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No Fear
Independent Metro Petro, Deli Express thrive on foodservice experimentation
By Samantha Strong Murphey || [email protected]
W
hen retailer Clay Lambert
met foodservice specialist John Miller, the two
sensed the beginning of a beautiful
partnership.
It was four years ago and Lambert,
an audacious person with audacious
goals, was growing his Metro Petro store
in Minneapolis [CSP—March ’13, p.
62]. He was seeking a bold foodservice
offering when he encountered Miller,
who was working with sandwich specialist Deli Express, a c-store food supplier
based in Eden Prairie, Minn.
“For independents like me, foodservice is difficult because of the cost of
entry,” Lambert says. “But Deli Express
is not shy in risking a lot with me. They
provide all equipment free of charge to
test out.”
Yet foodservice is more than just
expensive—it’s difficult. “If you don’t do
it right,” Lambert says, “you’re going to
damage your brand and your business.”
This is not a typical branding relationship or space rental story. This is
about a retailer and vendor just miles
apart who are experimenting, innovating and pioneering, using Lambert’s
new-build store Metro Petro as a willing
test lab for new products and programs.
For the past four years, the two have
turned the c-store into a stomping
ground for foodservice innovation. Deli
Express has been soaking up experience
Time to Eat: Quick Time Deli
signage fills about a third of
Metro Petro’s inside space.
and expertise since it was established in
1955. When Lambert was hatching his
store, Deli Express helped him think
through the categories he wanted to
focus on, talked about his food safety
concerns and suggested ways to deliver
a foodservice program sensitive to the
limited labor resources of the independent operator.
Today, Miller, a senior foodservice
sales consultant who has been with Deli
Express for 41 years, is on Clay’s speed
dial.
Having Miller’s decades of experience
a phone call away is a valuable asset for
Lambert, but he’s not the only party to
benefit. Deli Express can test things in
Clay’s store before rolling them out to
other retailers. “With Clay, we have a
unique opportunity to do a lot,” Miller
says.
Deli Express saw in Lambert an
emerging opportunity to provide foodservice for independents. The company
developed a program called Quick Time
Deli from scratch and filled a third of
Metro Petro with signage and displays of
ready-to-eat breakfast sandwiches, burritos, roller grills, pizza and, of course,
specialty sandwiches, rolling out the
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Sandwich Experts: As Deli
Express partners with stores
such as Metro Petro, it tests new
menus in changing markets.
program as the store opened its doors
for the first time.
“I know that John also sells his sandwiches to CVS, and that gives me some
residual sales,” Lambert says. “Customers
see the labels and recognize it, so they’re
more comfortable eating them.”
Quick Time Deli has its staple items,
but it’s also a foodservice experiment.
Here, Lambert and Miller try new
things. Some succeed, some fail, but they
all result in valuable lessons.
The line is called 500 Mile, named for its
ability to power customers to drive 500
miles on just one cup. When Lambert
opened his store, the new coffee line was
ready to go, “and our sales went through
the roof,” Lambert says.
Miller’s introduction of a line of
upscale Market Sandwiches in July 2012
“We think we know
everything, but we don’t.
It’s really humbling.”
Scoring Big
Lambert knew from the outset that if
anything had to be spot on, it was coffee.
“I’m located in a college town and all
these students are coffee snobs,” he says
of the University of Minnesota kids who
frequent his store. “In my community,
the coffee has to be right.”
Deli Express found Timothy Tolluch,
owner of European Roasterie Inc. in Le
Center, Minn., and struck gold—literally. Tolluck developed an exclusive line
of blends for Deli Express that includes
a black gold roast, a black gold decaf
roast, a Colombian signature roast and
a dark roast. Lambert tagged along for
the tasting session to offer his input, and
Deli Express made the final selections.
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also met with success. The sandwiches,
which retail from $3.09 to $4.39, include
creations such as smoked turkey and
cheese on wheat bread, and chicken
salad on buttery croissants. “We wanted
to offer something with a fresh look,”
Miller says. “I called Clay up and he said
to bring the sandwiches on over.”
Miller conducted a taste test with
Lambert’s team and got the go-ahead
before coming up with a cooler display
positioned close to the front counter. He
stocked a door with sandwiches, but the
next day, he got an email from Lambert.
“He told me that the cooler door
pulled the wrong way, so I ordered a new
cooler,” Miller says. “We installed it when
it came a week and a half later, and the
rest has been history.” Lambert knew
his customers well enough to recognize
the traffic flow that would work to grab
the product, and Miller knew Lambert’s
understanding of his customers was
worth listening to.
The sandwiches were visible to the
customers and looked fresh, and the
results were immediate. Out of the gate,
the Market Fresh line commanded a
25% to 30% lift in sandwich sales. “We
end up cleaning out that cooler twice a
day,” Lambert says. “People in line see
how good the Market Sandwiches look,
grab one, and deposit whatever they
were going to eat in its place.”
