Make Sales By Helping Foodservice Clients Increase Volume

Last month, I discussed the equipment and services required to serve the foodservice market. This category covers restaurants, convenience stores, delis, bagel shops, corporate cafeterias and fast food outlets. In order to serve these foodservice outlets, you must understand what the buyer wants:

» Serving their customers in a timely manner with the most efficient equipment;
» Delivering the product quality for the price paid
» Raising consumption of beverages
» Retaining their customer base
» Attracting new customers
» Generating good profits

The foodservice industry spans a broad spectrum, from inexpensive to extremely expensive (white table cloth) restaurants, among other resellers of your coffee. Management dictates the quality of beverages they want to serve to their customers, and the price; but it is your job to offer different price-points, so you will not lose out by offering only one.

Once you make the decision to serve this vast market, you must be committed to offering a wide selection of products in the beverage category. As discussed last month, your equipment options must be many, so that you can offer coffees from regular to decaf, flavored varieties, espresso and espresso-based drinks, teas and herbal teas.

What makes you different from your competition that can help you sell the foodservice provider? Repeat business will make you succeed. Word of mouth from happy customers, advertising to bring them into the establishment and off the street walk-ins all contribute to a successful business.

You can be creative in your sales presentation by offering the buyer dollars towards advertising their establishments and giving them rebates based on the first 90 days of purchases. Also, you can pay for their menus, signage and tabletop promotions, among other incidentals, as long as they offer to include the name of your coffee company and a list of the different coffees and espresso-based drinks being offered for sale.

Another marketing tool to offer, once permission is granted, is advertising their restaurant, bagel shop, etc. to your office clients. Your present customers are potential customers for any local eatery. This advertising can take the form of flyers inserted in every case of product that you deliver to offices. The accompanying promotion might be a coupon for a percentage off the check, a free drink, appetizer or dessert, with the purchase of a main entrée, or whatever promotion that the potential account desires.

The restaurants and foodservice providers all have a major problem of high employee turnover. Here is where you can offer continued training and retraining of employees in the proper way of making espresso and espresso-based drinks. Remember, when dealing with espresso, offer espresso pods, rather than loose grounds. The learning curve for correct equipment use will be much shorter.

Company Cafeterias

Most of us know about the challenges of the restaurant industry, but dealing with in-house cafeterias involves addressing different concerns. These cafeterias have a large volume of customers in a short period of time during their breakfast and lunch periods. The employees have little time to order, wait for the order to be ready, and consume their food and drinks. As their potential supplier, you must be aware of all the equipment that can dispense your beverages at a fast pace. Brewers with fast-recovering water temperatures must be provided. This equipment must be easy and fast to clean, and take up the least amount of counter space.

Serving higher-quality coffee is essential, since you have to satisfy a wide range of tastes in the employee mix. You should suggest that the decision-maker purchase a higher quality of coffee, which is only a few pennies more, to satisfy the majority of their customers. The last thing the location wants is unhappy customers, who could leave the building and go to another foodservice location. Many times the employer in the building will subsidize the cafeteria operation, so management can help make the decision on the quality of coffee to be served.

Cafeterias, convenience stores, bagel stores, delis and other foodservice providers need repeat customers. As their provider, you can offer to print frequent-buyer cards, also known as loyalty cards. These are simple to use and generate repeat business by marking the customer's card with a hole-punch when a hot beverage is purchased; when the card accumulates nine holes, the 10th serving is free.

Finally, you must enlighten prospects by reminding them that the first impression is extremely important, and so is the last impression. The first cup of coffee, espresso or tea must be really good, as well as the last thing a patron tastes, which again is the coffee, espresso or tea.

Providing quality beverages will increase your profitability by enabling you to charge more per pound or unit, as well as generating additional consumption by consumers who enjoy something that just tastes good.

I would love to hear from you about what you have done to encourage foodservice providers to use your service. Please call me at (516) 241-4883 or email OCSconsultant@aol.com.

SEE PREVIOUS ARTICLE:

Understanding Market Needs Is Key To OCS Foodservice Sales