Boost Up Your Blended Beverages
One of the “hottest” trends currently trending is frozen and blended beverages. Yes, this does mean your favorite tall, double mocha Frappuccino with extra whip cream, as well as real-fruit smoothies, a coffee-alternative that some shops are now offering.
With 2014 already here, and many New Year’s resolutions dwindling in the back of many of our minds, health-conscious coffee drinkers and shops are on to something with these frozen and blended beverages. There are ways to boost your beloved chilly coffee beverages, and for those of you who own a shop providing your customers with these beverages, there are tactics and products that you can utilize to bring the boost into your shop and profits.
Just Add A Scoop
While coffee, tea, and real-fruit smoothies offer natural health benefits, like antioxidants, there are many additives that you can insert into your morning or afternoon routine to enhance your healthy lifestyle. By making small changes, they can yield large results.
Add A Scoop offers a wide range of functional supplements that can be mixed into your favorite blended beverage to maximize the health benefits. Their products are kosher, vegetarian, GMO free, gluten free, and certified Halal. There are 18 different boosts that don’t have any taste. Therefore, it will not change the great taste of your beverage. The good thing about these powders is that you can add more than one. For example, you could add an energy boost with an antioxidant boost.
David Gross, President of Add a Scoop Supplement-Boosts, says, “People want to promote health and this is an easy way to do it. In fact, the supplement market for 2013 was up by nine percent.”
Gross continues, “If merchants that are selling frozen beverages want to keep and attract new customers, one way to do it is to promote health.”
By installing a program, like the one from Add A Scoop, it can boost your shop’s profits. The initial investment for Add A Scoop is about five or six cans of product. Merchants can charge customers by the scoop. No special equipment for Add A Scoop products is needed, and they offer free point of sale/marketing materials for merchants.
“You’re talking about a $100 investment to promote health to your customers and increase your sales,” says Gross.
Liquid Flavor
Weldon Flavorings adds a gourmet touch to all of your blended beverages. They offer 12 flavor choices to appeal to multiple different taste buds. All of their flavorings are 0 calories per serving, contain no artificial sweeteners, and are free of sugar. Therefore, these flavorings will add a boost to your shop’s blended beverages without all of the calories, carbohydrates, fats, and sodium. They are also Gluten-free and non-allergenic.
Each bottle comes with a pre-measured pump. This allows for quick and accurate flavoring of each cup of blended goodness. Each 4oz bottle of flavoring flavors 118 8oz cups; this is more than three times as many servings as the competitors’ large bottles of flavored sugar free syrups.
For shops looking to make Weldon their go-to for flavoring, you can utilize the Weldon Gourmet Flavor Station. It is a decorative wire caddy that sits on the counter. It comes with your choice of three flavors. Other than the caddy that keeps the counter clean an organized, there is no need for additional equipment. The start up costs is low, but yields a great satisfaction result.
These flavorings by Weldon are ideal for office coffee service, coffee shops, drive-thrus, convenience stores, or any place where blended beverages are served!
Feel the Frugen Difference
A functional beverage is more than something you simply enjoy. It is a treat that performs a specific function. In the case of the Frugen Energy product line, it supplies several different antioxidants, vitamins, potent adaptogens, and metabolism increasing boosts of energy.
“Frugen meets the health-conscious consumer’s demands for low-calorie drinks while providing a full spectrum of antioxidants and adaptogens to relive biological stress from toxic environments and regular cellular metabolism,” says Craig Meyers, co-founder of Frugen. “Our energy line helps active athletes and professionals stay one step ahead of their turbocharged schedules while ameliorating the effects of stress that can come with an on-the-go lifestyle.”
Frugen Energy is more than just a functional beverage for the common coffee drinker. These beverages specialize in more than just an afternoon pick-me-up. Frugen Functional Frappes help busy individuals keep up with their busy schedules and the on-the-go lifestyle that the United States lives. Not to mention, the groggy feeling that other energy drinks may provide is not a feeling one experiences when consuming a “Functional Frappe” by Frugen.
