Unlocking sales through technology
This company was in the early stages of a PE-backed, rapid expansion programme. A food-to-go brand but with a high volume of coffee sales, it needed to be able to maintain its coffee quality and speed of service as it grew.
With the opening of the first new store, I immediately saw a problem. The baristas in the new store were not skilled enough to deliver the quality and speed of service using traditional coffee machines.
I gained board approval to open the next store, an airport site, with semi-automatic coffee machines. In the opening week this new store was ranked number 1 in the company for its coffee sales and the baristas could maintain quality whilst keeping up with demand.
The next step? I secured £1m of investor funding to replace the traditional machines across the whole estate with semi-automatics and they were put into all new stores going forwards.
Roll forward a few years and this brand was chosen to be the coffee offer for Terminal Two Airside at Heathrow.