Introducing Haskins
Haskins Garden Centres have been blooming since the family business first took root in Dorset in 1882. Today, the Haskins family still owns the growing group of garden centres with five locations in Ferndown, Southampton, Roundstone, Farnham and Snowhill. In recent years the biggest area of growth has been the restaurant side of the business, making them not just a plant retailer, but a leisure destination too.
Founded in 1882 by Harry Haskins
5 locations in Southern England
15,000+ restaurant transactions per week
20%+ of total revenue comes from F&B
“We had a stand-alone catering stock control system to help with stock management in our restaurants. This system had four separate databases, one for each centre, and so data entry was duplicated four times.”Claire Viney, Systems Manager, Haskins Garden Centres
The business challenge
With a retail POS system controlling their hospitality function, Haskins were facing inaccuracies with stock, a lack of visibility on product performance and inefficiencies within their restaurants.
Restaurant staff had full access to the system and changed recipes to suit their own chefs, which resulted in their databases growing out of sync with one another due to no central control.
Haskins manually integrated this stock control system with their retail EPoS system tills. However, due to the limited functionality, they had to sell products generically. For example, they would sell a scone as a scone but couldn’t capture the flavour or any of the preparation that went into creating the scone. This not only meant that their stock control was inaccurate, but they also had no visibility of their best and worst selling items.
The current setup was no longer fit-for-purpose, and, looking ahead at expanding their estate from four to six sites, Haskins was looking for a dedicated hospitality EPoS partner to manage the thriving F&B division of the business.
“The fact that Zonal is also a family business meant they shared our customer-focused values, and that gave us reassurance that we would be taken care of.”Claire Viney, Systems Manager, Haskins Garden Centres
The solution
After much research and a comprehensive procurement process, Haskins chose to work with Zonal as their technology provider. Impressed with Zonal’s EPoS and its ability to adapt to and grow with their business, they chose to implement Zonal’s EPoS terminals and handheld ordering iServe devices across their restaurants.
- A powerful EPoS solution, designed specifically for use in hospitality environments
- Cost-effective, reliable handheld ordering devices, allowing for team members to take orders and process payments from anywhere within their restaurants
- Teams are empowered to carry out check backs at the tables, providing an opportunity for customers to top up their order with either a fresh cup of coffee or dessert
- Improved efficiency and speed of service with faster, easier-to-use tech
- Greater control over stock levels
- Detailed analytics and reporting providing in-depth insight into product performance
“The reporting we can access is making a huge difference to the way we manage our business and our menus. We can now see what dishes are popular and giving us the best margins and those that either need refining or taking off the menu.”Ben Harrison, Group Catering Manager, Haskins Garden Centres
Results
“If we do have any complaints, it’s usually about people waiting for hot drink orders while their food goes cold. It’s a common issue for our style of service, but handheld ordering will enable us to resolve this problem going forward and make this process far more slick, efficient and customer friendly.”Ben Harrison, Group Catering Manager, Haskins Garden Centres
