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Restaurants Serving More Coffee to Increase Revenue

AMERICA LOVES COFFEEIt’s everywhere. From the thousands of Star-bucks and McDonald’s, to Dunkin’ Donuts and Den-ny’s right down to the local coffee shop, the drive-through coffee hut and food truck. You can even find the finest blends in airports, grocery stores and college campuses.

We go to these places to hang out, meet for busi-ness and to spend hours at our laptop doing home-

work or chatting on Facebook. All the while, sipping our favorite brew.

Coffee used to be black with some cream and sugar, please. Now there are hundreds of ways to drink it, so you can have it your way: I’ll take a non-fat, soy milk cappuccino with a double shot.

The same goes for sweeteners. If you are a foodservice operator, you should be offering the rainbow of yellow, pink, blue, green and brown sweeteners, in addition to the traditional white sugar packs. Your customers will recognize them by their color, so all you need is a small caddie of packs on the table.

Coffee consumption jumped by five percent last year and now 83 percent of the adult population drinks coffee. According to a report from the National Coffee Association, 63 percent of American adults drink coffee daily and 75 percent drink it weekly. That’s a lot of coffee beans. And a lot of sweeteners.

Making coffee an integral part of your menu is a no-brainer and can lead to increased business when done right. A great restaurateur once said, “It pays to have great coffee on the menu because coffee is usually the last thing your customers taste before leaving. And you want them to remember that taste.”

Product Showcase: Natural Sweeteners

Maui Brand® Natural Turbinado and Naturally White

Earlier this year Sugar Foods announced the launch of its newest natural sweeteners: Maui Brand® Natural Turbinado and Maui Brand® Naturally White. The Maui Brand Natural Cane Sugars are made using 100 percent natural pure cane sugar grown in the tropics of Hawaii. Sugar Foods extracts the pure sweetness from the cane juices, while retaining some of the natural molasses in the crystals. What results are superior quality natural sugars that enhance the flavors of beverages, cereals, baked goods and numerous other foods and drinks. The Maui Brand Natural Sweeteners are available in convenient packets and sticks.

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Today’s customers expect to be able to order cappuccinos and espressos at their upscale coffee shop, but even the most basic restaurant can serve top quality coffee. With new equipment and blends, it is easier than ever to offer a creative, well-thought-out coffee menu and set yourself apart from competitors while reaping impressive profit margins.

At 10-15% of the selling price, coffee can be extremely profitable. Coffee-makers go well beyond the old drip style and can vary from fancy Italian-made espres-so machines to single-serve ma-chines. According to the research firm Mintel, the single-cup coffee market grew from $103 million in

SWEETENERS OFFER HEALTHIER,LOWER CALORIE ALTERNATIVE

Millions of times a day, consumers throughout the world perform the same exercise around ordering that morning cup of coffee: They reach into the sweetener caddie to pick through the different colored packets and select their sweetener of choice.

“Sugar and cream” with coffee has turned into a full slate of options: Not only are there different sweeteners, but the cream choices have mutated into a refrigerator full of milks and creamers (but that’s another story).

The sweetener world is more finite: Yellow – Sucralose, Pink – Saccharine, Blue – Aspartame, Green – Stevia and Brown – Cane Sugar. Fueled by a global desire to slim down and eat healthier, the demand for sweeteners continues to rise.

THE MARKET FOR SWEETENERS IS INCREASING

The market for sweeteners, which reached $77 billion in 2013, is expected to soar to $97 billion by 2017 according to BCC Research. The highest demand for sweeteners is in North America, which accounts for

more than 60 percent; Europe and Asia are the next fastest growing regions.

The biggest reason for the increased demand is the growing worldwide appetite for low-calorie diets. There’s global recognition that sugary foods and beverages

are closely tied to diabetes and heart disease, not to mention obesity. Zero calorie sweeteners are just another way to reduce calorie intake and avoid sugar, especially the much maligned high-fructose corn syrup, which appears on many food labels.

DIETING SPREADS TO CHINA

The Western diet craze has spread as economic growth in China, India and Brazil has changed the eating habits of middle class consumers around the globe. As they’re becoming more health conscious, sugar intake is dropping as they are substituting zero calorie sweeteners for refined sugar at an increasing rate. In fact, China is the largest producer of sweeteners, accounting for more than 70 percent of world’s total in 2013.

AMERICA LOVES COFFEE

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2007 to an estimated nearly $3.1 billion in 2013.

Like any portion-controlled item, going with a single-cup coffee-maker means you don’t have to make an entire pot at a time and you can stylize the coffee flavor to the customer. So you get the freshest cup with the least amount of waste.

