Planet Cafe secures lucrative deal with Scottish Spar network

25/10/2022
Left to Right: Ronan Gourley (Planet Café), Stewart Ferguson (CJ Lang), Stephen Brown (CJ Lang) and Philip Woods (Planet Café) celebrate news that Planet Café heat-to-eat products are to be stocked across more than 100 Spar stores throughout Scotland

AWARD-winning Irish food brand, DELI LITES has secured a deal with the Spar network for a new range of Planet Café food on the go products. 

Consumers will be able to purchase six new products from the recently launched Planet Café range across more than 100 Spar stores in Scotland. It’s the first time the range will be available in Great Britain. 

Dedicated to bringing the best Irish food on the go choices to the international market, Planet Café is committed to using the finest ingredients from local producers to create quality, responsibly sourced, nutritious food on the go products. 

The Planet Café range has been developed to provide discerning consumers more excitement and choice, specifically providing hot food options to eat when on the move.  

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The six new recipes are inspired by flavours of the world with a focus on premium ingredients and being kind to the planet. They include Tóstas, Burritos and Paninis to tempt a variety of taste buds. Designed with the ultimate convenience in mind, the heat-to-eat products will provide Spar customers with more choice to grab a high-quality product while on the go, whilst guaranteeing a memorable taste experience. 

Brian Reid, CEO and co-founder of DELI LITES which launched Planet Café just months ago said: “Our vision from the beginning has always been to provide customers with more choice and excitement when choosing food on the move. Our Planet Café range is a celebration of much-loved world flavours, prepared with the finest ingredients that offer customers a more wholesome, tasty hot food option without compromising on taste or quality. 

“There has been a significant increase in demand for more choice in hot food on the go and the Planet Café offering, which is the first premium range of its kind in the market, has a variety of heat-to-eat products to suit many tastes. With hybrid working now becoming part of everyday life, we expect a strong demand for on-the-go healthier lunch options, especially across the UK’s towns and villages as home workers decide to pop out for a healthy heat to eat lunch. 

“Now that products from our Planet Café range will be available to Spar customers in 100+ stores across Scotland many more customers will have a chance to taste the Planet Café difference. We have no doubt that our heat-to-eat product range in Spar will become a firm favourite with customers.” 

Stephen Brown, Head of Food to Go for C J Lang & Son Ltd said: “We’re delighted to be working with DELI LITES to bring these new, innovative food to go products to our customers through our network of company owned SPAR stores across Scotland. At SPAR Scotland we’re always looking to continually improve upon our existing food to go offering, looking for new products to tempt our customers.  These products from Planet Café do just that and we’re excited to be the first convenience retailer in the UK to offer up these great tasting food to go products.” 

The overall food-to-go sector is expected to grow rapidly after a sharp bounce back to £22.3bn worth in 2023 in the UK1. Currently it is estimated that 12 per cent2 of all trips to convenience stores are driven solely by a food-to-go mission. And this is set to significantly increase as well as see food-to-go options more readily available in workplaces, medical outlets, transport hubs and more remote areas on a 24/7 basis.  

There are also many opportunities for convenience retailers to embrace the food on the go offering with a more artisan flair, like the inspiring recipes used in the Planet Café range, to differentiate from other lower quality retail offerings. Furthermore, hot food-to-go tends to be more valuable for retailers with an average basket value of £5.61, compared with £4.71 for chilled food-to-go. 

Spar customers will be spoilt for choice with the new Planet Café heat-to-eat options, choosing from the Louisiana Inspired Cajun Chicken Panini, the Ultimate Chicken & Bacon Irish Tósta, the Mexican Inspired Chipotle Beef Burrito, the Grilled Cheese & Ham Irish Tósta, the Tex Mex Inspired Plant Based Burrito and the Tuscan Inspired Veg & Mozzarella Panini in their retail outlets. 

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