Create A Balanced Menu
Designing the perfect frozen treat menu requires balance. Offering classic flavors will help draw your customers into your doors, while one-of-a-kind flavors will keep them coming back for more! At Flavor Burst, we have 40 incredible flavored syrups to choose from, including nearly unlimited flavor combinations, making it easy for you to offer your customers delicious frozen treats, no matter how adventurous their palate is. Here are a few best practices to keep in mind when ordering Flavor Burst flavored syrups for your shop.
Keep Classic Favorites Well Stocked
Some flavors have become classics for a reason! At Flavor Burst, our most popular syrup flavors for milk-based soft serve stripe are Strawberry, Chocolate Swirl, and Blue Goo. For milk-based blended beverages, Chocolate Swirl and Strawberry top the charts. These are simple, delicious and provide your customers with familiar, nostalgia-packed flavors. It’s a good idea to keep these crowd-favorite syrups well stocked, so we recommend using standard or popular syrups for about half of your syrup choices.
Choose Flavors Based on Your Customer Demographic
If you’re looking to expand your flavor syrup options beyond classic favorites, it’s important to consider the ages of the customers walking through your door. The reason Blue Goo is one of our most popular flavor stripe syrups is because of its wide appeal to young children. It has a fun name, vibrant color, and simple, sweet flavor. If you have a lot of children coming into your shop, try offering other sweet and colorful flavors like Cotton Candy, Bubble Gum, or Purple Grape. If you’re looking to offer wider options to customers with more discerning palates, consider flavors like Mocha Cappuccino, Pistachio Nut, or Butter Pecan.
Think About Which Flavors Are Popular in Your Region
No one knows your customers as well as you do! While the Flavor Burst popularity charts can serve as a helpful tool, they cannot account for regional taste differences. For example, our Flavor Burst team has noticed that Black Raspberry is a popular flavor for our frozen treat shops on the East Coast of the United States, while our West Coast customers are more likely to place orders for our Mango flavor. Canadian shops tend to put in more orders for our Maple flavoring, while Middle Eastern customers serve a lot of products with our Mocha Cappuccino flavor. Flavors that are popular in one region may not be in demand elsewhere.
Does your area have a distinct characteristic that may influence your customers’ flavor preferences? If you have a beachside shop, consider classic summertime flavors such as Pina Colada or Blue Hawaii Coconut. Or, think of what fruit your region grows and exports. Will your customers feel a sense of local pride or nostalgia in ordering products made with Tropical Orange, Peach Twist, Green Apple or Classic Cherry? This can be a helpful tactic if you can change the product name on your menu to reflect the local angle.
Choose Vibrant Colors
One of the biggest draws of Flavor Burst syrups is their bold, eye-catching colors. It’s no secret that desserts that look visually appealing will sell faster than more plain options. This is part of the reason why Blue Goo and Strawberry are our most popular flavors! Try to avoid choosing flavors that are all tan or brown in color. While still delicious, they may not attract the same attention as our bolder-colored syrups. For an extra eye-catching menu item, try offering a rainbow flavor stripe soft serve. Combine a pink or red flavor, a yellow flavor, and a blue flavor for a beautiful rainbow blend that is sure to delight your customers.
Offer Limited Edition Flavors
After you determine what your customers’ classic favorites are, pick additional flavors to offer as limited edition or seasonal flavors. You can even offer a “Flavor of the Month.” Changing up your menu offers your repeat customers a delightful variety. They’ll need to keep coming back to check out your latest flavor! And, it helps you test-run new flavors on your customer base. If a limited edition flavor wasn’t as popular one month, you know to choose a different option next season.
You can even offer different flavors for the season. Choose vibrant colors to correspond with holidays. Think reds and blues for Independence Day, pinks and reds for Valentine’s Day, greens for St. Patrick’s Day, and so on. If your region has a strong preference for an amateur or professional sports team, consider creating a limited edition, color-coordinated special for the start of the season or a championship game weekend.
Just don’t forget to run a full system flush (Clean-In-Place Process) as you switch out seasonal flavors. This process will sanitize the syrup lines, pumps, and other areas of the system to get it ready for all those delicious Flavor Burst syrups.
Maximize Your Menu by Combining Flavors
The ability to combine flavors in a single serving is what sets Flavor Burst apart from other flavoring systems, so try to select flavors that complement each other. Start with the standard flavors you know you will use, and ask yourself what different flavors will help you make fun combinations to mix up your menu.
When you order classic Chocolate, consider flavors that will pair well, such as Banana, Strawberry, Cherry, and Mint. Ordering Caramel? Also consider purchasing Green Apple, Chocolate, or Mocha Cappuccino. Offer a Berry Blast combo cone by mixing several Berry-flavored syrups together. Adding Cool Lemon to your lineup can help you create fun “Flavored Lemonade” mixes with Strawberry, Raspberry, and Blueberry.
Refer to Your Flavor Burst System
Did you know you can keep track of your flavor usage through your touchscreen and Color Touch Panel? Check out your owner’s manual for help accessing your machine’s syrup counts to get an idea of what has been popular with your customers.
Ready to get started using the Flavor Burst System? Get started today!