Foodservice is not for the impatient, especially if you’re running a convenience store. While c-store foodservice traffic grew 1% last year compared to flat growth for both quick-service restaurants (QSR) and food/drug channels, that’s down from 2% growth in 2012 and 3% in 2011.
“There were roughly 65 million more visits to c-stores in 2013 than in 2012,” says Bonnie Riggs, restaurant industry analyst for The NPD Group, Port Washington, N.Y. “I would say they’re doing well in light of [their] competition.”
So who’s winning in c-store foodservice? Donna Hood Crecca, senior director for Technomic, Chicago, peeked at the latest numbers from the research firm’s C-Store Consumer Brand Metrics study and found Wawa, Susser Holdings Corp.’s Stripes and Kwik Trip in the top three.
“Wawa scored particularly well for taste and flavor,” she says, “though all three scored well for unique and craveable items—which is important for driving repeat business and loyalty.”
Unique and craveable means different things to different audiences. According to Justin Massa, founder and CEO of Food Genius, Chicago, strong ethnic flavors—particularly anything with a heavy dose of heat—dominate c-store offerings.
“I am blown away by the sheer number of products whose sheer marketing claim is that they’re spicy,” Massa says. “I feel like beverages is the only place spicy has left to go.”
Most of the leaders follow a parallel focus on more made-to-order offerings along with high-quality grab and go. Wawa, Pa.-based Wawa’s hoagies are the foundation of the brand’s success, while LaCrosse, Wis.-based Kwik Trip has augmented its robust grab-and-go menu with produce, meats and dairy for fill-in shopping occasions.
“Even if it’s grab and go, preparation methods that speak to freshness are important,” Crecca says. “Operationally, that can be kind of challenging.”
She points to the house-made tortillas at Corpus Christi, Texas-based Stripes’ Laredo Taco Co., an operationally difficult yet portable and convenient offering that ties into the ethnic-flavor trends of the region.
C-store behemoth 7-Eleven ranked No. 1 in terms of foodservice patronage in Technomic’s study. (See p. 16 for more results.) Yet while the Dallas-based chain has a steady pipeline of innovative foodservice rollouts, Crecca says it is scoring near the bottom as far as customer impressions of its foodservice.
“It’s the big dog, [with] a lot of different types of location,” Crecca says. “They might be most prone to some of the negative perceptions, [or lack] the ability to execute across such a large system.”
NEXT: 2013 C-Store Foodservice Sales Data
Traffic Report: C-Store
C-stores experienced 1% growth last year, compared to flat growth from QSR and food/drug segments.
| Year Ending | Traffic PCYA* |
| Dec. 2011 | 3% |
| Dec. 2012 | 2% |
| Dec. 2013 | 1% |
Source: The NPD Group/CREST
*Percent change from a year ago
C-Store Business Expectations**
C-store operators report being quite optimistic about the year ahead, with 87% indicating they expect overall foodservice business conditions to improve greatly or somewhat over the next year.
| Improve greatly | 23% |
| Improve somewhat | 64% |
| Remain the same | 12% |
| Decline somewhat | 2% |
| Decline a lot | 0% |
Source: FARE 2014 State of Foodservice Study
**Totals do not equal 100 due to rounding
C-Store Day-Part Distribution
Year ending December 2013
While c-stores saw nice growth during lunch and p.m. snack day-parts, breakfast and supper saw losses.
| Day-part | PCYA* | Share of Traffic |
| Morning meals | -1% | 33% |
| Lunch | 5% | 19% |
| Supper | -2% | 6% |
| P.M. snack | 3% | 42% |
Source: The NPD Group/CREST
*Percent change from a year ago
Day-Part Growth Expectations
C-store operators have the greatest growth expectations for the lunch and breakfast day-parts. Comparatively, QSRs are watching lunch and dinner.
In which one day-part do you expect the most sales growth in the next year?
| Lunch | 37% |
| Breakfast | 34% |
| Late-afternoon snack | 12% |
| Dinner | 7% |
| Do not expect sales growth in any day-part | 5% |
| Mid-morning snack | 4% |
| Late-night snack | 2% |
Source: FARE 2014 State of Foodservice Study
C-Store Food Purchase Motivators
The No. 1 reason consumers choose to purchase hot food from a c-store is convenience, with location a distant second, according to Olson Communications research.
| Reason | Percentage |
| Convenience/speed | 74% |
| Location/proximity to home or work | 49% |
| Good value for the money | 41% |
| Taste/flavor of hot food items | 34% |
| Quality of hot food items | 19% |
| Variety of fl avors available | 15% |
| Other | 6% |
Source: Olson Communications
NEXT: Foodservice Attitudes by Gender & Age
Most Important Hot-Food Attributes by Gender
When broken out by gender, 72% of women consider c-store quality the most important attribute to consider when making a hot-food purchase, compared to 62% of men.
