AF Blakemore rolls out Philpotts self-serve coffee

AF Blakemore is rolling out the Philpotts food to go brand more widely to Spar retailers in England and Wales as a self-serve coffee machine.

The new machine was unveiled at the annual Spar Retail Show in Telford last week and is distributed by Café Direct. The average margin retailers can make on the coffee is 50%.

Speaking to RN, the distributor’s national account manager, Emma Hughes, said: “We’ve got 15 machines to roll out over the next month.

“We’ve focused on the demographic of Spar customers. Customers can select their own coffee and pick between normal milk and oat milk.”

Anil Vid, head of fresh excellence at AF Blakemore, added: “We wanted something that was our own brand, with a history behind it. The feedback has been amazing. It’s a Fairtrade coffee. Customers want value for money, and we’re giving the same quality that you get for a £4 coffee. It appeals to a range of demographics.”

Although AF Blakemore had bought the Philpotts brand out of administration in 2019, it has only been trialled as a larger format food to go concession in selected sites so far. The release of the new machine makes the brand more accessible to a wider customer base within the Spar estate.

The rollout marks an ongoing departure for Spar from major coffee brands such as Costa Coffee. Notably, Spar stores in Scotland have had Costa machines replaced by Barista Bar, as part of wider food to go plans by wholesaler CJ Lang.

AF Blakemore’s FY24

At the conference, AF Blakemore’s CEO Carol Welch revealed that the company had invested a total of £24m into the Spar retail group. The company put £18m into new sites, refurbishments and a refrigeration programme, while £4m went to technology and £2m went to electric vehicle charging.

Welch said: “If I look across the whole of 2023-2024, it started really well because of the hot summer. And we used that momentum by introducing unique-to-Spar offers in the areas of vaping, Prime energy drinks and Mr. Beast chocolate, which really helped drive footfall into all of our stores. One of the things that’s been really successful for us is the Tesco price match, too.”

AF Blakemore operations director Edward Howe added that Spar’s current strategy is labour cost reduction through investing in technology to simplify store processes.

This includes investment into self-checkouts, headsets, and electronic shelf labels (ESEL). The company said it has saved 35 hours per week through self-checkouts, 12 hours with ESELs, and 70 hours through a partnership with home delivery firm Snappy Shopper. 

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