editorial director: Mick Whitworth Editor: Michael Lane Assistant editor: Lauren Phillips Art director: Mark Windsor ADVERTISING Sales director: Sally Coley Sales manager: Ruth Debnam Sales executive: Becky Haskett GENERAL ENQUIRIES Tel: +44 (0)1747 825200 Fax: +44 (0)1747 824065 info@gff.co.uk www.gff.co.uk
on plated food, and all that profit could blow away like so much steam from an espresso-maker. At FFD, we visit enough delis, farm shops and food halls to know how their foodservice offers can vary. The best are fully integrated with retail, sharing ingredients and bumping up margins with lots of homeproduced ‘specials’, and with their own distinct personality. So to wrap up Brew (see pages 28-30), we’ve also looked at outlets outside our usual universe – from a pie-and-vinyl venue to a comic book café – to see how you can turn a standard coffee shop into a unique destination. Why not get your team together and see what some imagination can do? Mick Whitworth Editorial Director Fine Food Digest
ADDRESS Guild of Fine Food, Guild House, 23b Kingsmead Business Park, Gillingham, Dorset SP8 5FB UK
WHAT’S ON THE MENU? COFFEE
PUBLISHED BY The Guild of Fine Food Ltd © The Guild of Fine Food Ltd 2019. Reproduction of whole or part of this magazine without the publisher’s prior permission is prohibited. The opinions expressed in articles and advertisements are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher.
ALTERNATIVE DRINKS
13
FOOD
17
BUSINESS TIPS
21
GREEN ISSUES
25
CREATING A DESTINATION
28
PRINTED BY Blackmore, Dorset
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TEA
9
WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO:
Sangita Tryner, Delilah Fine Foods, Nottingham
Bill de la Hey, The Mainstream Trading Co, St Boswells
A SUPPLEMENT TO FINE FOOD DIGEST
Edward Berry, The Flying Fish, Bridport
Jonny Chirnside, FoodStory Café, Aberdeen
Michael Dart, Darts Farm, Topsham
Nicola Reece, Farmers Fayre, Stoneleigh
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CUP WINNERS Mariyasiyanko/Dreamstime
Coffee is the benchmark of your café – and can turn your whole business into a destination THINK LOCAL Building a long-term relationship with a quality regional or smallbatch coffee roaster has many advantages – and not just the power of the word “local”. The best will work with you to develop a unique house blend
that suits your clientele and makes your café a destination. In the process, you and your staff will learn more about coffee, and you can work with your roaster on short-term “specials” to interest the more adventurous coffee consumer.
SET A STANDARD... “You need everyone to be able to make a good flat white,” says Sangita Tryner of Delilah Fine Foods. “Our staff have to get to a certain level, otherwise they’re not allowed on the machine. “Frothy milk is important to us, and so is temperature. We don’t stick a thermometer in like Costa - we train staff to feel the side of the jug with their hand.” DON’T BE A SNOB “Much as I love speciality coffee, there can be a snobbishness and exclusivity about it,” says Jonny Chirnside of Aberdeen’s Foodstory café. “You’ll get 20-year-olds with twirly moustaches talking down to 60-year-old customers.” Make coffee a conversation, not a lecture, Chirnside suggests, and invite customers to join you as you learn more about coffee yourself. “Start them on a mocha, then a cappuccino, and perhaps next year they’ll be drinking espresso.” RESPECT YOUR ELDERS Farm shops in particular should be careful not to alienate their typically older clientele with an over-complicated offer. “If your bread-and-butter customers are north of 60 years old, they’re probably not up with the ‘third wave’ [artisinal] coffee movement,” says retail consultant Edward Berry. “They don’t want to be challenged with a list of questions when they just asked for a cup of coffee.”
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COFFEE MILK MATTERS There are umpteen dairy and non-dairy milk options, but don’t make a rod for your own back. Offering soya and oat alternatives could bring you a few extra customers, but there’s little benefit in offering full fat, semi and skimmed dairy milk too. Nine out of 10 coffees are made with milk, and most customers will be fine with semi. “Whole milk makes the best flat white and skimmed milk makes pants coffee,” says Delilah’s Sangita Tryner. “We’re happy to compromise on semiskimmed.”
