Six days in the Test Kitchen

First off, thanks for taking an interest. Day one was chaotic. We did not expect a line fifty people deep, all of them ready for their golden ticket.

I arrived at the store at 4am, because I wanted plenty of time to set the display up properly and work out where everything sat best. It was the first time we had the actual product in the actual shop in that kind of quantity. By 5am I had a good deal of fresh product out on the counter. Not many customers at that hour, but my first sale was at 6:30am, and the store normally opens almost two hours later. My team arrived at 6am and were shocked to find it all ready.

It was exciting seeing all these new colours and shapes and smells come to life for the first time. The aroma coming off the raspberry brownie bites was something else. Not to mention the warmth and honey off the savoury scrolls.

And yes, we went a little rogue with the energy balls. We have been keen to see whether people looking for a treat without the sugar would consider buying from us, and in fairness the carrot cake bites have gone down really well. Soft, not overly sweet, still delicious, with the sweetness coming from dates. We put them in sweet jars, which felt fitting.

The golden tickets were a hit. Every customer wanted to keep theirs, but then we would have run out, so we had to hang onto them. Sorry, fans.

The first day the Lola’s team got together, day six, we dropped three products straight away based on the feedback and started upping the numbers on the things customers loved. We agreed a whole host of tweaks too.

The lemon loaf is too small. The cinnamon croissant was too sweet, the icing too thick. The almond croissant cookie was not selling fast enough and was not loved, so it was dropped. All of that came out of customer votes and live sales.

NPD really have their work cut out now that customers are giving live feedback on things they have just tasted. I had a few big thumbs up in person too. Two ladies bought the chocolate crisp cookie and ate it straight away, feet from the store. One of them looked over, gave me a thumbs up, and we shared that moment.

That same day we put the store back to something more normal, giving half the space to Test Kitchen and the rest to cupcakes, cakes and our other bakes. Some customers were very surprised when they started looking at the counter for cupcakes.

Generally, what we thought would do well did, and what we thought might be a tougher sell was still sitting on the counter later in the day. Very validating.

As we move into the next chapter we are working out which stores get Test Kitchen next, in just under two weeks. We do not have it all mapped out, to be honest. Based on how well the giveaway and the offers went, we are thinking about which locations would suit it. Our bakery teams are concerned about Test Kitchen and Halloween colliding, and Halloween orders take priority, so that one is a work in progress.

We are also using AI to review the customer feedback, look at the sales, and help suggest how much of each item to send to the store. Every day is a new adventure, so that information is proving really valuable in making sure we have the products our customers are actually asking for. AI is good at pulling a lot of things together at once and showing you what matters. That is a new test for us in itself.

So, I hope you enjoyed this short snapshot of Test Kitchen. We had the best time. If you visited, thank you. If you tasted and rated, we love you, and thanks for supporting our adventure into something beyond cupcakes.

Asher

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