Food-to-go revamp ramps up sales for Coventry store

A revamp focusing on the food to go offer has paid rich dividends to a Coventry city centre store.

Brothers Ricky and Amrit Dougall, who run the Millennium View store, a Nisa Local, have introduced a raft of new services to respond to changes in customer demand. The refresh included replacing the serve-over food counter originally installed on the shop floor with a bank of machines including f’real, Tango Ice Blast, Rollover, fwip, PG Tips, a second Costa Coffee as well as self-serve hot food.

The bothers have seen immediate results in sales and footfall with an increase of 20 to 25 per cent across food to go since the changes.

“Customers didn’t want to wait for their food. We had to change that whole idea to fit in better with the transitional customers we mostly get in the store. The bus drivers especially were demanding something faster and more efficient from the food to go,” Ricky said.

The store, launched in February 2019, is located across the road from the bus station in the very heart of the city and open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

A further chiller was added to the store at the end of last year to enable additional chilled food to go sales. The mini overhaul has also seen a re-lay of the general flow of the store with the licensed section opened up to better show off the offer and new signage has been erected to the exterior of the shop to better advertise the 24-hour opening hours.

“It’s working much better for the shoppers now and our food to go area is much more viable for us because it’s less expensive to run and we don’t need to staff the area,” Ricky said.

“We have seen an increase in spend in FTG since the alterations and adding in the new machines has definitely added incremental sales as well with a 30 per cent increase year on year across the store.”