Shell outlines ambitions for new Shell Café format and collaborative opportunities in sustainable retailing

Shell is ramping up the roll out of its new Shell Café concept as it looks to grow its coffee and convenience business around the world.

The company, which has rebranded its retail business as Shell Mobility, unveiled its ambitions for its new Shell Café format at the recent Shell Global Growth Live 2021 event.

Now in its eighth year and hosted virtually for the second year running, Global Growth Live was attended by 1,600 Shell colleagues and supplier partners from over 60 countries.

Created with the support of Insight in 2013 as a platform for Shell to show its fresh commitment to growing its convenience business around the world, Shell Global Growth invites suppliers and brand partners to join the company on that journey.

At this year’s event Shell also shared its strategy to become a carbon neutral business by 2050 and showcased examples of new collaborative opportunities in sustainable retailing such as reducing waste.

Shell Café

Martin Smith, Global Category Lead Fresh Food & Drinks; Agnieszka Kozlowska, NFR Manager CEE; and Marleen Smits, Convenience Retail Manager, BeNeLux & France, showcased the new Shell Café concept and Shell’s aims for the new marque sub brand.

According to Smith, it’s Shell’s ambition to transition all sub brands to Shell Café over the coming years ahead and he drew a parallel with how Shell has harnessed all of its premium fuels under the V Power sub brand.

“That’s our intent and ambition with Shell Café,” he said.

Smith stressed the concept was not just an incarnation from head office but had been deeply researched from all angles including the brand name, retail design and signature coffee blends the company has developed centrally to go across multiple markets.

“Our brand essence of Shell Café is ‘crafted with care’,” he said. And it runs across every aspect of the new format – from the product through to the delivery and execution at site level through to the customer centric communications.

“The core message to our customers is that it’s worth stopping for. We want to drive a reappraisal of the coffee sold within Shell,” Smith said.

Agnieszka Kozlowska, NFR Manager CEE, Shell, shared how Central Eastern Europe was really moving at pace with the Shell Café format with plans to have more than 700 sites converted to the new sub brand by the end of the year.

New stores in many markets will feature both a self-service and serve over Shell Café proposition. “We want to make sure customers can choose the most convenient way of having their favourite coffee prepared quickly by themselves or prepared by one of our trained site champions,” she said.

Stores will also address a variety of customer needs on the go, she added.
“The key to success for us is to create a distinctive and own-able quality coffee experience with signature Shell Café elements.

“We are applying a big brand mindset in everything we do to ensure a consistent customer experience across all countries and locations,” Kozlowska added.

This means that from Warsaw to Moscow and Prague to Budapest Shell customers will be able to see and feel signature Shell Café elements in fresh coffee and food offers.

Kozlowska stressed the business was not “throwing away” the great food ranges countries offer to meet local needs with Shell Café, such as the Jamie Oliver range in the UK, for instance.

Instead it was about finding the right balance between consistency and standardisation and providing local choice for customers, Kozlowska explained.

Outside of the company’s hard work converting sites, Shell Mobility has spent a huge amount of time, energy and commitment on knowledge transfer and building pride in the organisation, Kozlowska added.

“We are passionate about Shell Café and sharing it internally and externally with our customers,” she said.

In August Shell Mobility launched a significant marketing campaign to inform customers about the new Shell Café brand.

In the Czech Republic, for example, customers can buy a Shell Café coffee tumbler to drive frequency of coffee consumption; while in Russia there is a promotion featuring coffee rewards and prizes including coffee machines and home coffee accessories.

Marleen Smits, Convenience Retail Manager, BeNeLux & France, Shell, took delegates on a virtual tour of a new Shell Café in the Netherlands.

“The format really focuses on slowing you down and receiving you in a welcoming environment,” she said.

A healthy food service lane offers water, juice, oatmeals and yogurt to encourage a healthy and fresh start to the day; while a free water station enables customers to fill their own bottles and encourages sustainable behaviour.

The offer comprises a sandwich bar with a wide variety of freshly baked sandwiches and a new Street Food bar concept, offering hot meals for late afternoon and dinner.

The Shell Café Coffee bar sits at the heart of the fresh food offer, where service heroes serve barista coffee and a wide variety of home made pastries, including a signature Dutch apple pie.

Digitalisation is to the fore too with self-checkouts. According to Smits, these help to eliminate processes that do not add value, so the Shell Café’s service heroes have more time to bring you a hospitality service.

