NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Convenience-store retailers are seeing the light—at least the break of day—regarding the morning day-part, naming breakfast as their greatest profit potential in foodservice for 2015, according to study data revealed at a general session of CSP’s FARE conference this week.
At the annual conference devoted to retail foodservice, Abbie Westra, editor for Convenience Store Products magazine, reviewed results of a recent CSP poll of about 600 retailers, restaurant owners and other commercial foodservice providers on the state of their businesses.
“Morning, morning, morning,” Westra said, emphasizing survey results particular to c-store retailers and their opinions about foodservice opportunities for 2015. “New menu items for breakfast were big, as was developing their hot dispensed, brewed coffee programs.”
According to National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) figures, the industry saw a 10% growth in foodservice last year, Westra said, with retailers investing in foodservice “in a major way.” She said those investments reflected in survey numbers, with seven out of 10 respondents making food on site and four out of 10 making sandwiches to order.
“Many are succeeding in frictionless service, things like touch-screen ordering,” Westra said. “It allows c-stores to offer convenience, speed, accuracy and customization.”
In terms of the survey itself, 592 foodservice decision makers responded, with about 20% coming from convenience stores. The mean c-store count among those retailers was 310 stores, with c-stores with foodservice averaging 246. Of c-store retailers that responded, 76% sold packaged food provided by suppliers, 65% prepared food on site and 31% operated a commissary or used a third-party commissary.
Among all survey respondents, Westra said a vast majority, 89%, expressed more optimism that their business would improve this year, with their biggest worries coming from labor issues and commodity costs.
Westra also outlined three themes that ran throughout the survey responses: Lunch was No. 1 as a targeted day-part—with c-stores being an “outlier” as a segment that was focused on breakfast—then the morning day-part and then third, made-to-order specialty coffees and smoothies.
“While c-stores seemed to identify hot, brewed coffee as their best opportunity,” Westra said, “too many of the leaders in c-stores offer made-to-order specialty coffee or are investing in sophisticated equipment, for restaurants to ignore.”
Watch for more insight from the FARE Conference on CSPnet.com, and follow CSP’s coverage on Twitter at #FAREconference.
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