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If you believe in coffee, make it easy for customers to go on the journey with you
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Want to serve up good coffee, every single day? According to top barista trainer and roastery director Paul Meikle-Janney, there are two skills you’ve just got to get right. Over the years, Dark Woods Coffee co-founder Paul Meikle-Janney has trained a lot baristas and seen a vast array of coffee outlets. Yet when Brew asks him to identify the most common mistakes made, he says there are just two essentials that many get wrong. “If you can get both right, you’re going to get a reasonable drink,” he advises. THE DAILY GRIND One essential skill that so many coffee operations ignore is the calibration of their grinders and being able to “dial in” a coffee. If your coffee isn’t hitting the right balance of acidity, sweetness and bitterness, this is where you will be able to correct it. When they prep a shot, proper baristas will think about the dose of beans, coarseness of grind, output weight of the ground coffee, and then the extraction time once it’s in the espresso machine. Just having the grinder on one setting for every coffee will obviously not cut it. Nor will having a standard extraction time – which Meikle-Janney says can vary from 25-30 seconds for most coffees. While the process of finding the right dosage can get very technical, a couple of hours’ training with a proper instructor should get most baristas up to speed. A LOT OF FROTH Texturing milk – a blend of physical technique and getting the temperatures right – is another place where your average coffee operation falls down. Even good baristas can sometimes err on the side of cold, while less experienced staff will overheat milk during the process, says Meikle-Janney. Temperature should be monitored as you go through the motions. Milk should start off cold, at 4°C, and the steam wand should be relatively close to the surface of the milk, not plunged in. As the milk froths and volume increases at 40°C, move the jug down to maintain a chirping sound. When swirling the milk at the final stage to texture it, you should stop at 60°C to avoid any eggy flavours that will occur at 70°C-plus.
Benzoix/Dreamstime
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Jonny Chirnside, Foodstory Café
The get-it-right stuff
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COFFEE
Significant others will offer a flavourful brew, and many coffee shops use it to showcase different, lighter coffees that aren’t suited to espresso. While ready-made batch brews (which can sit for several hours, although not for a whole days) can help to keep queues down, one-cup hand-brews create an “experience”at the table. Whatever the method, you’ll save money on the amount of milk you get through. Filter only needs a dash, unlike a latte.
CAFETIÈRE AND AEROPRESS Both of these methods are seen in commercial operations but are more suitable for domestic use. A favourite of hotels at breakfast, the cafetière has its place but can be tough to get right. The water has to be hot, the vessel itself warm and the quantities of grounds just right, to render a decent cup.
is the quality of drink you want to offer. Machine-made coffee is never going to match a properly trained barista’s, so you need to establish how discerning your customers are. Bean-to-cup machines can work well if you want to offer self-service. But, surprisingly, a human barista can still produce a drink faster – so machines are not quite the queue-buster they seem. It’s snazzier cousin, the AeroPress, poses similar problems. Essentially a large plastic syringe, it delivers an individual cup but most customers don’t have the patience (or geeky enthusiasm) to engage with them. All too often, they prove more fun for the barista than the end consumer.
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JURA Products
BEAN-TO-CUP This has its plusses, but a machine that does it all for you is not necessarily the easiest option. For a start, it will still require human intervention – to press the buttons, refill and clean it thoroughly. Commercial models are also as, if not more, expensive as traditional espresso machines. Another aspect to consider
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Hannah Webster/lifelinephotography.co.uk
FILTER Years of abuse at the bottom end of foodservice has given filter coffee a bad name but it is beginning to come back into fashion. For all those customers asking for a “black coffee” this could be just the solution, as opposed to an espresso-based Americano. There are two ways of doing it: batch-brewing and serving from a storage container, or hand-brewing individual cups. Done right (60g of ground coffee per litre), either method
Don’t want the complexity of barista-made espresso? There are other options.
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BREW 19
TEA Don’t let tea be an afterthought. A good blend of everyday and speciality brews will put you well ahead of the high street chains.
Topsham, Devon, have created a real point of difference by using infuser teapots, which deliver potentially better tea and more of a customer “experience”. “There was a lot of hoohah at first about cleaning the pots,” says Darts co-director Michael Dart, “but just as coffee has gone to another level, this has done the same for tea.”