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Another advantage of sweeteners is they are many times sweeter than refined sugar. So they not only taste better but have the benefit of not causing cavities in teeth, which is the reason sugar-free gum outsells regular gum.

Your coffee business will thrive based on your coffee menu. There is a trend to lighter blends today, but that only means you can offer a wider spectrum of flavors while tapping into the latest thing. You can promote a new blend as you would any new menu item.

You can expand your menu even more through a variety of creative concoctions. Iced coffee, coffee flavored with various syrups, frap-pés and frozen coffee drinks can become part of your dessert menu. Some operators even pair coffee with various menu items, as they do with wine.

It is not a question of having cof-fee on the menu – everyone does. It is about treating coffee as a menu item that can be romanced, heightened, upgraded and lead to greater sales and profit. Simulta-neously, you can then offer an ar-ray of sweeteners that allow your customers the option to select the color that suits their palate and dietary needs.

So, when thinking of ways to enhance your menu and grow your business, think about coffee as the next great addition. That aroma you smell is not just today’s fresh coffee; it is the smell of success.

AMERICA LOVES COFFEE

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SWEETENERS OFFER HEALTHIER,LOWER CALORIE ALTERNATIVE

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Stevia is made from the leaves of the stevia shrub.

SWEETNERS REPLACING SUGAR IN FOOD INDUSTRY

All in all, the food and beverage industry has been replacing sugar and corn syrup with other sweeteners. Zero calorie sweeteners have proven to be a valid substitute as more people seek low calorie diets via sugar-free products.

Couple that with the growing awareness about healthy lifestyles, and the demand for these sugar substitutes seems endless.

The increased popularity in “natural” sweeteners, such as stevia and monk fruit, has also propelled overall growth. Stevia is made from the leaves of the stevia shrub, which thrives in South America. Monk fruit, which is from China, is related to watermelons and pumpkins.

Monk fruit is a cousin ofthe watermelon.

ANALYSTS BULLISH ON ZERO-CALORIE SWEETENER MARKET

TechNavio’s analysts forecast the Global Zero-calorie Sweetener market to grow at a CAGR of 4.69 percent over the period 2013-2018. One of the key factors contributing to this market growth is the growing health-consciousness across the world.

Big Market Research

U.S. CUTS ESTIMATE OF SUGAR INTAKE

It was repeated so often it was accepted as true: the typical American consumed 95 to 100 pounds of sugar each year. Health experts said that consumption was surely contributing to a nationwide crisis of obesity.

But in a move that has largely gone unnoticed, the Agriculture Department, keeper of the statistics on America’s sweet tooth, has employed new methodology that overnight shaved 20 pounds off its estimate, and brought the number down to a precise 76.7 pounds.

New York Times

COFFEE IS GOOD FOR THE LIVER

The latest research by the National Cancer Institute reports that coffee – either regular or decaf – is good for your liver. The study used data from a survey of 27,000 coffee drinkers, who recorded their caffeine intake over a 24-hour period. Their blood was then tested for levels of enzymes including aminotransferase (ALT) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP), which are markers of liver function.

Participants who said they drank three cups of coffee or more a day had lower levels of the enzymes in their blood, indicating healthier livers.

Metro UK

ABOUT US

Sugar Foods is a multi-national food products company serving all segments of the food industry. Founded in 1948, Sugar Foods started as a local bulk sugar distributor in the New York metro area. Today, Sugar Foods product portfolio continues to expand and boasts mainstream commodity items and popular consumer brands, such as Fresh Gourmet® and Blue Diamond® Almonds.

For the foodservice market, the company offers a wide range of

products to include its branded NJoy® line of sweeteners and non-dairy creamers. Sugar Foods works with restaurant chains, hotels and institutional foodservice operators to offer private label and contract packaging services. As a healthy milk alternative, Sugar Foods distributes in foodservice America�s no. 1 selling almond milk: Almond Breeze®.

Americans spend over $40 billion annually and drink an average of 3.1 cups of

coffee each day.

COFFEE MAY REDUCE TYPE 2 DIABETES RISK

People who increased the amount of coffee they drank each day by more than one cup over a four-year period had a 11% lower risk for type 2 diabetes than those who made no changes to their coffee consumption, according to a new study led by Harvard School of Public Health researchers. In addition, the study found that those who decreased their coffee consumption by more than a cup per day increased their type 2 diabetes risk by 17%.

Harvard School of Public Health

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950 Third Avenue, 21st FloorNew York, NY. 10022info@sugarfoods.comwww.sugarfoods.com