OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. -- Making the switch to a fresh pizza program can be a huge investment. But Nancy Sohre of the Maple Mart convenience store found the potential for all-day profits and boosted traffic too alluring not to take the chance, and she’s glad she did.
“We have so much more foot traffic now,” said Sohre, manager of Maple Mart in Mapleton, Minn., an award-winning c-store that invested in Land Mark Products’ fresh Piccadilly Circus Pizza program a little over a year ago as part of a complete remodel. “People are making our store a regular stop for lunch. It’s almost a habit for them now and that was our intention.”
In a town of just 1,600, Maple Mart competes heavily with the c-store down the street, but with the addition of Piccadilly, they’ve become the go-to pizza spot.
Introducing a fresh pizza program requires a kitchen—and sometimes an expanded kitchen with additional equipment. At Maple Mart, dough from Land Mark comes in frozen and goes straight to a proofer for 40 minutes. From there, the crust can be stored for a short time in the cooler, or if it’s going to be served, it’s benched and topped with sauce and toppings, then baked in a convection oven for 10 to 12 minutes.
Customers can purchase whole pies for enjoying in the store, thanks to the addition of countertop seating, or they can take them to go. The c-store also offers fresh slices during breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as a take-and-bake product.
The program has also helped boost a.m. business, thanks to a breakfast pizza, Sohre noted. While whole fresh pizzas sell mostly at lunchtime or in the evening, just last week, a customer from a local office building came in at 7 a.m. to purchase three freshly baked breakfast pizzas to go.
Capturing New Customers
It’s this catering-like arm introduced by a fresh pizza program that has helped not only boost sales, but also capture new customers Maple Mart hadn’t had before. Sohre said the c-store now sells up to 20 fresh pizzas a week to the local high school on Friday nights during basketball games.
Using Land Mark’s promotional assistance programs also helped spread the word out about Piccadilly. “Land Mark gave me 500 pizzas for free to start off the business, so I gave out 100 coupons a week for free pizza to different areas of the town and had new people regularly coming in,” Sohre said. She also posts regularly on Facebook to advertise the pizza and promote specials.
Fresh pizza can also expand a customer base demographically. “Fresh pizza attracts millennials in particular because they have higher expectations of food, and that’s split between men and women,” said Dana Evaro,vice president of marketing for Land Mark Products Inc., Milford, Iowa. “Pizza is now also considered a snack item; we’re seeing pizza by the slice being served more in between peak day-parts as younger customers look to graze more throughout the day.”
Regular Training
One of the biggest challenges with a fresh pizza program, aside from the initial investment in equipment and store real estate, centers on staff training. A fresh program can make a c-store manager a kitchen manager as well. “Consistency is so important; you have to watch how much sauce your staff members are putting on the pizza, how they’re spreading the cheese and placing the toppings,” Sohre said.
Checking in daily and holding monthly storewide meetings helps keep “everyone on the same page,” she said. If a pizza staffer adds extra toppings for a customer, that needs to be relayed to the clerk to prevent undercharging.
Managing waste falls into training, too. “You don’t want to thaw out too much product, so it takes some time to figure out how much you might need,” she said.
Sohre also de-cluttered and reorganized the kitchen to improve efficiency and productivity. Little details, like a plastic-wrap holder, a secure glove box and tubs above the ovens holding all necessary tools has helped her staff move more quickly through the line and improved overall cleanliness.
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This post is sponsored by Land Mark Products