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Imagine a lifestyle where all the drinks a health-conscious person needs are derived from one delicious caffeine-free product. From your first kickstart in the morning, those smoothies during the day to cocktails in the evening.   Caffeine is so dangerous and is being consumed as part of the modern lifestyle at such high quantities that it should be regulated, the editor in chief of the Journal of Caffeine Research, Dr Jack James, says in a recent article. To exacerbate this problem, there are a growing trend to add caffeine to products such as energy and alcoholic drinks.   The reality is that many people have become accustomed to overdo it with caffeine to get through their busy days. But what...

Welcome to Connecting the Dots - CT’s new column connecting our retailer and roaster readers to products, services, and ideas to grow their profits. With estimates of more than $9 billion dollars spent on this category in 2015, it was an easy decision where to start this new feature: Frozen/Iced Beverages.   CT surveyed 500 coffee-focused retailers about their current Frozen/Iced Beverages program and the results were enlightening: 80% of the retailers have some form of program in place and 69% have seen their sales and profits rise in this category! Even those with a program were also seeking help and ideas on how to improve their sales by adding new products and improving their marketing methods. We all know...

  Many restau­rants and Cafés have focused on adding dif­fer­ent foods to expand their menu hop­ing to draw more patrons. Beverages have become the lat­est medium for oper­a­tors look­ing to drive sales and increase prof­its. Many fast food chains have seized this oppor­tu­nity, and are exper­i­ment­ing by enlarg­ing their bev­er­age menu and offer­ing fun and cre­ative drinks. “McDonald’s touts its new frozen straw­berry lemon­ade while Steak’n’Shake and Sonic shout about their “happy hour” deals on milk­shakes and frozen drinks, avail­able dur­ing the mid-afternoon snack period.”  For this rea­son, we will be look­ing into some of the trends for 2012 and what peo­ple are demand­ing this year, specif­i­cally in the cold and frozen bev­er­ages market. As the cof­fee lovers that we...

As any cof­fee café owner knows, one of the most impor­tant keys to suc­cess is hav­ing diver­si­fied prod­uct line. No longer is generic ‘Coffee of the Day’ a suf­fi­cient way to sat­isfy a customer’s desire for a great tast­ing qual­ity cof­fee. Even when that cof­fee is hail­ing from a spe­cific farm that is pro­duced in a man­ner that is good for the envi­ron­ment and the peo­ple who pro­duce it. Aside from diver­si­fy­ing cof­fee and espresso-based bev­er­ages, cof­fee café own­ers have been enjoy­ing suc­cess from the frozen and blended bev­er­age cat­e­gory. In fact, it is now con­sid­ered an essen­tial sta­ple for cof­fee cafes, and why wouldn’t it be, the “frozen bev­er­age” cat­e­gory sales con­tinue to grow, with Mintel report­ing cat­e­gory sales are expected to increase 68 per­cent...

Lower cost of goods equals savings — Serving quality equals customer loyalty. Which represents a better value? Every day, Specialty Retailers sit at a crossroads where the decisions they make can either make or break their businesses. The debate has existed since man started trading, thousands of years ago. Do I serve my customers’ products that cost less, or do offer them higher priced, higher quality products? That question is made even more relevant in this down economy. Historically, most Retailers in this economic climate take the “low cost route”. That is an understandable knee-jerk reaction to a problem that needs deeper analysis to get to the bottom-line. But, we are talking about human behaviour in scary financial times.: Your...