How one concept is turning relaxed food court rules and a strong vendor partnership into incremental sales.
For Steak Escape, it was both a blessing and a challenge.
Most of the cheesesteak concept’s approximately 170 stores are located in mall food-courts, a location that has traditionally limited restaurant tenants in the types of products they could sell, so as to preserve exclusivity among vendors. However, those rules have now generally been relaxed, so Steak Escape’s franchisees wanted to add a dessert to the menu.
What would the home office come up with?
According to marketing director Debbie Trager, the concept went through a fairly lengthy process that saw them pass up a number of products they felt would have regional appeal but would be difficult to roll out to the entire system. Eventually, though, their R&D folks landed on a couple of products they’ve put into test: a Homemade Volcano Brownie and Luigi’s Real Italian Ices, the latter a product from J&J Snack Foods.
Both are currently in test and doing well, but Trager says the ices in particular seem to have fulfilled a need for Steak Escape. The franchisees love to sell them, she says, because they’re easy to sell, and customers love them, especially on hot summer days. But perhaps the key point is that the Luigi’s name and product really fit in with the South Philly/Italian heritage of a cheesesteak place.
But what about the challenge of introducing a frozen product into the restaurants? According to Trager, J&J Snack Foods offered its recommendation of a freezer, a small, under-the-counter unit that doesn’t take up much space --- which was a good thing, since food-court locations don’t have a lot of space to work with. Even so, some stores don’t even have enough room for that freezer, so Plan B is a “frozen bag” in which small quantities can be brought out from the store freezer for serving.
As for in-store marketing, Steak Escape (www.steakescape.com) and J&J Snack Foods (www.jjsnackfoodservice.com) worked together on a design for POP material, with the latter supplying the marketing materials for the initial rollout. Steak Escape is also putting a hanger on the menuboard, and there will be a display case at the front counter so customers will be able to see the product and perhaps make an impulse buy.
Three flavors of Luigi’s Real Italian Ice are offered --- cherry, lemon, and strawberry, of which cherry has proven to be the most popular in test --- at a price point of $1.29. Trager says they expected lemon to be the most popular, but it has in fact placed third so far. Then again, Steak Escape is known for fresh-squeezed lemonade, so perhaps a customer with a lemon jones fulfills it that way. (Incidentally, according to Trager, the company isn’t concerned that there might be some level of product overlap between the lemonade and the ices.)
Though Trager didn’t disclose specific numbers, she does say that incremental sales in test have warranted a rollout to the entire system. The challenge, it seems, has been met.
The deadline for the 2005 QSR/FPI Foodservice Packaging Awards is less than two weeks away! Visit www.qsrmagazine.com/packagingawards/ for more details.
