At Wawa Familiarity Will Drive Success

Wawa, Pennsylvania is not far from Philadelphia and haven for Wawa fans has been a testing ground for new menu ideations, and concepts in the past and Wawa CEO Chris Gheysens recently announced plans for a new smaller footprint unit in Philadelphia.  That store is clearly a message / nod to Amazon Go we can do fresh food fast in a small format better than you in Philly according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

The goal for the smaller location is to retain the same feeling as larger Wawa stores, which could lead to opening similar store models in the future, according to Gheysens. "If we can crack that [smaller] model and still make it feel like a Wawa, then we might be able to move into core urban centers,"

Gheysens continued “The convenience store retailer plans to maximize automation at the new store and have a walk-up window for order pickups. It will also feature new products such as cold-pressed juices, energy shots and upscale hot tea offerings.

"What we hear first and foremost from our customers is they love how convenient we are, but they want it to be even more convenient," said Terri Micklin, Wawa's director of construction. With more than 840 convenience stores, Wawa has extensive grocerant niche fresh food success to build upon and head start over Amazon according to Johnson.  Success does leave clues and there will be a battle for share of stomach within the urban core it will not be all Amazon Go according to Johnson.

Looking for success clues of your own? Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced food marketing and business development ideations. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities, technology, or a new menu product segment.  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