Protein brand Grenade is being made available to convenience stores as a self-serve milkshake drink, potentially gener­ating retailers more than £9,000 in annual profit.

The new product is be­ing distributed by Denby Drinks Company, former­ly known as Denby Dale Coffee, in two options, including retrofitting the company’s Schmoo milk­shake machines and mak­ing Grenade one of the four available flavours.

According to Denby Drinks Company manag­ing director Stephen Roy, partnered stores with a Schmoo machine are gen­erating an average of 25 sales a day, with the RRP per 300ml cup ranging between £1.50 and £1.95.

The company claims stores can make at least £1 profit per serving sold, equivalent to £9,125 a year when based on average daily sales of partnered retailers.

The machine itself is available either on an out­right purchase or through monthly payments.

It comes with a 12- inch screen, contactless payment options and 12-month warranty. It measures 183cm in height, 50cm in width and 70cm in depth. Mainte­nance must be completed every six months.  Posters, branded cups and pavement signs are also provided by the company.

The other option is a fully branded Grenade machine, although Roy said this was more suited to gyms and leisure businesses.

Opportunity

According to Retail Data Partnership till data from nearly 4,000 stores, 15 out of the top 25 protein bars and drinks sold in small shops last year were the Grenade brand.

The Oreo Grenade bar, which was the top-selling product in the category, was sold by 60% of stores, generating an average weekly profit of £2.17.

Explaining the op­portunity of ranging Grenade-branded milk­shakes, Roy told Better Retailing: “The machines would still be branded as Schmoo, but we can brand the fourth drink-button area with Grenade. The machine has a multimedia screen, and we could communicate the availability of Grenade on there.

“Our core business had previously been coffee, but over the past 10 years, we’ve evolved drastically into chilled drinks. More than 50% of our business is frozen and chilled drinks. Conveni­ence is number one for us, and we started placing Schmoo machines across convenience about a year ago.

“We’ve seen more and more shelving space being removed to accommodate hot and cold drinks and the margins are a lot big­ger. We’ve got quite a few machines in Spar, Nisa, Premier and Co-op.

“Sales of slush and coffee tend to peak in summer and winter, respectively. Milkshakes have more of a consistent trend. Mc­Donald’s sells milkshakes all year round and it’s less seasonal.”

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