Independent wholesaler and catering provider Creed Foodservice has launched a new café innovation space at its High Wycombe base, in line with Creed’s ongoing growth within the OOH leisure market. It opens as the sector predicts a forecasted growth to reach the value of £91.9bn by the end of 2022[1].
Creed, who supply to over 3,500 customers across the UK, has launched ‘The Hub’, a space which has been designed to emulate the customer experience for café and leisure brands. Completely adaptable, it’s been created to allow businesses of all sizes to simulate and scrutinise their offering.
Designed to mimic modern café spaces, the space is decked with cosy sofas, neon signs and planting. It can be utilised by any of Creed’s customers who are looking for support evolving their food and drink offer. One of its customers, The National Trust has already had access to the space for a product development day.
Ben Thomas, Senior Product Development Manager at The National Trust comments: “For our most recent insights day with Creed we were invited to The Hub, which was dressed to mimic a coffee shop environment, to test a range of new products that might be suitable for our operations and customer base. The Hub is a great informal, relaxed meeting environment that enables you to visualise the customer journey within a café or coffee shop setting. We will definitely be utilising the space again in the future for NPD sessions with Creed.”
Anna Clapson, Insights Manager at Creed adds: “At Creed we really do believe that the best way to evolve, develop and improve your offering is to experience how it could feel for yourself. It’s for this reason that we created The Hub. From being able to mimic the warmth and convivial feeling you get from a café space, to having menu boards and POS in the right places and displays of food and drink laid out to trial, our customers really can live the experience that they are trying to create themselves.”
As well as offering a place to imitate the customer journey, The Hub is also a space being used for insights sessions, where concepts such as sustainability, technology and promotions are explored. Going forward Creed will be hosting sector-specific events and supplier days themed around particular products and services too.
