Booths Supermarkets Case Studies
Booths is a family-owned business that sells the best food and drink from local suppliers their dream is to “To be loved by our customers for inspiring and nourishing their desire for excellent food and drink” they have 26 stores across the North of England, 21 of which have cafes.
Project 1 Description:
Boost Consultancy was asked to review and evaluate the current state of Booths café business and use their expertise to advise Booths how they could rethink their café offer and redefine the café concept to better reflect their core purpose and vision.
What was delivered:
The project required a root and branch analysis of Booths current café offer and operating model to ensure a thorough understanding of the business. We carried out an in-depth enquiry, visiting all 21 cafes and held interviews with key stakeholders to build a clear picture of the current context and the key issues and challenges they experienced. This review together with a full commercial appraisal provided the insight to build a picture of how the café concept of the future could be developed.
The last stage was to create and present a recommendation document outlining the vision for the café that aligned to their purpose and supported their aim to attract more new and existing customers. This report set a new aspiration for the cafés and detailed how hospitality could be a more relevant, integrated, and seamless part of the Booths customer experience.
"An excellent detailed, insightful, and ultimately impactful piece of work, Paula Thank you"
Nigel Murray - MD at Booths
Project 2 Description:
To use the recommendation document to develop a detailed project brief/ blueprint for the café model of the future, the aim was to deliver a premium café concept that reflected Booths purpose and attracted more new and existing Booths customers. The core objective was to reposition the cafes as a celebration of Booths food credentials, providing a premium and integrated customer experience. The key deliverable was the successful implementation of 2 new café concepts in agreed locations.
What was delivered:
Established and led a cross functional project team of over 30 colleagues to redefine the café concept including redevelopment of the menu offer, service model and café layout and aesthetics. The remit included the development and training of a new service ethos and standards that would also apply across their retail offer. Boost Consultancy took on all aspects of menu development, including full recipe creation using products and ingredients from the store to create a fresh made to order menu offer.
The new Café 1847 delivered a concept that celebrated Booths tea and coffee heritage and supplier relationships and set a new aspirational standard of hospitality excellence that enhanced the customer experience. The remit included the training of staff in both food and service delivery and leading the implementation and opening of two Café 1847 concepts within a 12-month period the first one at Hesketh Bank and the second one at Clitheroe.
As a result of the work delivered Booths restructured to provide executive level leadership and focus for the café business as they plan to roll this out to other café locations within the estate.
Client Feedback
"The hospitality industry experienced significant challenges through the covid years, exacerbated by the subsequent impacts on the labour market. Supermarkets cafes were no different and at Booths these impacts encouraged us to start to think differently about our hospitality offer. Additionally, we have a very clear purpose as a retail business and brand, yet this wasn’t being reflected in the proposition or indeed the delivery of our hospitality offer for our customers.
I believe we are good retailer at Booths, but we have limited knowledge and/or experience in the hospitality sector. We needed help guidance, drive and support to define and capitalise on our ambitions…. this came in the form of Paula.
Paula has had 2 assignments with Booths so far, firstly evaluation the current state of our café business and secondly leading us through a review, re-definition, and delivery of a new model proposition with the ambition and intention of rolling out through our chain of 21 cafes.