A growing number of manufacturers are making foodservice equipment sized to fit smaller footprints required by convenience stores. Moreover, retailers are using these machines to make the most of their limited foodservice space.
By Marilyn Odesser-Torpey, Associate Editor
Kyle Lore, corporate chef for North Salt Lake, Utah-based Maverik Convenience Stores, is not an impulsive person, especially when it comes to buying big-ticket items like an oven. But, when he saw the pizza oven that reminded him of R2D2 from Star Wars, he bought it on the spot.
Made in Italy, the round oven fits into a small footprint, but, like an artisan hearth, it packs a lot of heat—up to 842 degrees Fahrenheit to cook 14-inch fresh-dough pizzas in as little as 90 seconds. It also cooks thick-dough pizzas quickly.
Independent top and bottom convection temperature controls assure crisp crusts and even heating. The oven does not require a vent and stays cool to the touch on the outside. It also has a removable bottom access panel for easy cleaning.
Lore will use the oven to launch a raw-dough, Neapolitan pizza program in either the third or fourth quarter of this year.
“It is a remarkable little oven,” Lore said. “I think it will be a big game-changer in our industry.”
SMALL-SPACE EFFICIENCY
Englefield Oil’s Duchess Shoppe, which has 123 locations in Ohio and West Virginia, is moving to a Merry Chef e4s high-speed oven that combines radiant heat with microwave.
“It can make a pizza in less than four minutes and toasts a sandwich in less than one minute,” said Judy Dudte, the company’s director of foodservice.
The management team at NOCO Express, which has 37 convenience stores in western New York, also did some intensive shopping before they decided on a rectangular, five-by-nine-foot-long, 50-inch tall, refrigerated case that will serve as the centerpiece for grab-and-go in 90% of its existing locations.
“We’re moving our grab-and-go displays right to the front of the stores so shoppers can see our food selections as soon as they walk in the door,” said Mike Newman, executive vice president of NOCO.
The new case, which was recently introduced in a new location in Grand Island, N.Y., allows the retailer to sell full meal solutions such as fruit, bottled beverages and other complementary items with sandwiches or salads. At Grand Island, check-out counters were placed a little further back in the stores to make way for the new display cases in the front and to bring customers deeper into the store, Newman said.
To get all of the fresh products to stock those displays to the stores five nights a week, NOCO added a second refrigerated truck.
“We consider our trucks to be key pieces of equipment for our Nickel City proprietary food concept, not just because they deliver fresh foods to our stores, but the new truck is also fully wrapped with colorful graphics to promote the brand everywhere it goes,” said Stephen Beehag, NOCO’s director of foodservice. “That promotion helps us to push foodservice to the forefront in people’s minds, tell them what Nickel City is and create a strong proprietary foodservice brand within our stores.”
NOCO is also looking at adding panini presses and Ovention ovens, which are smaller, don’t require a hood and can turn out pizza and many other foods at the press of a button.
Grand Island is also the first NOCO store to adopt a U-Swirl frozen yogurt concept. The five yogurt machines were installed and are expected be a big draw when the weather warms.
“There’s a theme park right down the street from the store, so we think sales are going to explode in a couple of months,” Beehag said.
FOOD FIRST
Beck Suppliers Inc.’s FriendShip Food Stores, which has 22 locations in northwest Ohio, is in the process of branding its own proprietary pizza program.
The company wanted to develop its full foodservice menu before starting to shop for the necessary cooking equipment because “we didn’t want to fashion our foodservice around the equipment that was available, but, instead, we wanted to fashion the foodservice offering first then find the equipment best suited to producing it,” said Kevin Bible, the chain’s food service district manager.
Bible said that the Ovention oven seems to fill the bill for FriendShip’s needs because it can cook a pizza in about 3-4 minutes and a sandwich in 30 seconds to two minutes. Two different food products, pizza and a sandwich for example, can be put on each side of the two-sided conveyor, cooking at exactly the right temperature for exactly the right amount of time.
The conveyor ovens that the stores had forced employees to manually change the time and temperature for each one. That, Bible explained, can lead to inconsistencies in cooking from product to product. Not having to put a hood in for the oven, as required for other ovens, can save “a ton of money,” Bible said.
YOGURT CALLING
FriendShip stores also has been selling frozen yogurt at three of its locations for about a year and a half. The addition of countertop freezers, which are about the size of a dormitory size refrigerator, allows the company to make frozen yogurt cookie sandwiches and pies for grab and go.
“Sales of these products have been very good,” Bible said. “By using the yogurt for this purpose as well as selling it by the cup we have another couple of unique items to sell and we throw very little, if any, product away.”
The c-store invested in five machines, made by Electro Freeze—each cost between $10,000 and $15,000. Each piece serves two different flavors and a mixed flavor, and together, occupy about 18 feet of floor space. Water cooling systems inside the machines eliminate the need for air flow required by air- cooled systems.
“They also don’t have as many moving parts so they are easy to keep clean,” Bible said.
Friendship Foods has five machines in two of its locations and three in the third due to space limitations. The company is considering retrofitting the equipment in at least two of its stores.
Five of the stores have also had f’real-brand milkshake, smoothie and cappuccino machines in them for the past year and a half. According to Bible, the countertop merchandisers have more wow factor than the under-counter models.
Three of the FriendShip stores have the countertop merchandisers. Bible noted that the f’real company recently came out with a new counter unit that has a smaller freezer unit.
“With a 35% margin on the shakes, the payback makes the $11,000 (give or take) equipment worth the price,” Bible said.