Coco di Mama hopes to follow the example of Pret and Leon in its move into travel hubs, managing director Jim Attwood has told MCA.
The Azzurri Group brand is trialling a pasta counter at Roadchef’s Norton Canes service area on the M6 Toll.
The branded counter, which will serve Coco di Mama’s core pasta and sauce range, will operate under a license agreement, similar to a franchise model.
Attwood said there was confidence to take the previously London-centric brand to new areas following its successful rollout as a delivery concept across the Azzurri estate.
He hopes to expand the brand to train stations and airports, as well as motorway services.
On the new trial partnership, Attwood said: “Roadchef are quite agile for a traditional motorway services business
“For them, they’re thinking about the future of roadside, travel and services, particularly with the transition to electric cars, so looking for a broader range and perhaps more exciting propositions than traditional QSR fast food.
“Italian and pasta specifically came up as something that they didn’t have any offer on and would be popular.”
Following the success of its delivery kitchen rollout, which has seen Coco reach 140 locations, Attwood believes this can be replicated in other channels such as travel.
He said roadside was one of a number of avenues the group was looking at, with the delivery kitchens giving Coco much greater awareness than it had as a City office worker-targeted brand.
“We are basically trying to emulate the journey that Pret and Leon have been on in terms of travel hubs,” he said.
“We’ve had to innovate quickly. Some things are working, some things are working less well - we are pretty much trying everything you can think of as a business. It’s quite exciting.”
Having been hit hard by Covid and lockdowns, Coco’s core bricks and mortar estate is currently down to 15 trading sites, having reached 30 pre-pandemic.
A handful of these were permanently shuttered following a pre-pack sale, with hopes that some will reopen as London footfall recovers.
He said it was unclear to what extent London would recover in terms of footfall.
“I’m not really worried about how quickly it recovers, it’s more that structural shift,” he said. “If London office workers go from an average of four-and-a-half days a week to three-and-a-half days, that’s a 20% reduction in everybody’s like-for-likes if there’s no there’s no change on the supply side.
“Wherever that ratio ends up, we’re going to be 10%, 20% 30% lower on demand. That will shape what the London business will look like.”
As well as travel hubs, Attwood hopes to bring the brand to commuter towns, as a more coffee-focussed cafe proposition.
“Basically, we’re following the commuter. They’re spending more of their time outside of London, so like a lot of brands, we’re going to go out to the commuter towns and market towns.”
And having launched delivery kitchens throughout much of the Azzurri estate, Coco will go live with third parties next, a mix of catering companies, tech companies and other hospitality business.
Attwood said the Coco offering was simple enough to execute and proven in terms of revenue and profit, making it appealing to hotels, pubcos or other restaurant groups with surplus kitchen space.
“There are plenty more locations for us to go after, London residential areas zone 2-5 for example, where we’re pretty underrepresented.
“If we can find the right partners, it’s fantastic in terms of the economics. We’re already set up to do it.
“Coco was a one trick pony, successfully doing bricks and mortar stores in London. Now we’re also running a network of delivery kitchens up and down the country, we’re learning a new skill in that. To add on new partners in new locations is not particularly complex.”
Another strand to Coco’s omnichannel strategy is its move into retail. It is currently supplying fresh food to 30 Sainsbury’s across London, up from 15 at the beginning of the trial.
“The challenge there is if you want to get freshly prepared, same day consumption of baguettes and salads, production has got to be done very close to the point of distribution,” Attwood added.
“We’re limited to some extent how far and fast we can go on that, but it’s working for them and it works for us. It’s a neat little partnership.”
Attwood said he would also like to launch a Coco di Mama range of food, such as dried pasta and jarred sauces into supermarkets, as Leon and Wasabi have done.
