The new season is the right time to pause, analyze your product range, and determine whether each item is truly contributing to the establishment’s success
In the Ho.Re.Ca. world, September is not merely a month of restarting operations. It is a time to resume planning, review what worked in previous months, and make decisions regarding the upcoming season. It is also an ideal moment to take a fresh look at your beverage offering. After all, an effective menu is not necessarily the one with the most items; rather, it is one where every product plays a specific role—one that aligns with the venue, the clientele, and the consumption occasions you aim to create.
Here are five questions to start with.
1. Is your offer still aligned with your customer?
The consumer is changing. Habits, consumption occasions, the focus on quality, and the way out-of-home experiences are enjoyed are all evolving.
The beverage sector is also following this evolution.
For this reason, before adding a new item, it is worth asking oneself:
• What is my customer looking for today?
• Which categories are becoming more interesting to my audience?
• Does my proposal still reflect the establishment’s positioning?
• Are there consumption occasions that I am not currently capturing?
It doesn’t mean chasing every trend.
It means understanding which changes might actually make sense for your establishment.
2. Does each reference have a role?
An extensive menu can seem synonymous with quality and choice.
But more products do not necessarily mean a better offering.
An effective selection should strike a balance: products capable of meeting diverse needs, distinctive items, premium offerings, more accessible alternatives, and categories that create new consumption occasions.
The question, therefore, should not be:
“How many product lines do we have?”
But:
“Why did we choose these specific items?”
When every product has a specific function, the menu becomes easier for the customer to read and easier for the staff to showcase effectively.
3. Is the beverage offering consistent with the venue’s identity?
A restaurant, a cocktail bar, a wine bar, a hotel, or a venue dedicated to aperitifs do not have the same requirements.
And yet, the beverage selection is often built simply by starting with the products available.
The starting point should be the opposite.
First the venue. Then the selection.
What is your positioning?
What kind of experience do you want to offer?
Who is your audience?
What are your main consumption occasions?
The answers to these questions help build a more coherent proposal, avoiding assortments that are too generic or difficult to showcase effectively.
4. How many consumption occasions are you creating?
Beverages are not limited to the meal itself. They can take center stage at an aperitivo, accompany a tasting, create an after-dinner moment, enhance an event, or serve as the starting point for a new seasonal offering.
That is why a beverage menu can be much more than just a list of products. It can become a tool for creating new consumption opportunities. Consider, for example, the potential to highlight:
• an aperitif featuring a more distinctive selection;
• a dinner featuring carefully curated pairings;
• after-dinner drinks with a dedicated offering;
• an event featuring a specially curated selection;
• a new time slot featuring a dedicated beverage offering.
The question to ask yourself is simple: “Am I using beverages only to accompany the service or also to create new opportunities?”
5. Are you choosing products or building a proposal?
This is probably the most important question. Wine, beer, spirits, water, soft drinks, and aperitifs belong to different worlds, yet together they help shape the establishment’s beverage experience.
That is why the selection should not be a simple sum of products. It should be a system.
One product can serve to differentiate the offering. Another can target a different price point. One can become the establishment’s signature product. Yet another can open up a new consumption occasion.
The value lies not only in the individual product, but in the way the products work together.
Where should we start again in September?
Not necessarily from a new price list. Nor from the search for dozens of new product items.
The starting point can be much simpler: pausing and looking at your proposal with a different question.
“Is what I am offering my customers today really what my establishment needs?”
If the answer is yes, you will receive confirmation. If the answer is no, September is probably the best time to take action.
Our point of view
At Poggiana F.lli, we believe that talking about beverages means talking about people, consumption occasions, identity, and business. That is why selecting a product shouldn’t start with the product itself; it should start with the context in which that product will be offered.
The venue, the customer, the moment, and the objective come first.
Then comes the right product. And it is precisely from this exchange that a truly effective beverage proposition can emerge.
Are you rethinking your offering for the new season?
Let’s talk about it.
Our work begins by listening to the needs of Ho.Re.Ca. professionals and identifying the solutions best suited to their establishments.