The Food Industry Blog | News, Updates & Ideas
Industry Insider: Aurore Blake from Scent Australia
Who knew that introducing a fresh coffee aroma into a mini-mart could boost coffee sales by 300%? That’s where Scent Australia comes in with their innovative Scent Marketing. We asked Aurore Blake, Marketing Manager at Scent Australia, a few questions about business and working in the food industry.
Tell us a little about Scent Australia
Scent Australia is a Scent Marketing or Ambient Scenting company. We design and diffuse high-quality scents in restaurants, hotels or cafes to improve the customer experience.
Scent Marketing has shown that the use of scent can result in extremely good results regarding promotion and marketing for restaurants and cafes. For example, studies in a petrol station with a mini-mart saw the sales of coffee raise by 300% after introducing a fresh coffee aroma.
What is the science behind Scent Marketing?
The taste of food is almost entirely influenced by an accompanying scent. Scent can stimulate appetite, and the smell of our favourite foods can cause our mouth to water and increase the chances that we will buy some. The release of various food aromas will reconnect customers with food which may be packaged or frozen.
A study published in the Journal of Texture Studies has shown that showing images of food is not enough to produce the mouth-watering sensation that causes people to look for food. According to scientists, the reason is that a picture of food is not real enough to convince the brain that food is coming, there needs to be a smell involved.
What helps make your business stand out to the likes of restaurateurs, café owners and chefs?
Our business has realistic food scents, they all smell authentic! Cafes working with us see the benefits of adding scent to their venues such as increased foot traffic, improved sales or more customer satisfaction. It is very hard to resist an indulgent creamy patisserie scent or a creamy hot chocolate.
What do you love about running Scent Australia?
The best part of running Scent Australia is being part of something so relatively new in the food industry, but so necessary. Food and scents have always been linked together, and that seems like a no-brainer that cafes owners need to attract guests with beautiful and yummy scents.
What do you find are the biggest challenges in running your business?
As Scent Marketing is still a relatively new industry, the biggest challenge is to get people educated about it. But once a business tries it, the satisfaction is guaranteed.
What advice do you have for a food business?
Food businesses should think of which scent would represent the best their offering and go for high-quality scents as otherwise, the scent will not complement their space. It is also a good idea to consider connecting the scent to their air conditioning system so that the scent lingers around homogeneously.
Visit Scent Australia at www.scentaustralia.com.au.
Find Scent Australia on Facebook.
Connect with Scent Australia on LinkedIn.