EAST GOSHEN, Pa. -- Ronnie Braverman is excited that he will soon be able to pick up milk at the barn- and silo-shaped drive-through Swiss Farms convenience store that is being built at in East Goshen, Pa., but he is used to going to the Wawa next door out of "convenience and habit," according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
He stops at Wawa once a day; picks up a paper, a coffee, maybe milk on the way home from work; and usually runs into someone he knows. "It's almost like a ritual," said Braverman, 40, who three years ago moved to West Chester, Pa., [image-nocss] from Broomall, Pa., where Swiss Farm Stores are better known.
For zoning reasons, the East Goshen Swiss Farms will have a green roof instead of the traditional red one, but the company said it believes customers like Braverman will still recognize it and opt to shop from their cars.
Swiss Farms' second Chester County store is set to open in June, said the report.
"You can't run from the 800-lb. gorilla, and that's what Wawa is," Swiss Farms' director of operations, Rob Coldwell, 25, told the newspaper.
Swiss Farms focuses on selling milk, bread, eggs and other products that people run out of in between grocery trips. And while Wawa sells these and other products, Coldwell and CEO Ed Costantini said that the two had co-existed within walking distance in Delaware County, Pa., and that Wawawith its focus on gasoline and consumableshad a different market. The Wawa in East Goshen does not sell gasoline, however, the report said.
Swiss Farms now offers fresh Italian food, prepared by Ristorante Primavera of Wayne, Pa., and customers like Braverman will face a choice.
"It all depends what I need," Braverman told the paper, adding that he will stop at Swiss Farms for milk, but not for a hotter beverage. "You can't get out of the car, and I don't like other people making my coffee."
Wawa has 27 stores in Chester County, 43 in Delaware County, and a total 565 in five states, 216 of which sell gasoline, said the Inquirer. Swiss Farms' East Goshen store will be its 13th, added the report.
For Swiss Farms, the challenge may be spreading the word as it spreads out, the paper said. While Costantini said that annual sales at the stores were more than $16 million, and that they were experiencing an 8% to 10% fix revenue growth annually, Swiss Farms' first Chester County store is taking some time to develop its base.
The Lionville Swiss Farms opened in April 2006 and brings in about 200 to 300 cars a day, fewer than half what the Delco stores average. "We're ramping up," Coldwell said. "It takes a while to change people's habits, but once they get it, they're in."
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