Natallia Khlapushynav/Dreamstime
A CLASSY CUPPA BUILD ON THE BASICS It’s good to offer an interesting range of teas but get the basics right first, with a good English Breakfast or Assam for a tanninrich brew. DON’T DO CHEAP Tea delivers great margins so buy quality. Weak teabags will bring complaints or, worse, just cause quiet disappointment – and that applies as much to speciality blends as to “builder’s’”. Some big-brand Earl Greys, for example, are made with synthetic bergamot ‘flavouring’, which may not be discerned by many customers but gives you the chance to talk up something different. Try a premium Earl Grey Blue Flower – typically made with the addition of blue cornflowers to
A SUPPLEMENT TO FINE FOOD DIGEST
add aroma and visual appeal. SHOWCASE YOUR SHOP Shoppers can be nervous of more exotic, pricey or just oddlooking options like Genmaicha, the Japanese green tea with rice kernels. If they trust your foodie expertise they’ll be happier to sample one cup in the safety of the café, and it could help them to trade up when buying retail packs. Flowering teas are great for delis too – they taste good and look amazing in a glass pot. Even your everyday teas will benefit from brand exposure in both shop and café. BAG OR INFUSER? For a high-footfall, quick turnaround outlet, teabags win every time – at least at peak periods. But award-winning outlets like Darts Farm in
BAG OR LOOSE? There’s a financial argument, too, for using loose tea rather than bags, so make sure you do the sums when making your choice. While it’s not cheap, even a seriously high-end loose tea could cost less than 40p per cup. So the margin on, say, a £2.30 single-serve infuser-cup is massive and the quality of your offer will be much higher. On the other hand, the service cost will be higher too... BE A TEA PIONEER It’s early days, but operators like emerging south-of-England franchise Beatons Tearooms are seeing the potential for a tea experience to match the thirdwave artisan coffee outlets. Why not see how you could present tea more imaginatively and become a serious tea destination? THINK SMALL Can you nurture the next generations of café customers? Small & Wild markets “happy herbal tea for kids” with flavours like Merry Tiger, with pear, mango and raspberry.
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TEA
Make a better brew Coffee may have more mystique, but it’s just as important to get your everyday tea offer right. We asked Natalie Cross of Brew sponsor Yorkshire Tea for her tips on delivering a consistent cuppa. • Treat your water kindly Boil the water only once to keep the oxygen level up. Oxygen in water helps flavour. •. Keep it all toasty Tea likes hot water, but a chilly teapot cools things down – so swirl a little boiling water around the empty pot first. For bonus points, use that water to warm the cups too. • Add tea and water Add two teabags to a regular teapot or one teabag to a mini
teapot. Don’t use ‘one cup’ teabags as they contain less tea and, consequently, make a weaker brew. If you’re using loose tea, add one teaspoon per person and one for the pot. Pour the hot water in and stir. If you’re making the tea in a mug, simply pop a teabag in, pour over the hot water and stir briefly.
flavour, so give it 4-5 minutes to do its thing. • Give it a squeeze If serving the tea in a mug, remove the tea bag, gently squidging it against the side of the mug. Just the once, mind – if you really mash it, it’ll taste bitter. If using a teapot, advise the customer on the remaining brew time if you can – it will help them enjoy perfect tea. • Let your customer customise their cuppa Provide milk and sugar and let them enjoy their proper brew.
• Wait patiently Tea needs time to unlock all its
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ALTERNATIVE DRINKS
OH, SUGAR, SUGAR...
There’s no shame in compromising your fine food ethos if shoppers just want a can of Coke, but you might find a healthy market for less calorie-laden alternatives
THE COLA CONUNDRUM It’s a question that has flumoxed deli and farm shop café managers for years: should a “local and speciality food” store really stock CocaCola? “I’ve spent so much time saying ‘Should we or shouldn’t we sell Coke?’ over the years,” muses retail consultant SOFT OPTIONS Cold brew The method has been around for centuries but cold brew coffee has had a renaissance of late. Made by infusing coffee in cold water for several hours, in-house production can be timeA SUPPLEMENT TO FINE FOOD DIGEST
Edward Berry, a former deli owner and MD of Ludlow Food Centre. “It’s a really difficult one.” Ultimately it may be one your customers solve for you. If they really want a can of Coke or Sanpellegrino when they’re in lunchtime meal-deal mode, let them have it. But if your shop is known for its more ethical, local or health-
driven stance it can pay to make a stand for the specialist brands. Multi-award winning Delilah Fine Foods stocks Franklin’s cola, explaining to shoppers that it’s the only national brand made with real kola nuts. “Once you explain that, 98% of people are happy to go with Franklin,” says Delilah’s Sangita Tryner.
