Garden centre catering is a ‘huge opportunity’
A new report has highlighted how garden centre catering is providing a huge opportunity and area of growth in the eating out market.
Launched by the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) at its Excellence in Garden Centre Catering Conference in Bromsgrove yesterday, demonstrates how it can be 'more than tea and cake'.
It focuses on the role of garden centre cafes and restaurants in the eating out market providing the industry, for the first time, with an indication of the characteristics and value of this market.
The top line facts about the industry include:
- There were 36 million visits to garden centre cafes or restaurants over the 12 months to February 2008 (up 8% over the last three years).
- The retail value of this market to garden centres over the same 12-month period was £132 million (up 24% over the last three years). The report recognises that as well as generating profits in their own right garden centre cafes and restaurants can generate footfall and expenditure in other parts of the store.
- A third of garden centre visitors said that their choice of garden centre had been influenced by the presence of a café or restaurant.
- One in eight garden centre visitors has visited specifically to use the café or restaurant facilities.
- 40% said that they always or often go on to buy other products, with 48% saying that they did so occasionally.
Despite the garden centre cafés and restaurants being a relatively small player in the wider catering industry (with a 1% share of the £24bn market) it is an important growth area.
The garden centre catering offer as a whole with around 700 outlets, compares favourably with some of the major brand names (e.g. there are around 700 Pizza Hut restaurants).
The report provides evidence that the proportion of the population that visit garden centre cafes or restaurants in a year is 30% (this in only 7% below McDonalds and 8% higher than the second most visited brand, Wetherspoon).
Garden centre cafes and restaurants fill an important niche – filling a gap between the offer provided by instore catering provided by supermarkets and catering within leisure facilities such as pubs.
The average spend by garden centre café or restaurant customers was £3.67 (15% higher than the equivalent figure for 2005). In terms of products tea and cake dominate with at least one person drinking tea in over a third of parties and nearly a quarter eating cake. Interestingly, chips are around seven times less likely to be ordered in a garden centre café or restaurant than in the total market and carbonated drinks are a third less likely.
Tim Briercliffe, HTA's Director of Business Development said: "This latest study provides invaluable information about garden centre catering and its current unique position within the overall catering market. It demonstrates that there is huge potential for garden centre catering to gain a bigger slice of the catering cake by playing to its strengths in terms of offering a venue for meeting and socialising, high quality lunches, hot drinks and cakes and meeting the customers needs for fast service. Not only will this help to make cafes and restaurants more profitable but can help to drive footfall and sales in other departments."
Recent research has revealed that women are more likely to play a lead role in the 'eating out of home' experience with more women likely to eat out than men and being the key decision makers about where to eat out.
Another key group for garden centre catering were the 'Silver Surfer' generation. The over 55s were more optimistic about eating out of home, with 20% expecting to spend more over the next year compared to 15% who thought that they would spend less.
Briercliffe added: "Both women and silver surfers are key demographics for garden centres with women representing 55% of garden centre visitors and the over 55s representing 41%. This provides garden centre caterers with the challenge of enticing more of them to eat and drink during their visit."
Words: Clare Riley
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