Add Specialty Beverages to K-12 Cafeteria Menus

Many coffee shops and cafés use fun names, crave-worthy limited time offers (LTOs) and other methods to drive sales of specialty beverages. Strategically positioning your smoothies and coolers—whether or not they contain coffee—is beneficial to your school meal program for a few reasons:

• It drives student interest and makes your offerings appealing even BEFORE students take a sip.
• It equates you with their favorite off-campus cafés and coffee shops, helping kids associate your school meal program with tasty fast-casual style.
• Refreshing coffee drinks made with yogurt are especially good for filling up active, growing kids because of their high protein content!

What’s in a name?

With eight easy YoGo Cooler recipes ranging from Mocha to Cinnamon Swirl, there’s a lot to work with. Here are a few ways to do it:

Incorporate your teams’ name

Combine your team name with an appealing name for a cold beverage:

• Tiger Fuel if you’re the Tigers
• Gator Shakes if you’re the Gators
• Cougar Coolers if you’re the Cougars

Use alliteration

If you’re the Mountain Lions, offer a Mountain Lion Mocha Cooler!

Try a pun!

Are you the Knights? What about serving students a Hazel-Knight Cooler? Get more naming ideas from the YoGo Cooler Recipe Book here.

Limited Time Offers

This is a strategy top coffee shop chains often use to their advantage. We’ve developed special seasonal smoothies with a coffee shop-inspired twist, like the Pumpkin Spice Cooler for fall and the Chocolate Mint cooler for winter, but don’t be afraid to come up with your own! LTOs could be offered during homecoming week, leading up to prom, one-day-only on Valentine’s Day, after sports teams’ victories and more.

Click here for Free YoGo Cooler posters, playlists and more!

Interested in even more free downloads, recipes and inspiration? Check out Good Times Café, a fast-casual concept we’ve developed specifically for K-12 operators like you.