consuming and often inconsistent, being shunned for fermented but brands like Drury or Sandows alternatives because of their now offer a ready-to-drink format. probiotic benefits. Union Hand-Roasted Kombucha is the current offers its cold brew in a star, with brands like Left concentrate format that can Field Kombucha, Willy’s and be diluted 1:1 with water PJ Kombucha all carving out or milk, and in 250ml cans a space for themselves. New called Sparkling Black. to the party is Australian brand Remedy Kombucha Fermented drinks with a range that includes The promotion of gut cherry plum, apple crisp and health has lately seen raspberry lemonade (RRP highly-processed drinks £3, 300ml). BREW 13
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Roastology is the newest brand from Cafeology and we are proud to introduce a new range of coffees to suit all tastes. As an independent British coffee roaster based in Yorkshire, we are delighted to source some of the most exclusive coffees from around the world. We are excited to introduce you all to our outstanding, 3 Star award winning, AVIATOR BLEND. Tel: 0114 255 8007 Email: sales@cafeology.com
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14 BREW
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ALTERNATIVE DRINKS Craft soft drinks As consumers turn away from sugary mass-produced soft drinks, there is a real opportunity to offer more crafted alternatives. Soda Folk, Bon Accord and Dalston’s Soda Company are brands offering grown-up soft drinks with no added sugars or artificial sweeteners. Dalston’s now produces a Soda Lights range in two flavours: Real Squeezed Elderflower and Real Squeezed Rhubarb. Both are just 20 calories per can (RRP £1.09).
Functional waters Functional waters (water with added vitamins, minerals, herbs and fruits) have arrived as a way to make water stand out against an oversaturated bottled water market. Rejuvenation Water is one such brand claiming to be the world’s first amino acid enriched spring water. Packaged in 250ml slimline cans and 500ml PET bottles, its flavours include apple & mint, ginger & lime and orange.
BE HEALTH-AWARE There’s nothing health-giving about most fizzy drinks, so you could attract and retain younger fitness-focused shoppers with some more body-boosting alternatives. Test a few out and see what moves. “We do smoothies, frappés, and we have a good gym market so we do a lot of protein shakes,” says Nicole Reece at Stoneleigh’s Farmers Fayre. “But we also tried a big coconut drinks range and we’ve taken them all out apart from coconut water, because that’s the one that sells.” For Michael Dart, of Darts Farm near Exeter, healthier drinks are an extension of the whole farm shop ethos, whether it’s kombucha and apple cider vinegar in the restaurant or health shots in the main store. “There’s nothing healthier than fresh fruit,” he says, “and we’ve been selling health shots since we first saw them at Speciality & Fine Food Fair a few years ago. “We’re championing ginger shots, turmeric, matcha, soya, and coconut too. That’s where consumers are right now and we’re pleased to have been in at the start.”
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Healthy shots Health juice shots (or boosters) provide those busy yet healthorientated consumers a quick nutritional hit. First made popular in Denmark, British brands are emerging with their own varieties. BumbleZest is one such producer offering a range of 60ml health shots with names alluding to their function: Revive & Restore (ginger, turmeric, collagen) and Detox & Defend (acv, milk thistle, activated charcoal).
SHOULD YOU BE JUICING AND BLENDING? Selling your own fresh juices or smoothies can be a good way to use up surplus produce while boosting those margins. London health food shop The Cure offers both. “Smoothies are a thicker consistency and blended with nut milks, oats or honey,” says shop manager Danny Fisher, “while juices have less fibre in them and therefore keep a lot more nutrients per serving”. While smoothies are made to order, the shop sells most of its juices “pre-juiced” to take away. Making them to order can take as long as five minutes, says Fisher. Selling prices range from £3.50 for an apple, orange, cucumber & celery juice up to £5.30 for a nut milk, spinach, banana, mint & cacao smoothie, giving a good 40-60% margin, Fisher adds.
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FOOD
Whether you have a space-constrained deli or a destination farm shop, it pays to think local, create eye-appeal and take every chance to cross-sell EYE IT UP We eat with our eyes, so don’t just fill your counter with prepacks. Italian pastries like cannoli and the little ‘lobster tail’ sfogliatella or Welsh bakery Cariad’s bara brith roses (right) create visual impact, while healthier options like vegan ‘powerballs’ make your offer more inclusive. TOP TIP “Tip-and-serve” snacks like olives and truffle nuts are quick to dish up alongside drinks at busy times and, bought in bulk jars, offer a great margin. GO LOCAL ‘Local’ is a powerful word, so use your menu to really highlight local suppliers, especially on meat, fish and vegetables and salads. It makes your offer unique and can put you on the map as a destination for regional cuisine. BLEND IT Make soup! There’s no better way to reduce fresh produce waste. It gives you a positive reason to strip tired-looking veg from the retail area and brings some welcome daily menu variation. A SUPPLEMENT TO FINE FOOD DIGEST
MAKE A DATE Starting in Veganuary (or, if you prefer, Ginuary!), look out for food-themed awareness weeks and have fun with them. Just Google “UK Food awareness days”. Similarly, don’t be ashamed to piggy-back on mainstream events like the Six Nations rugby – just do it with class.