| Males | Females |
| 1. Time-saving (64%) | 1. C-store quality (72%) |
| 2. Price (64%) | 2. Price (72%) |
| 3. C-store quality (62%) | 3. Time-saving (68%) |
| 4. Flavorful (52%) | 4. Flavorful (67%) |
Source: Culinary Visions Panel
Most Important Hot-Food Attributes by Age
When broken out by age group, most millennials—or 73%—rated price as the most important attribute, while most of the oldest consumers in the “Swing Generation”—or 69%—chose c-store quality as the top deciding factor.
| Millennials | Gen X | Baby Boomers | Swing Generation |
| 1. Price (73%) | 1. C-store quality (69%) | 1. Price (70%) | 1. C-store quality (69%) |
| 2. C-store quality (70%) | 2. Time-saving (66%) | 2. Time-saving (68%) | 2. Time-saving (62%) |
| 3. Time-saving (66%) | 3. Price (62%) | 3. C-store quality (65%) | 3. Price (62%) |
Source: Culinary Visions Panel
Food Photography 101
As consumer demand for convenient meal solutions continues to grow, an investment in food photography is no longer nice to have—it’s a requirement. Here’s a look at how a professional food shot is done, from retail design and site-intelligence firm GSP Retail (www.gspretail.com).
Preparation. Before the photo shoot, the art director, photographer, food stylist and assistants will plan all aspects of the shoot and ensure that they fully understand the items to be photographed. It’s also important to define how the photos will be used after the shoot, such as in billboards, in-store signs, menus, printed ads or online. The photographer and team will also need to understand the type of photographic style and mood the retailer envisions. From there, props are gathered, including dishes, background materials, tablecloths and textures.
Art direction. Food images in today’s advertisements are aspirational versions of the product. All of the ingredients are carefully styled in the most flattering way possible. As noted by fast-food giant McDonald’s, “The burger at the restaurant is optimized for eating, and the photo of the burger is optimized for looking delicious.”
The shoot. Here’s when the magic happens. The photographer will bring the product to life using a few props to tell the story. Good knowledge of the camera and light is imperative. Whether using sunlight, flash or strobe, the goal is to make the food look like the hero.
The photographer will take numerous captures just to get that one shot right, as well as some tight closeups with selective focus to draw the viewer’s eye to the element that is most appealing. Various combo meals can also be shot at this time to take advantage of the styled food on set. Once photographed, the images are retouched if needed.
NEXT: Brand Metrics & C-Store Visits
Special Focus: Technomic Consumer Brand Metrics Study
Technomic’s C-Store Consumer Brand Metrics Study is designed to help both operators and suppliers better understand consumer behavior with regard to the foodservice experience at convenience stores. The main objectives are to understand the level of importance consumers place on roughly 50 attributes related to the c-store foodservice experience and assess the foodservice experience at the leading c-store chains.
A 15-minute questionnaire was given to an online panel of 4,080 c-store shoppers that are nationally representative of age, gender, ethnicity and income. The majority of chains were assessed by a total of 200 respondents.
For smaller convenience-store chains (specifically, Cenex/Ampride and APlus [Sunoco] Convenience Stores), this number ranges from 128 to 152 to ensure statistical significance for each chain.
Dallas-based 7-Eleven topped the ratings measured by foodservice patronage in the 2013 report. Two-fifths (39%) of c-store foodservice users had purchased a foodservice item from 7-Eleven in the two months prior to taking the survey.
Wawa, Pa.-based Wawa’s program received the highest composite scores across 11 food and beverage attributes, such as food quality, foodservice variety and the craveability of its menu items.
QuikTrip, Sheetz, Stripes and Kwik Trip also earned high marks from consumers for these attributes. But in the first quarter of 2014 (see p. 18), QuickChek received strong marks in its first year in the survey, while QuikTrip fell out of the top five. Technomic’s Brand Metrics Study also found that convenience stores are driving traffic away from restaurants, especially quick-service restaurants (QSRs). A third of consumers (34%) say they would have visited a restaurant if they had not purchased prepared foods from a c-store on their most recent visit; 26% say they would have visited a fast-food restaurant specifically.
