Flexible store lay-outs

Flexible

store lay-outs

If the past eighteenth months or so have shown the already highly adaptable and creative food to go sector anything, it’s the need to be even more adaptable in terms of store lay-outs and responding to changing consumer demand and behaviour (the greater reliance on grab and go take-out and delivery, for example).

INTEGRATING HOT-HOLDING

Flexeserve, a hot-holding units and food-to-go solutions provider, exports its products and services around the world, enabling some of major global retailers and independent outlets alike to improve their hot food programme, reduce food waste and increase profits. As a result, they have come to establish relationships with some of the food to go sector’s most well known brands such as Pret and BP’s Wild Bean Café.

“We accompany our awardwinning products with an allencompassing support package called Flexeserve Solution,” explains Warwick Wakefield, customer experience director of Flexeserve.

“This comprises the five key elements required for ‘true hotholding’ – food product, cook method, packaging, our unique technology, and, importantly, instore service.

“When we began working with Pret A Manger, hot grab and go was restricted, with most hot food cooked or heated to order. However, this trendsetter could see the potential of hot food to go and wanted an efficient hot food offering that lived up to its brand, built on premium chilled food.

“Our support of this longstanding customer – and the first to install Flexeserve’s heated displays – demonstrated the fundamental importance of visual appeal, with units customised to reflect store branding through use of different materials, colour options and display graphics.

“The housing of each Flexeserve unit was specifically fabricated to be in-keeping with the Pret brand. This ensured a consistent look and feel at all locations that enhances the visual aspect and appeal of hot food, and signposts customers to it.”

With the roll-out of Flexeserve Zone, Pret was also able to make a number of adjustments and simplifications to its store fit-out and foodservice. Hot wraps and croissants no longer needed to be sold from a separate heated glass counter, for example, and soups and porridge didn’t need to be sold on demand from a bain-marie soup unit. Instead, all of these could be offered grab and go from Flexeserve Zone. The result was a more efficient operation with reduced food waste and significantly improved sales.

“When it comes to foodservice equipment, one size doesn’t fit all’,” Warwick Wakefield emphasises.

“Foodservice premises come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, particularly when we’re working on large-scale roll-outs. That’s why we’ve developed an equally diverse range of Flexeserve units – different widths and heights, both floor standing and countertop models.

“We also now have Rear Feed models for restocking from behind the counter. These are ideal for busy convenience stores, as well as stadiums, where accessing front of house to refill heated displays is not always an option. “In addition to Flexeserve hot-holding units, our range of accessories also enables customisation, to accurately meet operator requirements and achieve their aspirations.”

UNLOCKING GREATER EFFICIENCY

Offering the right units for each premises, at the same time with the most efficient layout and configuration, is critical advise Flexeserve, because having access to a diverse and flexible range of units in turn means an operator can transform its hot food operation, no matter the footprint of their space.

Another good example of how to effectively integrate hotholding is Flexeserve’s work with BP, who were looking to overhaul their Wild Bean Café concept. The global convenience giant wanted to increase footfall and average customer spend with a new range of modern, fresh and innovative food items and, importantly, increase hold times to reduce waste.

Flexeserve assisted BP with this aim extensively, taking their entire concept back to the drawing board (prior to this, BP’s foodservice operation was labour-intensive, and a grab and go approach would unlock far greater efficiency).

Flexeserve supported BP in establishing a range of products and a reconfiguration of their stores that would achieve their aspirations. Once a menu had been developed in Flexeserve’s Development Kitchen, the process went as far as creating a mock-up of a Wild Bean Cafe in-store environment within Flexeserve’s Foodservice Innovation Centre.

Of Flexeserve’s work with BP, Warwick Wakefield says: “Recreating a sales environment and testing out the foodservice process, prior to roll-out, can be instrumental to its ultimate success.

“With the data you generate from doing this, you can ensure that you make the right decisions on a variety of matters – including store fitout – to achieve optimum results.”

Once BP and Flexeserve were satisfied, the roll-out began, with BP subsequently seeing a very fast return on investment, with double digit growth in both sales and conversion rates for hot food.

Warwick Wakefield concludes: “If you’re looking to adjust your hot food operation and in-store environment, we can help. We take a tailored approach to every customer to achieve their aspirations.

“Hot-holding’s not just for front of house either. We recently launched the high-capacity Flexeserve Hub, which can become an integral part of a kitchen, enabling you to have a hot staging area with cooked ingredients ready for assembly or whole food orders ready for collection.”

Now boasting over 50 years’ experience in retail displays, and over 25 years in heated displays in particular, Flexeserve has been helping customers create foodservice operations, both front and back-of-house, to deliver performance and efficiency in a range of demanding environments, even those within a small footprint.

NEW LAUNCH MEETS CHANGING DEMAND

The dramatic increase in takeaway and food delivery services has meant that more and more operators across the board are looking for hot holding solutions to keep food in prime condition until it’s picked up, confirm sector equipment supplier, Williams.