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Be a bit different – but don’t alienate your existing customers. If someone wants fish & chips, let them have it.
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EARLY START Don’t underestimate the power of a well-targeted breakfast offer, especially If you’re on a commuter route. Try offering a special menu until 11am, geared to your demographic, whether it’s pastries, bacon sarnies or toasted banana bread with raspberries. Robin Rea‘s The Rusty Pig in Ottery St Mary, Devon, made its name with a mash-up of the Full English and Continental-style charcuterie – its own homecured bacon, chorizo and black pudding with eggs cooked on cast-iron skillets – served at communal benches.
Edward Berry, The Flying Fork
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FOOD
ON THE SIDE Use accompaniments like chutneys and sauces that are also sold in the shop - and be sure to flag them on your menu. “Home-cooked ham hock with Tracklements piccalilli...” STAY FLEXIBLE Raise the bar on quality and price if you can – but be prepared to lower it again if footfall or average spend suffers. You can’t afford to be self-indulgent if your customer base is more garden centre café than urban bistro.
ON THE COUNTER Lake District producer Ginger Bakers has expanded its café cake menu with two new free-from traybakes. Its Brazil nut & sour cherry boost bar is a vegan and gluten-free “energy booster”, while the vegan lemon & blackcurrant cake bake contains fresh organic blackcurrants. gingerbakers.co.uk Gingerbread specialists at Shropshire’s Image on Food have created a new two-biscuit snack pack under the 200-year-
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warrengoldswain/dreamstime.com
BE INDIVIDUAL reak down retail packs of B bigger biscuits and sell them individually from a jar or cake stand at the counter. A pack of six Teoni’s cookies retails around £3.50, but the generous-sized cookies will sell singly for 75p or more (at least £4.50 for six) at the café counter.
SPECIAL EFFECTS Use your specials board to clear our short-date products like ripe cheeses – but also showcase and explain lesser-know retail lines. Delilah Fine Foods saw shop sales of Egyptian spice blend dukkah take off once it began serving it with olive oil, balsamic and bread in the café. Delilah’s Sangita Tryner tells her chefs: “You’ve got 8,500 lines to play with, so go for it.”
SLICE OF THEATRE Slicing cheeses and hams creates ‘theatre’ and authenticity, so don’t prepare too much in advance – let customers soak up the deli experience.
BOARD GAMES If you don’t already offer deli platters, give them a try: they’re easily “themed” around new seasonal lines and make the ultimate deli counter showcase.
old heritage brand Billington’s Gingerbread. It offers other lines for foodservice including mini gingerbread men under Image on Food’s new Original Biscuit Bakers brand.
winning bakery and patisserie Just Desserts this year unveiled a new collection of individual cheesecakes including Ferrero Rocher, Oreo, peanut butter, white chocolate & orange, salted caramel and, most recently, Lotus Biscoff.
If you’re looking for vegan options to sit on the cake counter, look no further than The Conscientious Cook’s latest creations, which are free from gluten and refined sugar. Pecan pie with a chocolate crust, almond butter blondies with Himalayan salt and baked New York cheesecake can all be bought whole. West Yorkshire-based award-
Gluten-free bakes from Cheshirebased Lottie’s Bakehouse include millionaires shortbread, raspberry & almond bakewell and salted caramel brownies. They’re baked to order and delivered via overnight courier and can be frozen if needed to use at a later date.
A SUPPLEMENT TO FINE FOOD DIGEST
A SUPPLEMENT TO FINE FOOD DIGEST
BREW 19
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BUSINESS TIPS
MAKING IT PAY We’ve been canvassing the UK’s best indie operators to find out where the money is made – and lost – in deli-cafe operations. Here are the essentials.
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A FREE LUNCH? Offering employees (and yourself) a free lunch in house is a generous perk that can easily get out of hand. One awardwinning deli used free meals as a way to attract staff but soon found the team were helping themselves to three-course meals.
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Don’t narrow your customer base. Engage with people. Embrace them. We try to be everything to everyone.
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Nicola Reece, Farmers’ Fayre
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ONE SLICE OR TWO? Your staff may think it’s good to offer generous platefuls, but portion control can quickly become your biggest giveaway – especially when your menu is showcasing premium deli products. Over-deliver on quantity and you might not just lose profit but make a loss. Take every dish on your regular menu apart and cost each component carefully, ingredient by ingredient. Then make sure your chefs know what that dish should look like on the plate, every time.
