The refitted food to go section of Woodlands Local has already begun to deliver very significant uplifts in both sales and margins.
by Antony Begley
Food to go has long been the key shopping mission at Woodlands Local. Even from the days before SLR took the shop over, there would be customers waiting for the doors to open in the morning. The store is well known in the area for its hot and cold foods, with breakfast and lunch sales always consistently very high.
We knew that we could drive this side of the business even further though; there were product lines we weren’t offering.
So, we decided back at the end of last year to capitalise on that by fully refitting the food to go counter area within the shop as well as adding a whole new range of kit including a new hot hold, new serve over refrigerated cabinet and a new oven.
Part of that refit also involved adding a new, much expanded range of savoury and sweet products from Cuisine de France – and as we hoped, it has proved to be successful.
That kicked off in earnest after the refit at the end of last year and the great news is that both sales and profits have risen, despite the abysmally poor weather over the last two months battering our footfall figures.
Sales have been up by just over 3% which is good – and mildly surprising news – given the weather, and even more importantly, profit margins are up by 2.85%. This is on top of the already very solid profit margins that the food to go section of the store was already providing.
Safe to say that we are pleased with the results and intend to continue to focus on the section over the coming months, adding in new products including bake-off breads, doughnuts, pastries and more.