“Other companies may put some caffeine or basic vitamins in a few of their smoothies, but we are the only company that is fully dedicated to exclusively delivering healthy and enjoyable drinks. We offer some of the most in-demand ingredients in the market today. Frugen could not be simpler to make, just add ice, milk, and blend,” says Meyers.
Meyers claims that their profit margins for coffee shops wanting to infuse their shop with Frugen are almost as healthy as their drinks. Thousands of juice bars and coffee shops are opening up nation-wide, and Frugen provides an easy way for retaining consumers, while competing with new companies in the beverage industry.
“We are new, we are innovative, and we are here to reinvigorate the café industry. As a relatively small, privately held company, customer service is our top priority. When you join the Frugen family, we will do everything in our power to help you succeed,” says Meyers.
Tea Products Now Being Blended:
With tea becoming a great contender for coffee, tea-based blended beverages make for a great coffee-alternative. Not to mention, tea offers a wide variety of health benefits for the health-conscious consumer and coffee shop.
Stefanie Makagon, the Brand Manager for Teaja Office states, “Matcha is premium green tea powder from Japan and used for drinking as brewed tea or as an ingredient in recipes.”
There are a myriad of health benefits one can gain from this tea. In fact, matcha tea’s health benefits exceed those of green tea. The reason for this is because you ingest the whole tealeaf, and not just the brewed water.
“One glass of matcha is the equivalent of ten glasses of green tea in terms of its nutritional value and antioxidant content,” says Makagon.
She explains that matcha pairs wonderfully with milk. Therefore, when you blend the tea together with milk, cinnamon, vanilla, and ice, it makes for a refreshing blended tea drink. It is something new and different than what other shops are offering. By consulting with various tea companies, you can get a competitive advantage over the other shops around you.
Other frozen blended beverages that are made with tea is the popular frozen chai tea latte, and even a simple flavored iced tea. Tea is a huge trend in the industry currently, and it is jam-packed with antioxidants and health benefits. Coffee shops, you can set yourself apart and gain a new customer base with offering the latest trends.
Ice, Ice Baby!
You cannot make your customer’s favorite frozen beverage if you do not have the right ice to make it flawless. There are different companies that you can turn to, to gain the necessary equipment to make an endless supply of frappes and smoothies. The following two ice companies can boost your blended beverages:
Chewblet® Ice
Follett’s Chewblet® ice is a softer, nugget-type ice. It blends much faster than the typical cubed ice. In fact, you can typically cut your blending time by about 50 percent utilizing nugget ice. Nugget ice also blends more thoroughly, leaving the beverage free of large ice chunks.
Michael Rice, Director of Marketing at Follett Corporation says, “Chewblet® ice is great for iced coffee, iced tea, and soft drinks, all important offerings of a coffee shop. Customers prefer the softer nugget ice like Chewblet® ice by over 2:1 compared to hard, cube-type ice.”
Rice continues, “They like the looks, the texture, and the chewability of the ice, especially at the end of the drink. Many will even go out of their way to get Chewblet® ice or buy more drinks because of the ice.”
Chewblet® ice by Follett is compressed and extruded flakes. Because of its form, the ice breaks apart easier and will create lighter loads on the blender’s motor and blades, which extends the blender’s life. Ice machines by Follett use significantly less water and often use less energy to make the ice compared to machines that produce cubed ice.
Different Types for Different Needs
Manitowoc offers eight different types of ice, from gourmet to crushed. Other types include flake, tubular nugget, nugget, regular, dice, and half dice. Each of these types of ice offers a different firmness and shape. Because of the diversity of the ice, a shop can pick and choose which type they feel would work best for their shop and customer preferences.
According to their website, “The shape of ice has everything to do with its intended purpose. Whether used in beverages, food presentation, or healthcare services, Manitowoc Ice offers eight different types of ice in order to satisfy the widest variety of uses.”
