Millennials like ‘Healthy Fresh Food Fast at Alltown Fresh

One success clue that convenience stores have picked-up on is that fresh food sells. Companies the ilk of Wawa, Rutter’s, and Sheetz have been leading the industry with top line growth and bottom line profits driven in large part from customer migration to their fresh food according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Global Partners LP, and its extensive real estate and has found success with Alltown Fresh, which has the potential to grow into a truly convenient and healthy convenience store.

In case you did not know, Global Partners is a Fortune 500 energy company with about 1,600 locations worldwide. Alltown Fresh is a healthy spinoff of Alltown, the company’s traditional fuel and convenience store with nearly 300 locations. While Alltown Fresh has just a handful of stores open in New England today, it has the potential to outnumber others competing in the better-for-you convenience store space.

Alltown Fresh’s SVP of retail operations Ryan Riggs sated “One of the key assets that our parent company has is real estate,” Riggs continued “One of our goals as we grow is to better understand where the Alltown Fresh brand has the greatest likelihood to resonate in areas where we already have a foothold on traffic,” .. “where we already have guests that come in daily.” The plan is once they've discovered the right location, they can convert established locations into Alltown Fresh stores.

The Alltown Fresh experience is a “heightened” one compared to traditional convenience stores, Riggs said. There is fuel and basic provisions, but there’s a lot more, too. Through a combination of packaged goods, a mini fresh food market and an extensive foodservice area, Alltown Fresh focuses on specific segments of the population. 

Battle for Share of Stomach

“Our target is the technology-savvy health-conscious Millennial,” he said. “That generation is a little less stigmatized [regarding] shopping for foodservice where they purchase fuel, relative to other generations. Trends tell us they’re more focused on being health-conscious, certainly. And then I would say the other target is really families.”

At Alltown Fresh locations, customers can buy kimchi bowls, avocado toast and freshly made sandwiches or smoothies. Many menu items from their full kitchen are vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free or locally sourced. There’s cafe space to sit and enjoy breakfast, lunch and dinner in these locations, which are larger than most convenience stores. The Plymouth, Mass., location, for example, is 4,800 square feet. The stores straddle the line between restaurant, convenience store and grocery store with dedicated space for fresh produce and an array of packaged goods with both traditional and healthier versions of typical convenience store fare. Do you know where your consumers are headed?  Are you looking a customer ahead?

Invite Foodservice Solutions® to complete a Grocerant Program Assessment, Grocerant ScoreCard, or for product positioning or placement assistance, or call our Grocerant Guru®.  Since 1991 www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. Contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or 253-759-7869