Grove Park Deli Merges Traditional Loyalty With High Tech

Local business has new mobile app to reward customers

Popular local company Grove Park Deli now gives its customers access to a mobile app as independent retailers take the opportunity to run their own loyalty schemes.

The scheme means that Grove Park Deli customers can get offers and promotions on their smart phones and see rewards without having to carry around loyalty cards.

The deli, which is owned by Janice Timothy stocks a wide variety of home-made salads and cakes and makes everything from scratch, including their own hummus and pesto.

The store front has recently had a makeover and now features a cool green and white colour scheme and striped canopy.

With a range of local celebrity clients, Grove Park Deli was once featured in an episode of ‘The Apprentice’, in which the team had to persuade Janice and her staff of the merits of their pickles and chutneys.

‘A loyalty app for independents is an innovation whose time has come’, says director and co-founder of Loyal Zoo Ltd, Chiswick-based Mark Ryan who co-founded the company with Massimo Sirollo. ‘The number of shops offering their own loyalty scheme is now unmanageable for the consumer. People can’t keep track of them, yet merchants know that rewarding loyalty is a must’.

With the new Loyal Zoo app everything is done with just a couple of taps as the app is a cloud-based system- so no more filling forms or having points stamped on a card during a transaction.

Janice opened the Grove Park Deli nearly ten years ago, but has had a long career in catering, starting out as a trainee at Langan’s Brasserie, and including stints working as personal chef for Andrew Lloyd Weber. The deli is open from early morning and offers fresh home-cooked food and bespoke catering.

From fresh made-to-order sandwiches, to a wide selection of hams, salamis and cheeses, homemade meals for when you are too tired to cook but still want a homemade dinner as well as a great range of cakes the list of foods is ever- evolving. Cheeses, meats and salamis are piled high along with delicious salads and Janice's famous sausage rolls or a vegetarian option of spinach, feta & pine-nut roll.

Gourmet delights, from Spanish saffron to incredible Italian cantuccini are on offer and their full range of products is constantly changing with the seasons-Christmas puddings and hampers will shortly be available for time-pressed customers.

With signs that customers are returning to supporting their local stores, neighbourhood shops are being appreciated not just for the uniqueness of their offering but their contribution to the life of an area. With the Loyal Zoo app, customers will see their favourite independents leapfrog over the big chains, with a simpler and more technologically advanced way of staying loyal to their local shop and earning rewards in the process.

October 11, 2013