Small garden centres without cafés are being offered the chance to trial automatic bean-to-cup coffee machines this spring to show how they can boost customer spend.
Jacques Farmer, owner of tea and coffee equipment and product supplier Café Works said: "We're happy for garden centres to have one of our fully-automatic bean-to-cup machines as part of a trial for a limited period, on a rental basis, to show them how they can increase their sales overall.

"In other similar outlets where we have installed them, retailers without cafés already have fed back to us that the addition of coffee to their offering is attracting new customers, and that when they are on-site they are buying additional items. They also say that existing customers are now visiting more often."

Café Works, which is based in Shropshire, provides single serve coffee options, tea and coffee equipment and vending solutions.

Mr Farmer added: "The trials we've run already in similar businesses have been great successes. Feedback has included that customers are delighted they can now purchase a tastier, less expensive coffee than at their local Starbucks.

"For garden centres that don't have a café this is the next best thing for testing the catering market as visitors can select their own great tasting coffee without staff being involved, and it's not just any random vended coffee either, the machine uses top quality beans.

"Our trials have found that the introduction of the machine has definitely helped increase customer spend per head."

Café Works is an authorised distributor of Keurig equipment and products.
The trials are subject to equipment availability at the time of request. For further details, call Café Works on 01952 291026 or visit www.cafe-works.co.uk.