Given the wide range of different businesses in the hospitality sector - from high street cafés to high end restaurants and hotels – now engaged in takeaway and food delivery services, sometimes in order to remain as a viable business, there’s no one-size-fitsall answer.

To help meet this demand, Williams reports that it has launched Hot Holding Solutions - a diverse trio of products designed to cover a range of needs while extending food shelf life through consistent temperature control.

The first Hot Holding Solution is the Williams Pizza Box. This compact cabinet is designed to accommodate ten 16” pizzas in their boxes, keeping them hot and in prime condition until they are collected. Measuring just 710mm wide by 740mm deep and 450mm high, the Pizza Box is easy to fit into kitchens, claim Willliams, and the stainless-steel cabinet has a bright LED display and the unit runs off a 13 Amp supply. For operators producing a wide range of different food delivery options, Williams offers the Scarlet Heated Multideck. This open-fronted design means that it’s very easy to see and take the appropriate delivery, while the halogen quartz heating ensures consistent temperature control.

The Scarlet is especially useful for operators needing diff erent temperatures to hold diff erent product, feel Williams, since it off ers four individually controlled temperature zones. A slimline unit too - 635mm deep by 1910mm high - there’s a choice of widths (710, 960 and 1250mm) so that sites can specify the ideal solution for their needs.

When preparing high volumes of delivery food, operators need a large capacity hot holding solution. The Williams Mobile Heated Cabinet is available in two sizes – the 390 litre MHC110 and the 549 litre MHC16 – and designed to provide the ideal climate for hot holding packaged food, feel the company.

Its fast warm-up technology brings it up to operating temperature safely, quickly and effi ciently, and a major benefi t is that the cabinet is easy to move around, so it can be loaded in the kitchen then rolled to the delivery pick up area. This means it isn’t taking up valuable kitchen space, yet the food is held safely and effi ciently, point out Williams. Easy grab handles make it a negotiable to manoeuvre and all-round bumpers add protection in transit.

“Having a dedicated area for hot holding is a core need for any modern kitchen off ering a takeaway or food delivery service, and our Hot Holding Solutions are designed to off er diverse products that products that meet the meet the very diff erent very diff erent requirements requirements of operators of operators in this sector,” in this sector,” says Malcolm says Malcolm Harling, sales Harling, sales and marketing and marketing director of director of Williams. Williams.

ALLERGEN AWARE VENDING

While the focus has understandably been around the response to Covid in recent times, the implications and requirements of Nastasha’s Law, which took eff ect last month, should not be underestimated or ignored by operators in terms of their product off ering and associated store lay-outs.

Pioneering British company, Healthy Nibbles, says that it has launched an innovative solution within vending to support those with food allergies, and sparked by the recent enforcement of Natasha’s Law.

On 1 October 2021 Natasha’s Law came into force, marking signifi cant progress in the UK food industry for those with allergies following the tragic death of 15-year old girl, Natasha Ednan-Laperouse (Natasha had purchased a baguette from a coff ee shop in Heathrow Airport, not knowing it contained sesame seeds to which she was extremely allergic).

An estimated two million people in the UK are living with diagnosed food allergies and in identifying the challenge of using a vending machine - where those with allergies cannot necessarily always access essential nutritional and allergen information prior to purchase - Healthy Nibbles has introduced a new ‘14 allergen safe’ search function across their national fl eet of vending machines.

On approach to the machine, the consumer is invited to search the product range via their dietary requirement. On selecting ‘14 allergen safe’, products are presented in a scrollable list, with further ingredient and nutritional information available if required. This function sits alongside other innovative solutions such as the wheelchair user friendly option, whereby the touchscreen information is positioned in the lower section of the touch screen, and the delivery bins raises to aid product retrieval.

Furthermore, Healthy Nibbles also has tested Product Recall Protocols – if contamination in any of the available brands was discovered, the entire fl eet of vending machines can be shut down within 10 seconds, they claim. This new functionality sits alongside other product developments across the Healthy Nibbles range, including a free from range of snack boxes.

Company founder Sara Roberts says: “Healthy Nibbles is committed to making the healthy choice the easiest and most accessible choice.

“With the number of people suff ering from food allergies on the increase, we felt that we could be doing more. We are excited to launch the UK’s fi rst allergy-safe vending solution and free-from snack box, making snacking more inclusive.”

Founder of Creative Nature and Anaphylaxis/Teal Campaign ambassador Julianne Ponan adds: “As a person who has lived with severe allergies my whole life to peanuts, tree nuts, sesame and many more, the Healthy Nibbles solution is perfect in allowing me to fi nd new snacks that I wouldn’t have thought about before, whilst making sure they are delivered safely for me to enjoy.

“I am so glad that Creative Nature is one of the chosen brands in both the vending machines and snack boxes. Our bars and Gnawbles make it easy for all to enjoy delicious food without any ‘may contains’.”