FOOD & DRINK RAISE A GLASS
Greg Bramwell, Director of Food and Beverage at BaxterStorey, dives into the company’s strategic decision to focus investment on its beverage offering as a way to adapt to the evolving ways of working.
A changing world of work Employee behaviours and ways of working have shifted dramatically following the pandemic. We now live in an age of flexible and hybrid working, with decreased footfall in office spaces and the end of the traditional nine to five. This creates an interesting challenge for workplace hospitality providers. We need to uplift our offering and upskill our teams, ensuring our customers have access to more choice within the workplace and work closer with our clients to support their strategies in creating a more engaged workforce through a more social workplace culture. The rules of the game have changed, and we must now become more competitive than ever.
Forward-thinking investments We assessed the needs of this new, flexible-working consumer, and asked ourselves; what do our customers want to have access to from the early hours of the morning, to late in the evening? The answer was simple; a high quality, creative and competitive beverage offering. From providing that first cup of coffee or a post-morning workout shake or smoothie, to bespoke after work cocktails in the evening, we wanted to be the number one choice for our customers, providing a morning, noon and night service.
We have focused on creating an offer that reflects the values of our brand, oozing creativity and demonstrating our obsession for food, people and beverages. To achieve this, we had to assess how we could offer something superior to that of some of the market leading beverage providers, who pride themselves on a consistent offering.
Strategic moves To achieve our goal, we have appointed two-time World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion and UK Barista Champion, Dan Fellows, as the business’ first ever Beverage Consultant. Three-times UK Barista Championship finalist, Jana Slamova has also recently been announced as taking on the role as Head of Coffee Development, responsible for the award-winning BaxterStorey Barista Academy. These appointments will be pivotal in upskilling our baristas to be experts in all beverages, not just coffee, becoming skilled mixologists. By creating highly trained, empowered individuals it has given us opportunity to utilise our beverage bars into customer masterclasses adding value through experience and education.
This motivation to push boundaries in our beverage offer because we have provided them with the tools and confidence to become industry leaders, means they are the ones setting the trends in our business to delight the customer and give them a memorable experience.
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This strategy has been coming to life across a wide range of sites, for example, we have been engaging with FUEL suppliers to bring a street food style beverage offering into the workplace, uplifting the experience through more sensory focused interactions, even the enhancing retail sales, with customers having access to ‘beverage kits’ taking the workplace experience to their homes.
We have also reworked our morning juice bars to give our customers flexibility to create their own smoothie mix, offered iced coffee bars in the summer, beer taps to encourage social events in the workplace. We also pride ourselves in sourcing responsibly, such as partnering with coffee suppliers to provide seasonal beans or using organic milk like Mosgiel Milk to support regenerative farming. Another key focus has been tapping into high street trends, for example through the creation of a mango and strawberry bubble tea, seasonal beverages such as the red velvet mocha for Valentine’s Day, or winter Baileys milkshakes for a cinema-themed night. The incorporation of ‘Mocktail Monday’ at certain sites also allows us to cater for the low alcohol demographic.
Looking ahead These investments are crucial in delivering quality and creativity on site, allowing us to provide a bespoke service for each of our clients. Going forward, we believe this is key to demonstrate awareness of industry trends and remain flexible in a way that allows us as an organisation to adapt to the rapidly evolving consumer landscape. This is a new era for BaxterStorey – an era that’s obsessed about food, people and beverages, an era that is not concentrating on the traditional 9-5, but the morning, noon and night model that excites people and creates memorable experiences.
https://baxterstorey.com
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