Top tips to optimise your chilled drinks displays

While many food and drink retailers – especially in the convenience store and supermarket sectors – place great emphasis on creating attractive food displays, they often don’t put the same level of focus on their drinks. However, in an age where impulse drives buying decisions more than ever, leaving your chilled drinks displays as an afterthought may mean you’re missing out on the full potential of this lucrative revenue stream. The soft drinks category is worth about £2.4bn a year in the UK’s Convenience Store sector, equating to roughly £113,000 per outlet, while alcoholic drink sales account for an additional £40bn. With branding and product design taking centre stage – thanks to the growing influence of social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok – image and lifestyle are everything for thirsty consumers.

So, what does this mean if chilled drinks constitute a significant part of your retail business?

In short, it means you can’t afford to neglect your drinks offering and must do all you can to create attractive, eye-catching displays which are on-trend and tempt your customers to buy the latest must-try products. Here’s how you can achieve this… 

How to optimise your chilled drinks displays      

When it comes to creating the perfect in-store chilled drinks display, there are a few essential things to bear in mind. First, temperature is everything. If your customers are looking for ice-cold drinks on a hot summer’s day, they’ll be extremely disappointed if they can find only lukewarm cans or bottles. See below for more information on the best temperatures at which to display your different types of drinks.

Next, think about your customer experience. Ensuring your customers have easy access to your best-selling products is key to shifting more units, so make sure they are displayed prominently. Also, don’t stow your premium products out of the way. If your customers can’t see them, they can’t buy them, right?

The look of your display fridges is also essential. While stainless steel is popular in kitchens and behind the scenes, the display fridges in your front-of-house and customer-facing areas should look good and complement your brand identity and existing décor. White units are a safe choice that blend in with most environments, but if you’re looking for something more edgy or distinctive, black is currently a very popular option. Especially if it comes with quality lighting.

Finally, efficiency and ease of use are important considerations. Your display refrigerators tend to work harder in the summer months, and with energy prices on the rise, investing in units that are as energy efficient as possible will help keep your running costs down.

Keeping your units clean and well-maintained will prolong their service life. So, make sure you choose units that allow you to easily clean the condenser, or choose ones with low maintenance condensers that minimise how much they will clog up.

What’s the ideal temperature for your chilled drinks displays?

There’s nothing better than an ice-cold beer, a chilled glass of wine or prosecco, or a cold can of fizzy pop to quench your thirst in the warm weather. Even in the cooler months, most canned and bottled drinks taste better when they’ve been chilled for a bit, rather than left to sit at room temperature.

However, every beverage is different, and temperature can significantly affect the overall quality, taste and drinking experience. Some craft beers, for instance, can lose their distinctive, delicate flavour profiles if served too warm or too cold.

While there are no hard and fast rules about the perfect serving temperature for certain drinks, the below should serve as a rough guide:

Wine

Red wine is usually best served at room temperature to let its flavours breathe, but there is a growing trend for chilled red wine to accentuate its sweet and fruity characteristics and make it lighter on the tongue. As such, it’s best served at around 13°C. White wines and rosés chilled to between 9°C  and 13°C will balance out their acidity and give a fresher, crisper taste. And sparkling wines, including champagne, prosecco and cava, are best served between 8°C and 10°C for maximum refreshment.

Beer

Most beers are fine to serve at between 7°C  and 11°C, although darker beers like bitters, porters and IPAs tend to retain more of their flavour complexities at slightly warmer temperatures. Don’t serve any beers below 6°C, as this tanks their flavour and can affect their carbonation.

Fizzy drinks

Serving temperature is unlikely to affect the flavour of most fizzy drinks, so you can chill them down to around 3.3°C and they’ll still taste the same. Anything lower, though, can affect their carbonation and cause ice to form, affecting their mouthfeel and appearance.   

Water

Because water has very little taste, there are no hard and fast rules about its ideal temperature. It’s more about personal preference. However, many of your customers won’t be able to resist an ice-cold bottle of water on a warm day, so chilling it to around 7°C is sure to go down well.

Fruit juice

Freshly squeezed or unpasteurised fruit juices will last longer if stored at cooler temperatures, so aim to keep them chilled at around 12°C for optimum flavour and shelf life. Most juices tend to lose their sweetness and fruity flavour at really cold temperatures, so the optimal range for display is somewhere between 12°C and 15°C.

How can TEFCOLD help?

At TEFCOLD, we understand the importance of choosing the right refrigerated display equipment for your convenience store or retail business, so you can make the most of your chilled food and drink displays. As a UK market leader with decades of experience in the commercial refrigeration industry, we can offer practical advice to help you adapt to the ever-changing demands of the retail sector and supply refrigeration to take your business to the next level.

With an extensive, unrivalled stockholding, we can quickly deliver our products to customers at short notice to help you keep your business running smoothly. Our products are backed by exceptional customer service and aftersales support, with your satisfaction our number one priority.

If you’re interested in discovering more about how our refrigeration can enhance your retail or catering business, call us on 01332 850090 or email sales@tefcold.co.uk.