In this episode of “At Your Convenience,” CSP Editor Chuck Ulie talks with Kathy Williams, senior category leader at Minuteman Food Mart, Elizabethtown, North Carolina, owned by Campbell Oil Co., from CSP’s Cold Vault Forum in Lombard, Illinois, in May.
Williams, a CSP 2025 Category Manager of the Year winner for center store, small chain, talks about the importance of watching trends, Minuteman’s love of innovation, the importance of leveraging vendors to get insight on consumers and more.
“At Your Convenience” brings industry experts and analysts together with CSP editors to discuss the latest in c-store news and trends. From mergers and acquisitions to foodservice and technology, the podcast delivers the story straight to listeners in short-format episodes, perfect for the morning commute or a quick break at the office.
Listen to their conversation above, or read the transcript here, which has been edited for length and clarity:
Chuck Ulie: We wanted to talk about subcategories in the packaged beverage cooler. What is going on with you and your role?
Kathy Williams: First of all, pack bev is probably one of the strongest categories as far as growth within the store besides the food offerings, but the subcategories within the pack bev category, the CSD (carbonated soft drink), for Minuteman, is still our No. 1, energy is No. 1, and it continues to go on the incline and it will because of all the innovation, but also the sports drinks, the hydration. But now it’s even coming out to like a subcategory of a subcategory because now you have the sports drinks—the regular, the Gatorades and the Powerades, and then you have the functional hydration; that’s more clean—and same thing with energy—now the energy drinks are not just energy drinks that are also clean energy, functional energy, protein energy, and then the standard energy that was out there from the beginning.
Ulie: Is there a point at which this splitting of hairs, so to speak, will end? Do you see any end in sight?
Williams: No, I don’t, because right now everybody’s looking for that good for you, the health benefits, more protein. You just need to make sure that you are watching the trends and see where the consumer is going and make sure that you are doing that when you create your own planograms. You have to try innovation. And some of it’s going to stick, some of it’s not. But you don’t know if you don’t try. Here at Minuteman, we love to innovate. There’s a lot of brands that we have put in and we help them build their brand and they help us build our brand. We collaborate. But as far as getting to squeeze it anymore, I think we’re going to make pack bev even bigger than it is. It’s such a gross profit category, and it’s so ready to drink. That’s why they come to convenience: immediate consumption of something cold.
Ulie: Carbonated beverages are now adding alcohol, right?
Williams: Yes. A few years ago, Jack Daniels Coke came out. And now they have Arizona tea that’s coming out as an alcohol base. And we have a lot of the Minute Maid and all of the different pack bev categories or brands that are now shifting to alcohol as well. So yeah, that’s happening. But I will say this, the packaging, it kind of matches. So from a little kids standpoint, although it says “hard” on it, kids don’t know that; they shouldn’t even be over there in the first place. If I were to ever create an alcohol off of a nonalcohol brand, I probably would have tweaked it a little bit where you would definitely know that that was not [for kids].
Ulie: What about different product offerings based on demographics and innovations?
Williams: The innovation in the different demographics, like this year, Cypher energy came out and it’s catered and influencer by a Hispanic line. We have a lot of Hispanic stores. So we went and put that line in our Hispanic markets along with other Hispanic foods within other categories. So we’re bringing that Hispanic customer. Now, on the stores that we don’t necessarily have Hispanic customers, we did not put Cypher in, so each planogram is different per store based on who’s shopping that store. We did an evaluation to see exactly who our customer was, so we know how to communicate with them, what product to offer them and socially how to communicate with them. Some stores that are out in the absolute country and those customers will not necessarily eat or drink something—a functional beverage—that a soccer mom or someone would. So, we don’t have matching planograms. We want to cater to the customer.
Ulie: That sounds pretty complicated to keep track of.
Williams: Yes. But in the long run, we’re all in after the consumer.
Ulie: And it pays off.
Williams: Yes it does.
Ulie: Know your audience, store by store.
Williams: Yes. Store by store. We should always know who our consumer is.
Ulie: And is it easy to explain how you originally—was it just hanging out and seeing who comes in or asking your people who are on the floor in each store?
Williams: No, what you do is you use your vendors to leverage and give you insight on who the consumer is in those areas, those ZIP codes. And then you also use the internet. In fact, figure out the housing market, what the family is, how many children, what the income is. It’ll just give you that raw area of data about who lives in that spot. Then you also have to know your business. You know, even though you have that, you have to be in your stores. And the good thing is, I had started from a store leader, so I worked myself up but I also understood my stores. So it was kind of a lot easier that way. If I came off the streets and didn’t know my consumer, I didn’t know anything. It would have been a lot harder.
Ulie: Any other examples of a product that you selectively put in certain stores and not another?
Williams: Yes. I’ll take the energy line because it’s such an innovative spot. I have all stores that actually have every demographic come to that store. I have every energy line possible and every innovation possible at that location and you take a store that’s in the country. I only put like the top energy, which is your core because you never want to mess around with your core. They built the business. They’re going to continue to build the business. The Red Bull, the Monster. You never get away from that. It’s like getting away from Coke and Pepsi. You’re not going to get away from it. They were going to hold that spot. I’ve got a spreadsheet that has who our consumer is, what their flavor is by different demographics. Like Hispanics, they love sugar and they love flavor in their drinks. So, we always have high flavor in those kinds of markets. And I mean, they love the aloe drinks and stuff. It’s green and it’s got stuff that floats in it. That’s what they like, so we are gonna carry it.
Ulie: Anything else in the world of a cold vault that you want to throw out before we finish up?
Williams: I would just say from a marketing standpoint to cater each category to your cold vault. If you get your cold vault right as far as your demographic, your assortment, you should actually build the rest of your categories off of that. Because this is the category that’s driving. Have your other categories lean up to your pack bev category because if I just take someone like me, if I’m coming into a convenience store and I’m getting an Alani Nu, well, I also want a snack, but I don’t want Doritos if I’m drinking the Alani Nu. I don’t want a candy bar. I want an alternative snack item that is healthier and something that I would eat. So I just say this: You can’t have one category that’s health conscious and then the whole rest of the store is not. Because you’re not building a basket and you’re not hitting that consumer base.
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