Prepared food sales drive’s consolidation and competition in the Convenience store sector!

In the Seattle, WA metropolitan area 7 Eleven is going store by store hunting for existing operators to convert their existing convenience stores too a 7 Eleven. Including strong incentives for a rebranding program to include prepared fresh ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat quality foods, grocerant style. In the San Francisco bay area 7 Eleven will spend over $30 million opening 50 Northern California stores in the next two years. Plans will add about 20 new locations in 2010 and 30 in 2011. Half of the stores will be new; the other half will be existing mom-and-pop operations that opt to become 7-Eleven franchisees. Each new store costs about $1 million to build, and the conversions require an average investment of $255,000 by 7-Eleven


In New England 58 unit White Hen Panty is selling all of it’s stores to 7 Eleven. With it’s global food testing program well under way, the competition in the convenience sector is heating up. This is now about location and marketshare. What other regional players around the country may be next?

Regional players like New England based Tedeschi who have been in the area and stress local and family will have to step up their grocerant prepared food game. Currently they serve Green Mountain Coffee.and have a selection of fresh pasty and muffins for the morning daypart. The mid-day they have fresh subs or salads, however we have seen a much larger selection of food product in test at 7 Eleven and it will be interesting to watch what items and price that they roll with early in 2010.

Contact me for more at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/grocerant or leave a comment below. For more read this article: http://www.anything4restaurants.com/blog/index.php/2009/07/restaurant-consumer-discontinuity-the-consumer-moved-first/