“The Shell Café format is transforming traditional petrol sites to become destinations,” said Smits.

“We make mobility enjoyable – a place where you can recharge yourself while you recharge electric vehicle outside.”

Smith highlighted the massive opportunity Shell Café offered for FMCG with time of day offers, different menus across all markets plus the need to bring branded products into the mix and increase basket spend.
It was also a call to action on private label, he said.

“It’s a huge focus for us – yes fresh coffee and yes fresh food but there are packaged products we could sell as well. We want to do a ‘V Power’ to fresh coffee and food and there’s no reason we can’t do it together – there’s still significant opportunity,” he said.

Mobility and convenience

István Kapitány, Executive Vice President Mobility, Shell, addressed the company’s convenience retail plans alongside the energy transition. He said Shell was committed to staying number one in the mobility business globally and that convenience retail played an essential role as mobility needs convenience services more than before.

The company’s strategy to be a carbon neutral business by 2050 was great news for the mobility business and Shell’s suppliers, Kapitány said.

Shell has outlined three pillars on that journey:

• An upstream pillar, since oil and gas production is going to continue because it is important for the mobility of the world
• A transition pillar, comprising LNG and chemicals, for example and
• A growth pillar

“This is the good news part. For the first time at Shell, marketing and mobility is the growth pillar,” Kapitány told delegates.

Growth will be organic via optimisation and a $1bn investment but Shell is looking very actively at inorganic opportunities i.e. buying other players in the convenience retail arena, Kapitány, said.

Significant investments will also be made in the EV charging sector.

“We have far more ambitious plans than before but we need to be growing this business together, hence the Global Growth event – we cannot grow this business alone.”

Kapitány shared how it was working with partners and suppliers on the energy transition and referenced its partnership with Waitrose to provide EV charging services at its supermarkets.

“If you have EV charging ambitions and need a partner, we are here to help you,” Kapitány said, highlighting the company’s EV charging investments in

NewMotion and Greenlots plus Shell’s Recharge branded offer.

“We will buy more EV charging posts in the next five years than petrol pumps,” he added.

Kapitány emphasised how supply partnerships would enable the business to decarbonise faster.

“Shell has a very strong determination to decarbonise and we are able to offer energy services in that arena. And our suppliers and partners are going through the same thing.”

Kapitány said it was Shell’s aim for the Ferrari Formula 1 car to be running on sustainable fuels by 2025, stating “even a Formula 1 racing event can decarbonise and play a role”.

Sustainable retailing

Fiona Varley, Mobility Sustainability Delivery Lead, Shell, highlighted the collaborative opportunities sustainable retailing presented at Global Growth Live 2021.

While sustainability at Shell is embedded across the key themes of climate, environment and livelihoods, environmental issues surrounding waste have caught the public zeitgeist.

“Consumers are more concerned about waste than ever before so demands on us and our suppliers are increasing. We need to take action in this area to be doing the right thing for both the environment and our customers,” Varley said.

Shell has three key priorities in this area:

• Eliminating unnecessary single use plastic and encouraging reuse
• Managing site waste and increasing recycling
• Making its own label packaging either reusable or recyclable

Varley said it was Shell’s ambition for 100% of its service stations to be committed to reduce, reuse and repurpose waste and to benefit local communities.

“Shell wants to play an active role in finding lasting solutions to drive the circular economy and reduce waste,” she said. “We can do it with our partners. That’s how we can win in this area.”

Steps to eliminate unnecessary single use plastic and encouraging reuse include replacing single use plastic bags with reusable cloth bags and changing plastic cutlery to bamboo.

Innovative solutions like refill units have also been developed with Shell’s partners to encourage the reuse piece and change behaviours, Varley said.

Managing site waste and increasing recycling is a global initiative. In South Africa, for example, Shell has partnered with Imagined Earth to offer recycling  vending machines, which incentivise customers into caring for the environment. Beneficially, the recycling machines have also brought new customers to sites to purchase both fuel and shop items.

Varley said Shell has similar initiatives in place in Indonesia in partnership with Danone and in the Philippines working with Coca-Cola plus in the US where it is working with start ups.

“Suppliers can get involved with hardware on sites plus the different solutions to get people to recycle,” Varley said.

Changing its own label packaging to be either reusable or recyclable is also key since it’s a driver of consumer choice, Varley said.

“It makes our brands more credible and desirable for our customers,” she explained.