Find out more about the latest innovations in Jamaica Blue's food offering
QSR Media sat down with Mark Diezmann, Marketing Manager at Jamaica Blue, to talk about the brand's recent initiatives in the QSR space and its future plans.
Mark Diezmann also discussed the Jamaican Street Food campaign, which won the QSR Media Detpak Award for Best Innovation for Food and Beverage last July. Jamaica Blue is owned and operated by Foodco. The brand, which celebrated its 20th year anniversary in 2012 and is looking forward to its 25th anniversary next year, believes in sourcing the very best coffee and in using only fresh, locally sourced ingredients in developing its menu.
QSR Media: What's new at Jamaica Blue?
Mark Diezmann: Quality food and coffee are at the core of the Jamaica Blue brand and we have recently launched some great new initiatives in this space. During winter we unveiled a delicious range of Sourdough Crumpets topped with a variety of sweet and savoury flavours that have proved to be huge hit with customers. And in the coffee space, we are currently serving a unique Brazilian Single Origin coffee at all of our cafés for a limited time only. While coffee from the prestigious Blue Mountains of Jamaica remains central to the Jamaica Blue offering, with the Olympics shining a light on South America we thought it was a great time to showcase a unique coffee from Brazil – the world’s largest producer of high quality Arabica beans.
QSR Media: Can you tell us more about your Jamaican Street Food Fiesta campaign? What was behind the idea?
Mark Diezmann: At Jamaica Blue we are constantly looking for new and innovative recipes to wow our customers with. We have a strong connection to Jamaica through our coffee offering and while Jamaica has a well-established coffee heritage it also has a vibrant food tradition. We saw this as a fantastic opportunity to bring the rich flavours of the Caribbean to our customers through the development of a range of street food-style dishes. The beauty of street food is that it’s interesting, simple and fresh, which ties into our brand’s food philosophy of creating ‘classic dishes with a twist’ and preparing our food fresh on-site. It was great to see the positive response from customers as they explored these new tastes.
QSR Media: Can your customers expect anything similar in the future?
Mark Diezmann: At Jamaica Blue we are constantly evolving our offering and customers can certainly expect to be surprised and delighted by something new and interesting whenever they visit a Jamaica Blue café. While the Jamaican Street Food Fiesta range was available for a limited time only, we’ll continue to use some of the delicious spices, rich flavours and fresh ingredients found in the dishes in the future.
QSR Media: Any big plans you have before the year ends?
Mark Diezmann: There are always plenty of new initiatives happening within the brand and we have a packed calendar of activities in the lead-up to the busy retail period at Christmas. We’ll be unveiling a national partnership with a great charity which will see Jamaica Blue expand on our commitment to play an active role in giving back to the communities that we operate in. There will also be some exciting updates to our in-store and online retail offering and as we move into the warmer months we will unveil a fresh range of cold drinks and a summer menu headlined by an exciting collection of new healthy dishes.
QSR Media: What would you like to tell the market about the direction of your brand?
Mark Diezmann: Jamaica Blue is a brand with great momentum. In 2017 we will celebrate our 25th anniversary and we now operate over 165 cafés in seven regions around the world. Our commitment to constant evolution and delivering the ultimate experience to our customers has been the key to our success so far and this will continue into the future. While our focus remains the same we will continue to look at new and innovative ways to connect with our customers and grow the brand.
