If your area is anything like ours, chances are you opened your doors this afternoon, stepped outside, and broke a sweat. Summer is here, and so is the opportunity to sell higher price point items like smoothies and frappes. If you want to create the ultimate frozen beverages that will bring you new business, check out these tips!

Ice It Down

Believe it or not, ice is an extremely important variable of your frozen beverage program. Most shops have ice that is either considered hard or soft. Hard ice is usually cloudy, large, and varies in size. It typically stays frozen longer, which could potentially require slightly more liquid that the recipe calls for.

Softer ice is much clearer than hard ice. Soft ice also melts faster than its counterpart. If your frozen beverage is too watery and you have soft ice, try cutting back the amount of recommended liquid in the recipe slightly. Also, don’t ever consider crushed ice soft. Crushed ice liquefies too easily to be used to make most smoothies and frappes.

On calculating liquid amounts based on your café’s ice, Caffe D’Amore recommends that you “pour water into a 16 oz cup filled with your perfect level of ice. Quickly pour out the water into a measuring cup while holding your hand over the top of the ice (so it doesn’t fall out of the cup while pouring) – That is how much liquid you use to make each drink.”

Blend It Up

Now it’s time to add contents to your Vita-Mix blender container. If making a frappe using a powder base, you always want to add the powder to the container first. This gives the base the best dissolving conditions. Then use a measuring cup to add liquid (toddy, milk, water, or puree) and ice. Using the measuring cup might make some employees grumble at first, but remember, every drink made incorrectly using a liquid puree like Dr. Smoothie is throwing money down the drain. If there is too much puree in any given drink, not only do costs increase, but flavor decreases. If you skimp on the puree and use less than what the recipe calls for, you get a less-than-stellar drink that won’t inspire repeat business.

I was in a shop recently and noticed that a customer ahead of me ordered a Four Berry Dr. Smoothie. One employee behind the bar prepared the drink using all puree and no water, when the recipe calls for 3 oz. of H2O. I decided to gamble and order a Pineapple Paradise Dr. Smoothie. A second employee made mine perfectly, following the recipe given from the manufacturer. It was delicious, but I couldn’t help but wonder what the first customer thought about their drink, and how the owner of the business would feel about the extra 75 cents that was added to their costs every time this employee made a smoothie.

After adding all your ingredients, you’re ready to blend. Proper blending is another important component of a great frozen drink. During a blend cycle of 30 seconds, you want to look for the contents to be turning over smoothly at the bottom of the container. If you’re getting splashing high along the sides of the container, try reducing the amount of liquid in your drink or increasing amount of ice. If the blender motor makes a loud sound like it’s working harder, but the product is not turning over, you’re machine is cavitating. In other words, your recipe did not have enough liquid and the product is freezing and creating a dome over the top of the blades of the container, making it impossible for the contents to be mixed.

Dress Your Drink to Impress

At a job interview, I wouldn’t wear sandals and jeans with holes in them. I’d break out the best suit I had in order to make a valuable first impression. Every drink on your menu should be dressed to impress, too. That $1.50 drip coffee order could be influenced by visuals of the $4.50 smoothie, if done right. Garnishes are often inexpensive and will pay off. Sure, you have to do whipped cream. It’s a must. If your local health codes permit, you could add a fresh slice of strawberry to the cup of your smoothie. Try crumbling graham cracker crumbs on a S’more Frappe. Every fractional cost that you can add to the drink in terms of a garnish adds a huge increment in total value. The return of a small investment is high.

We also recommend using a clear cup for frozen beverages. Don’t hide a summertime treat behind white walls! Let the quality of the drink shine. We carry Solo Bare clear cold cups that are made using 20% post-consumer recycled waste, and they can be recycled wherever plastic bottles are. Not only are they an incredible value, you can tout their eco-friendly nature to regulars.

To help you get started with revamping your frozen beverage program, give us a call at (800) 835-5943. Check out the available Vita-Mix blender package online at www.stocktongraham.com, which includes your choice of free smoothie mixes or frappe bases. Get in touch with us today before summer passes you by!

Mike Adams
Customer Care
adams@stocktongraham.com

In my previous article, I mentioned that there are only three ways to make more money in your business; get more people in the doors, get them to come back more often and get them to buy more when they visit.  Last time, we focused on increasing that ticket average by selling take-home coffee.  In this issue, we are going to discuss ways to get more people in the door, particularly during the afternoon - a traditionally slower period for most of our customers.

Coffee houses are no longer just the third place of young professionals, students and artistic types, but also a respite for younger consumers who are followers of popular trends as well.  I often hear lamentations of café owners who revile the swarms of rambunctious kids who come to their shops after school only to take up space and buy little or nothing.  I challenge those who cringe at this image to change their perspective.  Rather than finding ways to shoo away these customers, what if you instead modified your tactic to actively sell to them?  Could it be they buy little or nothing because you have little or nothing to offer them? 

I once had a conversation with a customer who bought more Dr. Smoothie product from us than almost all of our other customers.  I was curious to know where all of these smoothies were going.  She responded simply, it’s for our “Smoothie Train.”  It turns out that about two blocks away from this shopping center, there is a middle school.  After school, many of the kids would descend upon businesses while they waited for their parents to pick them up.  She explained to me that they saw an opportunity to capture afternoon sales by offering smoothies.  On an average day they would sell at least 50 smoothies, sometimes as many as 100.  The kids would form a line out the door and down the sidewalk, hence, “The Smoothie Train.”  A simple, yet brilliant idea; by selling a desired product to a previous unknown customer base, this business increased daily sales by over $150 in less than one hour every single school day.

So, how do you start your own “Smoothie Train?” 

First, you have to be willing to welcome those darlings with a friendly and helpful attitude.  Remember, chances are they have just as much money cash in their pockets as you or I; many even have their own debit cards now.  Cha-ching!

Almost all cafés have virtually the same products of one form or another, but are you offering creative beverages that appeal to this market?  For instance, do you sell “strawberry smoothies” or do you sell “Strawberry Smash?”  Do you have “lemon Italian sodas,” or do you have “Lemon Pucker Fizzes?”  Consumers respond to more illustrative product names, so consider changing your menu up a bit to add a little more appeal.  Also consider bringing in some new items that appeal to this group, such as Kidz Kreamz from Big Train or sour/tart syrup flavors to expand your Italian soda options.

Now, let’s examine your execution.  Are you actively promoting to kids?  Do you have sampling events at nearby schools, offer coupons for honor roll, participate in fund raisers, buy into the yearly coupon books, run afterschool specials, give coupons to dentists to distribute, or even more simply, display marketing materials to visually sell the products?  All of these ideas are relatively inexpensive and could have very nice returns if done well.

So, as you read this article, I hope that you are examining your afternoon business and are constructing a plan to build that day-part.  School-age children are often over-looked or dismissed as a viable segment of the specialty beverage market.  By innovating and actively promoting, you too can have a “train” of kids out the door.  Just remember, their dollars spend as well as Mommy and Daddy’s.

Thom Swain
Lead Sales

You’re right, the Dr. Smoothie 100% Lemon-ADE is a great product and you’ve come to the right place for advice.

Our Customer Care staff has fielded numerous calls in this regard. Without a doubt, marketing the Lemon-ADE not as a smoothie, but as frozen lemonade, is the way to go. A lemon smoothie just doesn’t sound very appealing on a hot day…but frozen lemonade? Now that hits the spot!

One great selling point of the product is its versatility. Check out the recipe in this week’s Gazette, for example. You can also add the Lemon-ADE to many, if not all, of Dr. Smoothie’s 100% flavors. You really can’t go wrong.