As news emerges that BP is rolling out a fresh, made-to-order food pilot across its stores, vice president of convenience Europe Joanne Hayward talks to Retail Week about these new Wild Bean Cafe pilots, the transition to electric vehicles, and how BP is growing its convenience offer.
Having rolled out two pilots of its new Wild Bean Cafe made-to-order, food-to-go offering last year, BP is rolling out a further 10 pilots across the UK in the coming weeks as it aims to bolster its convenience offering.
The forecourt giant is planning to invest around $15bn (£11.8bn) globally in convenience and EV charging in the next seven years to better accommodate the needs of its growing 12 million customers – 50% of whom visit BP forecourts to shop rather than to fill up their cars.
As BP looks to double its customers by 2030, Hayward talks to Retail Week about the group’s ambitions to expand its sites, grow its convenience offering and become the number one choice for customers who are travelling.
What are your growth plans for BP’s convenience business?
“If we think about how customers have changed in the last few years, they’re becoming more time-pressed, more digitally savvy, and this means they want multiple services in one single touch point. We see an opportunity to play in that space, not just from a digital standpoint, but actually from a physical store standpoint.
“We need to ensure that we’re still going to offer customers the same quality, if not better quality, food and drinks that we offer today. We want to make sure that our offer is differentiated and that we’re giving them a reason to come to us.
“That’s why we’re investing in programmes like the Wild Bean Cafes so that we can offer made-to-order food. We’ve opened two sites in the south already, with another 10 sites to be rolled out in the next few months.
“The strength of our partnership with Marks & Spencer works really well for us in the UK, so we’ll look to do more of that as well.”
How is the shift to electric vehicles shaping BP’s convenience offering?
“Looking ahead to the low carbon energy transition, we know that people are going to have different needs for how they fuel their vehicles. If it’s a charging requirement, they’ll be on our sites for longer – anything up to 20 minutes – therefore they will want multiple things to do while on site.
“As we start to see that site progress to EV, we may change the layout slightly, add more seating and build new sites.
“We’ll continue to build our great convenience locations alongside the EV hubs that are in development, which could see some quite drastic changes to some of our sites – that’s really exciting.”
How successful have the made-to-order pilots been so far?
“Really successful. They’ve seen double-digit growth in sales and volume, and we’ve tailored the range, taken out some of the lines that weren’t necessarily seeing that same volume growth, and doubled down on the lines we know our customers really want.
“So there are some great lines, like the chicken burger and the egg and halloumi bap, that we know our customers are really loving.”
Why is this the time to launch more Wild Bean Cafe pilots?
“Everything we do is based on customer research and insight, so one of the reasons we’ve waited to launch the next 10 Wild Bean Cafe sites in the UK is because we wanted to tailor the offer to what our customers wanted. So you will see small differences in the 10 sites we’re about to launch compared with the two we launched last year.
“The market is also becoming more competitive than ever as Asda Express launches more sites. Part of our strategy is to remain differentiated and we know customers will soon have a broader choice of places to go to charge their vehicle – therefore, we want to maintain us as the number one choice in their minds.
“The key things are: delivering what the customer wants, when they want it and where they want it.”
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