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DON’T LET PRICES SLIP Benchmark prices against the competition two or three times a year, especially on coffee, to make sure you’re keeping pace. If Starbucks or Costa put their cappuccino price up by 5p or 10p, do the same or you’re just giving money away. Just 10p lost on 50 coffees a day is costing you £120 a month.
TURNING THE TABLES You don’t have to resort to hard seats or hard stares from the management to turn tables efficiently, but it’s an essential skill, especially in smaller or busier outlets. “We make money when we turn over tables efficiently, and that‘s down to the staff,” says Sangita Tryner at Delilah Fine Foods. “On a Saturday it could make £600-700 difference.” At Farmers Fayre in Stoneleigh, owner Nicola Reece has a clear two-hour timeslot policy for Sunday lunches, when she will turn tables up to three times. But everyone is made aware of this when they book, and she does bend the rule for larger groups. With the benefit of space, Reece can also move diners away from their table to a “soft seating” area for post-meal coffee. “If customers know the limitations in advance, they’ve already made the decision that it’s ok before they get to you,” she says. Sometimes it will suit you for customers to linger. On a quiet Tuesday morning in winter, a few settled-in coffeedrinkers can act like decoy ducks to bring others through the door. Otherwise, your staff need to get their “Is there anything else I can get you?” skills down to a fine art.
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BUSINESS TIPS WAGE CONCERN “Your single biggest cost is wages,” says Michael Dart of West Country destination store Darts Farm, “so keeping on top of that and making sure you have a flexible team is fundamental. Otherwise you’re working hard for nothing.” “No-one likes zero-hours contracts, but it’s all about flexibility,” adds Edward Berry of The Flying Fork. “If you really want to lose money, have people on duty all the time.”
A simplified menu that sells out is a good way to keep margins high. Don’t over-produce.
WHAT’S THE PLAN, STAN? The future is not unknown. Treat your EPoS system as a forecasting tool, not just a historical record. See how many customers you served at the same time last year and it will help you plan your menu and food buying more scientifically. Similarly, make daily or weekly checks on the weather forecast. Experience and EPoS date will tell you what sells in what weather, so be prepared for whatever’s coming, be it heatwave or hurricane.
SERVICE COSTS If you’re currently offering table service, taking a long, hard look at the numbers. It might be your big point of difference – or a significant drain on margins. “It can mean four or five visits to each table,” says Edward Berry, “to deliver the menu, take the order, serve the food, ask about a second order, hand over the bill... “Once you’re doing that, you need to up the average spend just to cover the extra cost of labour.”
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DON’T INDULGE YOURSELF It’s a lesson most first-time operators quickly learn, but don’t build your offer around yourself. If your favourite dish isn’t selling or those chillidusted marshmallows you fell in love with at a trade show are gathering dust, get rid of them. Sell what customers want.
Bill de la Hey, Mainstream Trading Co
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ALL THINGS TO ALL FOLKS As much as possible, spread your offer to suit everyone: young parents with kids, busy business types, timerich retireds, vegans and vegetarians. Warwickshire’s Farmers Fayre farm shop and restaurant has been reconfigured to offer flexible seating and tables, with some in quiet nooks, others more restaurant-style and a garden area too. “We make sure that people who’re time-poor aren’t waiting,” says director Nicola Reece. “We have a till we can open to create a grab-and-go area, which is a good way to get more throughput.”
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GREEN ISSUES
THINK ECO
Takeaway has long been synonymous with throwaway, but today’s eco-worrier consumers expect better THE PRICE IS RIGHT Ten years ago, lack of serious demand (and therefore volume) put compostable cups at a big cost disadvantage. Not so now. According to Richard Butcher of NaturePac producer EPP, 5,000 quality, compostable 12oz coffee cups will have a typical unit price of around 15p, with plastic-lined equivalents only 15-20% cheaper. If the 3p difference bothers you, stick 5p on the price of a cuppa and tell your shoppers it’s a planetfriendly move. COMMUNICATE IT If you’re working hard to come up with greener options, make sure customers know it. There may be no visible difference between a plastic (PE) lined cup and one made with corn starch based PLA. PLA-based cutlery can actually look like plastic, says NaturePac’s Richard Butcher, despite being compostable. So use signage
You can be worthy without being dull. Biopack offers these commercially compostable Art Series biocups, made from sustainably sourced paper and lined with (plant-based) bioplastic at £68.47 per case of 1,000.