Manitowoc offers undercounter machines, countertop machines, and even modular machines. Each of these units can be purchased based on the size of the area the machine needs to be stored and the daily ice production a shop will produce.
This company is the recipient of the 2013 ENERGY STAR Sustained Excellence Award, and has four years of award winning excellence. By purchasing a unit by Manitowoc Foodservice, you are purchasing an energy-saving unit, which will reflect on your electric bill!
Blend It Up Stealthily!
While we all love our frappes and smoothies, they would not be possible if it wasn’t for equipment that makes the delicious beverages- the blender!
“The Blendtec Stealth Blender is the most advanced and most powerful blender in the world, yet it is also the quietest. It blends ice, frozen coffee, and frozen fruit completely, making the smoothest, most delightful blended drinks, and does it at the same sound level as a normal conversation,” says Kevan Allbee Manager, Commercial Marketing at Blendtec.
“That means coffee houses can add a whole new selection of frozen drink options, while NOT adding the disturbing noise of other less efficient blenders,” Allbee continued.
The Stealth Blender has 42 pre-programmed mix and blend cycles, accessed on its capacitive touch screen controls. When a chain of stores needs to update blending cycles or add additional blending cycles, they can be programmed online, with the BlendWizard, and then saved into the Stealth blender via its USB port. This allows all of the stores to operate at the same level at the same time virtually anywhere in the world.
Like all Blendtec blenders, the Stealth is built with the strongest motor in the industry. It has 3.8 peak horsepower and 1,800 watts of power. The patented Blendtec blade is cold forged steel, thicker than any other, and shaped for the most efficient blending action in the jar.
Allbee says, “The Stealth is the new standard for high-powered commercial blending. For power, automation, speed, and versatility, no other blender in the world is its match. Add to these Stealth’s amazingly quiet operation, and you can see why no other blender is a better addition to any coffee shop’s equipment line-up.”
A Quiet Blend is a Good Blend
Vitamix® commercial machines offer precision engineering, consistency, reliability, and an overall lower total cost of ownership over the life of the machine, with industry-leading warranties and fewer repairs and replacements than competitors.
“The Quiet One® from Vitamix® not only creates optimal taste for customers, it also offers superior value, exceptional blending capabilities and outstanding noise reduction,” says Lisa Klein, vice president of Commercial Sales, Vitamix®.
The Quiet One features the Vitamix Advance® container with a built-in dripless spout, to improve pouring, prevents messes, and reduces waste. Vitamix also uses a hardened, stainless steel blade for greater durability and longer life.
“The Quiet One is able to produce consistent blends from drink-to-drink and store-to-store, ensuring customers will receive the same flavor and smooth texture each time they order a drink,” says Klein.
The Quiet One has six program buttons with 34 optimized programs. Its automatic shut-off capabilities provide the operator with ease-of-use and consistent beverage preparation. The unit is also fully programmable for shop customization. Shop owners can create custom blending programs for signature drinks, smoothies, and blended coffees. Thanks to the machine’s cool-running motor, it can handle significant up-time, allowing coffee shops to maximize sales during peak hours.
Klein says, “Today, coffee shops face an increased demand for unique and inventive drinks. But, expanding a drink menu and tapping into new, creative offerings can be easier with the right tools—including the right blending equipment.”
The Quiet One from Vitamix® makes for excellent, and quiet, front of the house blending!
The “Hottest” Trends
Some of the hottest tends in the coffee and tea industry can be chilly in nature. There are a variety of solutions that can be made to make your favorite blended beverages healthier and a step in the right direction to boost your sales and boost your blended beverages.
Flavorings, nugget ice, additives, functional frappes and nutritious boosts, and new blender technology are all ways that you can make small changes in your shop to appeal to new customers, revive existing customers, and take a competitive advantage over the other local shops. Which boost will you make?!
