Coffee is the New King but Ice Cream still Reigns at DQ

Coffee has propelled convenience stores with AM daypart success that expanded grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food sales all day long at companies the ilk of Wawa, Sheetz, and 7-Eleven.  In fact 7-Eleven sells 1.1 million cups of coffee at day.  

                     

McDonald’s, Burger King, have in recent years expanded their focus on coffee both hot and cold and now Dairy Queen has introduced a line of cold coffees and frappes. Barry Westrum, Dairy Queen’s executive vice president of marketing stated” Cold coffee represents the biggest growth market in the beverage category.”

The new coffee Dairy Queen offerings include vanilla, salted caramel and mocha flavors, while the frappes come in Oreo, Caramel Chip or Midnight Mocha varieties. Westrum continued “Our brand does very well in the afternoon and evening snack periods,”…. “We saw an opportunity to strengthen in the afternoon. Coffee peak period is between 2 and 5 in the afternoon.”

In order to market the new coffee with a targeted focus Dairy Queen has started a “Hardest Working Happy Hour” campaign to entice customers to buy the drinks. Small iced coffees are priced at $1 during the happy hour, while small frappes and a selection of Orange Julius smoothies are priced at $2.

Success does leave clue and Dairy Queen experienced great success with its ‘$5 Buck Lunch” where they estimated unit sales rose more than 10 percent at the 4,400-unit chain last year.  Targeting the ‘ happy hour Dairy Queen hopes to have the same success generating traffic in late afternoons that it did in generating traffic during lunch.

Millennials love grazing, cold coffee and frappes sell great in the summer it could very well be a perfect match.  It looks as if Dairy Queen may make coffee king for happy hour but reassured ice cream will still reign this summer at Dairy Queen.   

Invite www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  grocerant niche business development.  We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities.  Has your company had a Grocerant ScoreCard completed?  Want one?  Call 253-759-7869 Email: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us