December 2017 Digital Issue

could educate customers on its unfamiliar marvels. It was the same
with kale, she says, and now with freekeh, an ingredient newcomer
poised to be the next supergrain. “As a company, you need to have an
innovative mindset,” she says of taking the lead on such novelties. “It’s
got to be part of your values.”
Along with bread, a raft of eclectic pastries (think Greek yogurt
cherry danish and coconut-orange cake) are baked in the kitchen and
everything is made-to-order — another distinction that separates
Aroma significantly from its coffee-shop competitors, where food is
wrapped in cellophane or has been sitting in a chilled plastic container
for a day.
Davidzon also decries the lack of ambiance on offer at many coffee
shops. “I’d get a coffee and a sandwich and sit in the parking lot,”
she remembers of her early Toronto coffee-drinking experience. It’s
why she invested serious time and effort in her stores’ “modern look,
slick design, comfortable seating and music.” Ten of the locations are
licensed, with wine, beer and a Signatures drink menu with hot and
cold drinks that can be spiked.
Taken as a whole, these characteristics make up the “Aroma twist,”
an approach to foodservice embraced by Aroma disciples that promises
the unexpected. It’s including a hard-boiled egg on the avocado sandwich,
for one. Or topping Moroccan-spiced chicken, black quinoa and
brown rice with tahini yogurt (house-made, of course). At its heart,
says manager of Marketing and Communications, Daniel Davidzon,
the Aroma twist is applying techniques and ingredients that aren’t as
common in North America as in Europe and the Middle East to foods
from here.
And then there’s the coffee, which isn’t just a critical ingredient in
Aroma’s success, but a potential impediment to it. On the one hand,
admits Daniel, the company struggled with the limitations the name
imposed on the brand for the whiff it gave of being a coffee shop only.
(A desire to, instead, showcase customers “eating huge salads out of
ceramic bowls with real utensils” is what informs a franchise-design
tenet that forbids papering the windows with posters.) The food-oblivious
moniker, shrugs Davidzon, simply means “you have to invest a lot
more resources in explaining what it is that you do.”
On the other hand, says David Hopkins, president of restaurant
consultancy The Fifteen Group, the coffee element of Aroma is at risk
of being diminished by the company’s passionate emphasis on food.
“Maybe they’ve got a huge coffee following that I don’t know about, but
I know a lot of people who go to Aroma and it’s not for the coffee.”
Ultimately, Aroma vies for consumer attention from both coffee
shops and healthy-food purveyors, equally. Such extensive competition
presents a tall order, says Davidzon, who admits to “waking at three
every morning thinking about [my] challenges,” because Aroma has
to tackle all the aspects of its competitors’ operations under one roof.
“I have to train Jay to make the salad in this location and Tim to make
the same salad in another.”
The trick to ensuring that consistency, she says, is identifying qualified
owner-operated franchisees, giving them tools and training, and
CONGRATULATIONS!
Kruger Products congratulates all those
who have received recognition at the
Foodservice and Hospitality 2017 Pinnacle Awards
© 2017, ® Registered and Trademark of Kruger Products L.P.