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Decent Packaging’s products include clear cups and lids made from plant-based PLA, while this single wall compostible cup, also PLAlined, is coloured with waterbased ink. It costs from £45.90 upwards per 1,000, depending on size.
Readingbased Kingdom Coffee has added 100% compostable and biodegradeable water cups (£29.00 plus VAT for 1000) to its Envirocup range. The Envirocup line-up also includes a compostable twin-wall hot cup (£31.95 plus VAT for 500).
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GREEN ISSUES and over-the-counter chat to highlight and explain your green choices. CUPS-FOR-LIFE If you’re not already welcoming customers’ reusable cups, you should be. And if you’re not already offering a discount to those same customers, you’re putting yourself behind most of the big chains.
(pictured). It sells cups printed with a single-colour logo, in gift boxes, for around £4.45 plus VAT, with a minimum order of 144 cups. Sell them for £7-8 or give them as a loyalty bonus to big-spending customers.
TUPPERWARE TIME Reusable cups are new(ish) but reusable food containers have been around for aeons. Remember Tupperware parties? Spring 2019 saw the launch of #LongLiveTheLunchBox, a campaign by sustainability group Global Action Plan to encourage customers to bring their own boxes for filling instore. It has been piloted in over A BRANDING BONUS 100 outlets across England, As Jonny Chirnside of Foodstory with each displaying a sticker Café tells us: “Plenty of coffee reading “we accept your shops would love to have their containers here”. Some have own branded products, and also offered discounts or an KeepCups are a good way to extra loyalty card stamps as an do it.” incentive. KeepCups are the big name, And remember: you don’t but many suppliers can offer need to join anyone’s scheme a branded version of their to welcome lunchboxes to your reusable cups, like GoReusable own outlet.
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Deli containers, salad cartons and doublewalled drinks cups are among recent additions to the Fiesta Green range from Nisbets. All either compostable or biodegradeable, the range is made from plant-based materials and sustainably sourced paper.
@scottarthur
Kraft salad boxes with a clear, plant-based PLA window (starting at 14p per unit), PLA cutlery (4p per unit) and wood cutlery (2p per unit) are among the 100% compostable options under packaging supplier EPP’s NaturePac range.
BACK TO ZERO? Aberdeen’s Foodstory Café has a strong eco-agenda, from its mostly plant-based menu and retail veg box scheme to its donated and salvaged furniture. But it went a step further with its second outlet: a zero-waste café, opened on the Aberdeen University campus in October 2018. Dubbed FoodStory Zero, it asks students to bring their own plates, cups or takeaway food containers to enjoy their healthy wholefood lunch. FoodStory’s Jonny Chirnside admits this was a leap of faith. “When people go for lunch, not many of them carry a lunchbox round with them,” he says. But with students often “early adopters” of cultural change, FoodStory Zero is seen as a test site for ideas that could eventually go into the main city centre café. “We’ve always used sustainable packaging and encouraged people to use KeepCups,” says Chirnside. “But the second unit is a guinea pig for zero waste, and we’ll see how much we can fold into the DNA of our main business.” Working with suppliers has been key. Milk is now being supplied in glass bottles, and FoodStory has worked with Edinburgh artisan roaster Obadiah Collective to receive beans in reusable bulk buckets rather than single-use foil bags.
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ADDED ATTRACTIONS Don’t rely on your retail offer to put bums on café seats. Creative operators have made themselves destinations by adding everything from boardgaming to “get a tattoo” evenings to their offer.
