Convenience Stores Interactive Participatory Foodservice Success

Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® was not just looking for multi-syllable words fot the title of today’s blog.  What our Grocerant Guru® was doing was simply drilling down on the key drives of success fueling the C-store foodservice Sector. 

Those retailers finding incremental success are driving that success with interactive participatory consumer focused foodservice. In short Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat grocerant niche fresh prepared food.  Here is one example for convenience store news. Gas prices were down in 2016 in fact, fuel sales as a percent of total c-store sales were down 7% which means only one thing: all growth in the c-store channel is coming from inside the store specifically foodservice. 

In the new C-Store News study found that “Of all the in-store categories, foodservice, and prepared foods in particular, is the most important category for future growth. Foodservice sales grew by 7 percent last year, outpacing the overall 5-percent increase in in-store sales. More importantly, foodservice is the c-store’s most profitable category”.

So with that knowledge in hand  Carbonview Research decided to investigate what are the most innovative products consumers want, and which of these products retailers can implement to drive traffic and sales to their stores.  Here is what they found in 2016:

H20 Flavor Station

We called this one “The Quick Win” for the following reasons:

• Was seen as unique and relevant among consumers.
• Moderate to high likelihood to purchase compared to other food and beverage concepts.
• 60 percent say they would visit a c-store more often if H20 Flavor Station was offered.
• Rated the most favorable among retailers.
• One of three food and beverage concepts that is of high mutual interest to both retailers and consumers
• Retailers rated this the only concept as high impact on increasing business and low effort to implement/execute.

Create-Your-Own Burrito Bar

We called this one “The Big One” for the following reasons:

• Most popular among consumers for being customizable, prepared in front of them, and fresh.
• 68 percent say they would visit a c-store more often if burrito bar was offered.
• Rated most favorable among consumers.
• Rated second favorite among retailers.
• One of three food and beverage concepts that is of high mutual interest between retailers and consumers.
• Retailers rated this as a high impact on increasing business; however, they also rated it as high effort to implement/execute.

Loyalty Program

We called this one “The High Hanging Fruit”— it takes more effort and requires more time, but usually is the most rewarding — for the following reasons:

• Most popular among consumers for being relevant, rewarding/appreciated, and having discounts/savings/giveaways.
• 71 percent say they would visit a c-store more often if a loyalty program was offered (the highest of all the tech/services concepts).
• Rated most favorable among consumers.
• Rated most favorable among retailers.
• Was of high mutual interest between retailers and consumers.
• Retailers rated this as a high impact on increasing business; however, they also rated it as high effort to implement/execute.

Regular readers of this blog know for the past eight years we have explored, explained, and expanding our conversation around fresh prepared food that is ‘better for you’ highlighting the importance of that food or product being both interactive and participatory.  With this latest research we rest our case.

Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced business development. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities or a new menu product segment and brand and menu integration strategy.  Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant or twitter.com/grocerant