In Grocery Gazette’s Meet the Tastemaker series, we speak to the innovation specialists at the UK’s leading supermarkets and food retailers to find out where they find inspiration for new products and how they transform the shelves of UK grocery stores.

In part two of the series, we speak with BP European foodservice specialist Jessica Gellett.

The forecourt operator’s Wild Bean Cafe has been running for over 20 years, serving busy customers travelling around the UK from its 320-plus sites.

The cafes now sell a wide range of food from on-the-go breakfast and lunch to sweet treats. From a coffee standpoint, BP is also doing “incredibly well”, according to Gellett, having sold 23.6 million coffees last year alone.

With plans to continue expanding and improving its ranges, from its recently launched fresh made-to-order proposition to its festive offerings and 2025 drinks range, Gellett tells Grocery Gazette how BP is driving innovation and flavour in its products.

My role is all about food and service connections at the European level. Whether that’s our proprietary brand Wild Bean Cafe or working with our partners, I provide subject matter expertise as well as hands on support where needed. Our aim is to deliver fresh, quality food and beverage offers that our customers want, and being that first choice for customers on the road.

Whilst I have a European wide remit and role, the UK is one of our biggest convenience markets and so this is where we look to test a lot of our innovation before we roll out.

The UK is one of our biggest convenience markets and so this is where we look to test a lot of our innovation before we roll out.

For me, innovation is all about staying on top of the latest trends, looking at gap analysis and pushing boundaries.

I love the versatility of my role and the fact that no one day is ever the same. It’s also incredibly rewarding when you get to pass on your foodie passion and knowledge to others, ultimately seeing how that impacts the business as we continue to expand and evolve.

For us, everything starts with the customer: what they need, how we satisfy that need and understanding that their behaviours are ever-changing. But beyond what our customers tell us, it’s really important to keep one eye on the competition, whether that’s direct food-to-go players or broader restaurants and retailers.

Personally, I’m a bit of an Instagrammer or a TikToker and I love keeping up to date with bloggers.

There’s a gentleman who runs a social channel called Eating with Tod and he shares his best food bites. He actually went to New Zealand and tried the butter chicken pie in one of our Wild Bean Cafe stores recently, so it’s quite nice when you see us coming up through those sorts of platforms.

We aim for what we term a ‘comfortable adventure’, providing customers with familiarity and the product they know and love, but with a bit of a twist for the taste buds.

The made-to-order proposition is a great example of that. We’ve introduced elements like our signature seasoning, where it’s expertly applied to our freshly grilled Burford Brown eggs and it gives you that sensational flavour.

For us, quality comes with training. We need to ensure we are constantly delivering that fresh, made-to-order proposition to a high standard, which is why we upskill our existing staff.

We have a test kitchen facility and we’ve been taking each team to the site and training them on three key stages, which we call it the emotional, cranial and practical.

The emotional is all about building that team and that honest channel of communication, the cranial is about learning food safety principles, food knowledge and getting them passionate about food. The final one, the practical, is the hands on experience, we talk to them about how to manage stock rotation, production planning, and also just cooking up a storm.

We then support them hands on in-store, helping them get to grips with the kitchen and what customer expectations will be.

Within the UK, our bacon and cheese turnover is a clear favourite with our customers. We sold 2.4 million last year and we hope to do a little bit more by the end of the year.

Breakfast is a really busy time of day for us. We provide fresh bacon baps across all of our sites and then within fresh made-to-order, we have a big breakfast bap which is a clear hero line for us.

One that really springs to mind is from a pop-up cafe away from the forecourt environment which enabled us to be truly innovative, where the chicken parm sandwich came to life.

It was freshly baked bread, rich marinara sauce, melting mozzarella an crisp breaded chicken. It was such an amazing product and we had great customer feedback, but it was just one of those that was too challenging to scale.

But, it actually led us to the crispy herby chicken burger.

We’ve successfully launched this fresh made-to-order proposition and I’ve developed it all around great quality ingredients and fresh products.

The menu highlights some newness that you might not have seen in the marketplace, such as our fish finger sandwich. We’ve also introduced a garden salad which can be customisable with either chicken or freshly grilled halloumi, as well as our made-in-store baguettes, which are freshly baked and filled in store.

Within our fresh made-to-order, we allow customers to personalise their orders. For us, it’s our point of difference within the marketplace. For a bacon and egg bap for example, you can add, remove, tweak and change it, even to how your egg is cooked.

We’ve got some exciting new festive products out at the moment, such as our new cookies and cream latte and festive slice. We’ve even introduced Pigs in Blankets in our freshly made-to-order pilot sites. All of these are proving to be a hit so far with our customers!

Health is a massive trend. Whether it’s driven by customer demand or climate legislation it’s become commonplace to offer vegan and vegetarian offerings. There’s also a huge focus with HFSS, so focusing on lower fat, salt, sugar products.

For us at the moment, one of the big focus areas would be specialty drinks. A lot of our competitors have been known for simply good coffee and maybe a selection of iced or frappe beverages. But what you’re seeing now across the market is an array of coolers, refreshers, whips, milkshakes, bubble teas.

The drinks industry has massively evolved from a server perspective and who knows what wildness will be coming up in Wild Bean Cafe next?