Miller appreciates Lambert’s willingness to experiment. Sometimes even
the seemingly far-fetched products go
quickly. When Miller called to ask Lambert if he’d try out Fruitie, a frozen-fruit
smoothie in a disposable package, Lambert thought the price point was high,
but he remained open-minded.
The result? “It sold like crazy,” Lambert says. “We think we know everything,
but we don’t. It’s really humbling.”
Experience as Teacher
If the successes in foodservice experimentation at Metro Petro are humbling, the
failures are most certainly self-effacing.
Lambert was convinced that the Minute
Maid juice dispenser Deli Express brought
in was a no-brainer, but he couldn’t get
customers to gravitate to it.
“The technology of the machine was
such that it wouldn’t have spoilage,” he says.
“The compartments were good sizes to
make the concentrate, it was shelf-stable,
it was a taste-test-proven product, it was
name brand, it had a long shelf-life and the
price point was amazing. Everything about
it was right. But we couldn’t give it away.”
“With Clay, we have a unique opportunity to do a lot.”
The juice dispenser is a textbook
example of the most common foodservice problem, he says: “It’s hardly ever
the equipment; it’s misjudging what cus-
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tomers want.” Most of the equipment is
well tested, top of the line and engineered
for c-stores specifically, “which means
simple and bulletproof,” Lambert says.
“Customer perception and adaptation is
the real trial and error.”
A high-end cappuccino machine
called the La Cimbali, distributed
through Minneapolis-based Espresso
Services Inc., had a similar fate. The Italian-made equipment, worth $15,000, ran
flawlessly on a simple, easy-to-execute,
one-touch system. But customers were
simply not buying the $5 espressos.
“We trained employees on it, we advertised, we gave it a fair shake,” Miller says.
The equipment was designed with the
c-store channel in mind, but: “It wasn’t the
machine. It was the consumer adaptation.”
Sometimes the problem isn’t the product, the equipment or consumer adaptation. Sometimes it’s the execution. When
Deli Express introduced fresh-baked
cookies from Best Maid Cookie Co.,
River Falls, Wis., they were prepared in
the back. But without the aroma of freshbaked cookies filling the store, there wasn’t
much incentive for customers to buy them
when the prepackaged Best Maid cookies
next to them were larger and cheaper. After
a few weeks, Lambert removed the freshbaked ones from the store.
With decades of experience behind the
company, Deli Express usually makes its
calls based on what Lambert calls “a gut
check.”“A lot of it is really intuition,” Lambert says. “They get their feelings about
things from their years of experience.”
Often, though, that intuition and
observation is informed by data collected
through “customer intercepts,” or taste
tests and surveys conducted with customers in the store by Deli Express marketing
reps and/or by third-party researchers.
When Deli Express introduced a new
line of paninis at the NACS Show, the
sandwiches generated a lot of excitement. But when they were rolled into
stores such as Metro Petro, the sales
numbers failed to reach forecasts.
The problem? “We used a brown
wrapper with a window on it, but customers wouldn’t buy unless they saw
more of the panini,” Miller says. Lambert observed that the packaging also
prevented the product from warming
up evenly.
The panini problem is a lesson in
knowing that what looks on the drawing board doesn’t always play out on
the assembly line. As Miller says, “We’re
doing things right. We’re doing things
wrong. We’re learning.”
Turbo-Chef convection ovens, and
they’re planning to supply Metro Petro
with more fresh foods and salads. Deli
Express has invested in new refrigerated
trucks to make that possible. In short,
they’re full of new ideas. Failure doesn’t
scare them off and, because of that, success is surely on the horizon. n
The Innovation Goes On
With Deli Express headquarters so close
to Metro Petro, it’s easy for Miller to
give Lambert lots of personal attention.
Miller believes his job is done best by
taking care of Lambert. “If I do that, the
rest falls into place,” he says. “It really is
a collaboration.”
Lambert feels the love: “It would be
easy for Deli Express to say, ‘Clay, you
haven’t been brought up in this industry,
so why do you even think you can be
at the table here?’ But they don’t. I told
them, ‘Maybe I have a fresh perspective
and maybe you should listen.’ And they
did. I need people who are on board
with me right away. I don’t have time to
convince them.”
Looking forward, the two hope to
ramp up Metro Petro’s coffee sales.
They’re drafting new designs for the
hot-beverage displays that tell the story
of the unique coffee blends.
“We underestimated the success of
the program,” Lambert says. “We need
to dedicate more square footage to it.”
Lambert hopes to double the 5 to 6 linear feet the coffee display takes up today.
Lambert and Miller are also looking to try more affordable versions of
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