Ferguson Plarre Bakehouses raise the bar in service offering

Renews focus in customer experience, product innovation and exceptional coffee offering.

"In recent time we have renewed our focus on the in store experience offered in every Ferguson Plarre Bakehouse," Steve Plarre, Chief Executive Officer at Plarre Foods Pty Ltd, told QSR Media.

"We have been really honing in our service offering to ensure every customer who walks in the doors feels like they have escaped from the real world to an authentic, quality bakery-café with true European family heritage. Ferguson Plarre is all about delivering happiness through warm, comforting, delicious food. We aim to create an ambience and warmth where day to day stresses fall away and delicious treats, great coffee, real smiles and authentic service leave our customers with a bigger smile than the one they walked in with. We produce all of our own products fresh daily so we never have to be concerned about quality. For us it is about creating a place where our customers can truly stop and enjoy an authentic, heart felt, delicious moment," he said.

This is one of the significant changes the team has noticed in the last 10 - 20 years -- people’s desire to sit and consume a delicious cake or savoury in-store while also taking home their favorite item for enjoyment later on.

In addition, the brand has also invested heavily in improving its coffee offering and has renewed its focus on product innovations.

"We’ve invested significant resources in improving our coffee training and development team, including top class, experienced baristas who spend every day working with our franchisees on ensuring that every cup is perfect," he noted, pointing to the competitive coffee market in Victoria. "We’ve been making quality cakes for over 100 years but there’s no point serving a quality cake with anything less than a spectacular coffee and that’s where we need to remain focused."

Plarre added that its last major focus is on product innovation. "We have our own state of the art bakery and an incredible team of pastry cooks and cake decorators, some who have been with us for up to 50 years! We’re very lucky to be able to tap into this wealth of creativity and experience to develop new and exciting product ideas regularly. While we’re firmly committed to delivering old time favorites like our award winning Sausage rolls, Vanilla slices and Eclairs, the things that really excite us and keep the brand relevant for future generations are exciting and delicious new products, flavors & ideas that have yet to hit the cake cabinets!”

The brand has had recent success with products like salted caramel donut bites, chicken and portabello mushroom pies and Nutella filled donut bites. They are driving some real excitement at the bakery's shop counters with a record 12,000 Nutella filled donut bites made in a single day.

Meanwhile, the biggest challenge for the brand is around market saturation, according to Plarre. "The café/bakery space has a lot of players in it and these seem to be changing all the time. Anyone can sell a decent coffee with a bit of cake. Our challenge is to remain perpetually relevant to our customers so we can outlast and outshine the squeaky-new café on the corner. They will always come and go but food retail is hard and we’ve been around the block a couple of times. We’ve been around for over one hundred years and we’re confident that we’ll be around for another one hundred but not without a lot of hard work and of course freshly baked, delicious products made by people who care."

THE FIRST FLAGSHIP STORE

This year, the Chadstone shopping centre underwent a massive renovation in which Ferguson Plarre Bakehouses took the opportunity to build a flagship store and also mark its 115th year in the baking business.

"[It was] a perfect opportunity to showcase the true European heritage of the brand along with our renewed commitment to an exceptional in-store experience" Plarre noted.

He described the new store as a one off design for the Chadstone centre, adding "but the overall look itself forms the backbone of our new store design. We have gone back to our European roots for inspiration. This has seen us embrace an outside, inside look to the store. Imagine a street side European bakery that has been picked up and placed inside a shopping centre."

The store is modern yet channels a level of classic old world bakery. The new look plays to the brand's focus on experiences as well, offering a cosy relaxed space to escape to when the madness of a shopping centre gets too much.

Plarre also noted that several stores have been refurbished to feature that new design with other stores will soon follow.