UNDER COVER Bookshop, café, deli and homewares are combined to award-winning effect by The Mainstreet Trading Co in St Boswells on the Scottish Borders. Named Shop of the Year in the All-Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group’s 2018 awards, Mainstreet hosts yearround events, many featuring bestselling authors, that drive revenue in all corners of the business. For obvious reasons, new cookbooks are a natural 28 BREW
winner, with authors like River Cottage chef Gill Mellor popping in for signings or popup dining events. “There’s no reason not to
use cookbooks in any delicafé,” says co-owner Bill de la Hey. “You don’t need a book department. We’ll often feature something new as our ‘cookbook of the month’ and add a few ideas from the book to our café menu.” Recipes for sharing dishes and tapas from chefs like Yotam Ottolenghi are particularly good for cross-promotion between the café menu and ingredients available from the deli, he adds. mainstreetbooks.co.uk A SUPPLEMENT TO FINE FOOD DIGEST
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IT’S A RUNNER Forging links with cyclists, walkers and other outdoor types can be a good way to secure more, er, footfall. Devon’s Darts Farm taps into people enjoying the adjoining Exe Estuary Trail all year round, while Kelsey’s Farm Shop near Sidcup in Kent gets a Saturday morning boost by hosting the local Foots Cray Meadows Parkrun. “It’s a great added asset,” says owner Bill Kensey. “It brings in extra early morning trade to the kitchen, the farm
shop gains trade too, and generally all the runners and cars have gone by 10am, which clears the parking and lets the kitchen get ready for the regular breakfast and brunch trade.” kelseysfarmshop.co.uk parkrun.org.uk PEOPLE NEED MEEPLES “We’re not a café in the regular sense,”declares Oxford‘s Thirsty Meeples on its website. “Sure we’ll make you a fantastic coffee and serve up a tasty sandwich, but what we’re really all about is sharing the love of board games.” Open until midnight, it offers a library of over 2,500 games alongside a big menu of hot drinks, booze, cakes, hot and cold snacks and alcohol. There’s a cover charge of £7 for those just want to play, or £6 if you also buy food or drinks. Coffee comes from Ue Coffee Roasters in Witney,while its sister company Jeeves & Jericho supplies a good range of loose-leaf speciality teas. (What’s a meeple? It’s a little 2D figurine used as a token in board games.) thirstymeeples.co.uk DISC WORLD A kind of heaven awaits suitablyminded souls at Southsea’s Pie & Vinyl: a record shop, music venue and café with a menu of all things crusty. Most of its pies are made right there on Portsea Island, including “bespoke artists’ pies”, but premium brand Pieminister also features, and there are music-themed vegan alternatives too. Soy Division, anyone? pieandvinyl.co.uk
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EVERYBODY’S DOING IT Café-goers in London’s Kings Cross can drop into DRINK, SHOP & DO for an almost unlimited – and sometimes uncensored – programme of events, ranging from restrained afternoon teas (£26 for two hours) to hen-party-friendly ‘naughty nipple tassle making’ after 6pm. “Our events are mostly just for fun, to have a go at being creative,” says director Coralie Sleep. “We find the more current and cheeky we are the better, as we’re appealing to a market of culturally aware city dwellers who need some light-hearted creativity to brighten up their leisure time.” The more outlandish events don’t tend to work in the daytime, but Sleep tells FFD: “Mum and baby events might work for cafés in more residential areas, and we’ve had success with corporate bookings for our things to DO during day times.” drinkshopdo.co.uk
THEY’RE ’AVING A LAUGH Captain Marvel confronts the Full English Breakfast at Bolton’s Cherry Moon comic book store café, run by John and Caroline Crilly. “Retail and café play equal parts in how successful we have been,” says Caroline, adding that it’s the owners’ obvious love of comics that makes the combo work. “It’s part of the pull that gets a large portion of our client base through the door in the first place, and the option to have a brew and some lunch is just a bonus. “On the flip side, the café attracts a whole host of different customers that have never read a comic book in their life.” Cherry Moon also hosts quizzes, ‘organised games’ nights and art events, and works with local organisation Bolton Headspace to run comedy nights every few months. “It’s definitely those events that keep us afloat,” Caroline adds. “We wouldn’t be able to keep either side of the business going without the other. It’s all about finding the balance.” @cherrymoonltd
TAKING THE BISCUIT Gift biscuit brand Biscuiteers Baking Co has created destination “icing cafés” in two London locations, where customers can learn the art of icing for theselves. It adds an experiential element to their relationship with the brand, says founder Harret Hastings. “Customers coming in to look at our gifts are often curious when they see others have a go at icing, and return to get involved in our DIY classes or book onto an experience themselves. “Our classes are often booked by groups – friends having a catch-up, mother-and-daughter duos or bigger private events such as baby showers – and we also market our cafés through the events and experience pages on our website.” biscuiteers.com 30 BREW
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The Guild of Fine Food’s training arm, the School of Fine Food, sees over 1,000 delegates a year learn everything from the basics of cheese and deli products to the detail of running an independent retail business. BUSINESS Our Retail Ready two-day training programme is designed to equip managers or owners of prospective, new or developing delis & farm shops with the business essentials of fine food & drink retailing CHEESE RETAIL Our one-day course is designed to help independent retailers capitalise on customer interaction, ensure they have the correct range and guarantees that you and your team talk intelligently about cheese to your customers ACADEMY OF CHEESE The Guild is a founding patron and training provider of the Academy. It’s trusted and structured learning provides an academic pathway for anyone in the business, and equally cheese-loving consumers. It does for cheese what the Wine & Spirits Education Trust does for wine
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Simply call us to discuss serving our delicious snacks in your café and then selling them in your store!
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