2013 Consumer Visits to C-Store Chains
Which of the following stores do you recall visiting in the past two months for any type of foodservice item?
| Chain | 2013 | 2012 |
| 7-Eleven | 39% | 37% |
| Circle K | 17% | 17% |
| Chevron | 17% | 16% |
| Speedway | 14% | 15% |
| QuikTrip | 13% | 13% |
| RaceTrac/RaceWay | 11% | 11% |
| Casey’s General Store | 10% | 10% |
| Wawa | 10% | 10% |
| Pilot/Flying J | 10% | 9% |
| ampm | 9% | 9% |
| Hess Express | 9% | 9% |
| Kwik Trip | 9% | 9% |
| Corner Store | 8% | 9% |
| Sheetz | 8% | 8% |
| Kangaroo Express | 7% | 9% |
Source: Technomic Inc.
Experience Attributes, C-Store Foodservice Visitation
Food quality and taste are crucial to the c-store foodservice decision-making process. Nine out of 10 c-store foodservice users say the quality and taste of the food are the most important factors when deciding which c-store to visit. A comparable number assigned similar rankings to pleasant, friendly service and a convenient location.
| Attribute | Important | Very important |
| Taste/flavor of food | 39% | 52% |
| Quality of food | 38% | 52% |
| Pleasant/friendly service | 51% | 39% |
| Convenient location | 42% | 48% |
| Kitchen/prep area is clean | 33% | 56% |
| Order accuracy | 43% | 45% |
| Quality of beverages | 45% | 43% |
| Quality of takeout food | 45% | 43% |
| Good value through low prices | 48% | 40% |
| Speed of visit | 50% | 38% |
| Prices in line with similar stores | 51% | 35% |
| Good value through quick, quality service | 46% | 39% |
| Handles check/payment in timely fashion | 51% | 34% |
| Bathroom is clean | 35% | 50% |
| Variety of food/beverage items | 49% | 36% |
Source: Technomic Inc.
NEXT: C-Store Food & Beverage Scores
Q1 2014 Technomic C-Store Consumer Brand Metrics Scores
The 2014 C-Store Consumer Brand Metrics study includes 22 leading convenience stores operating within the United States. The program covers the 20 largest c-store chains by number of units that offer foodservice, plus two chains chosen for their distinctive offerings (Pilot/Flying J and QuickChek).
The consumer survey was launched in January 2014 and remains in the field for ongoing data collection throughout the year. At the end of March 2014, the total sample size to date was 2,413 respondents, roughly 100 per chain. As previously noted, QuickChek kicked off its first year on the survey with strong marks across the most important experience attributes, including the highest scores for food quality and beverage quality.
Percent very good or good, most recent visit
| Food taste and flavor | Beverage quality | Convenient location | Food quality | Pleasant, friendly service | |||||
| Wawa | 94% | QuickChek | 96% | Kum & Go | 98% | QuickChek | 94% | Circle K | 96% |
| QuickChek | 91% | Wawa | 96% | QuickChek | 95% | Wawa | 93% | Holiday Stationstores | 94% |
| Sheetz | 91% | RaceTrac/RaceWay | 95% | ampm | 94% | Sheetz | 91% | Sheetz | 92% |
| Kwik Trip | 90% | Kwik Trip | 95% | Kwik Trip | 94% | Cenex/Ampride | 87% | QuickChek | 91% |
| Cenex/Ampride | 90% | APlus Convenience Stores | 94% | Cumberland Farms | 94% | Stripes | 87% | Kangaroo Express | 91% |
Source: Technomic Inc.
2013 C-Store Food & Beverage Scores
Last year’s composite food and beverage industry score declined one point to 74% from 2012. The category includes food quality, taste and flavor, food visual appeal and value.
Percent very good or good, most recent visit
| Chain | 2013 | 2012 |
| Wawa | 83% | 84% |
| QuikTrip | 81% | 78% |
| Sheetz | 80% | 86% |
| Stripes | 79% | 80% |
| Kwik Trip | 77% | 82% |
| APlus | 76% | NA |
| Speedway | 75% | 70% |
| RaceTrac/RaceWay | 74% | 76% |
| Kangaroo Express | 73% | 69% |
| Cenex/Ampride | 73% | 81% |
| Casey’s General Store | 73% | 76% |
Source: Technomic Inc.
2013 C-Store Appearance and Ambiance Scores
Total industry scores in this category—which include store cleanliness, clean kitchen/prep area—remained at 74% in 2013.
Percent very good or good, most recent visit
| Chain | 2013 | 2012 |
| QuikTrip | 79% | 81% |
| Stripes | 79% | 79% |
| Wawa | 78% | 78% |
| Sheetz | 78% | 84% |
| Kangaroo Express | 78% | 70% |
| Cenex/Ampride | 78% | 81% |
| Kum & Go | 77% | 77% |
| APlus | 76% | NA |
| Speedway | 76% | 68% |
| RaceTrac/RaceWay | 76% | 75% |
| Kwik Trip | 74% | 80% |
Source: Technomic Inc.
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