
The world of convenience-store foodservice is busy with new technology, increased competition, trending offerings and flavors and more.
GetGo is No. 29 on CSP's 2024 Top 202 ranking of convenience-store chains by size. Stinker Stores is No. 66 and Parker's Kitchen is No. 86.
Editors at CSP Daily News spoke with some of the top leaders in convenience to dive deeper into foodservice and, specifically, the direction they’re going in this critical and vibrant c-store category. Here are their responses.
These answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Brandon Hofmann, Incoming CEO, Parker’s Kitchen

We are constantly looking for more efficient ways to improve our fresh food program. Our proprietary smart kitchen technology allows us to do predictive forecasting based on the needs of each of our individual kitchens. We have the ability to forecast with 95% accuracy the number of chicken tenders we will sell in 15-minute increments throughout the day. We are also using the smart kitchen for task management. Our chicken tenders are fresh, never frozen and hand-breaded to be the crispiest and juiciest tenders in marketplace. We are also expanding the sizes of our famous Parker’s Dipping Sauces.
Mike LaVitola, Founder, Foxtrot

Sales from our cafe are up about 100%, which is awesome, off of much fewer SKUs. Customers know what we really like and what we’re really into, which is our breakfast tacos in the morning, as an example. The streamlining of operations also means that service time is pretty much immediate. So, in this convenience format, people want very, very fast service. And, so, they know that when they order, they’re going to get it pretty much right away. So that reduction in wait times has led to a much, much higher velocity of the items that we do carry. So that's been really exciting.
Nate Brazier, CEO and President, Stinker Stores

Food absolutely has been and will continue to be a very strategic initiative. In 2021, we launched our proprietary food program, Pete’s Eats, and we’ve seen substantial growth. Going forward, we’re going to be offering some LTOs on a quarterly basis of different types of food, whether that’s in our hot case or cold case, and we’re going to use that to gain feedback from our customers as well.
In addition, we’re going to be adding more fresh options to our various dayparts, especially our breakfast daypart. Our breakfast daypart is a very busy, busy daypart like it is in most c-stores. We’re going to continue that food innovation, and I’ll say this: With our program, we wanted to just get started and that’s what we did three-and-a-half years ago. One of the things that is a differentiator for us is we really focus on fresh, delicious, made in-house that is carefully crafted with quality ingredients. For example, our eggs are fresh-cracked in-house with nice cracked sea salt and pepper on it. It’s all those little things that matter in food, and that’s what we’re going to continue to focus on as we innovate because innovation is thriving when it comes to food. That food innovation will be big.
Terri Micklin, President, GetGo

We are just getting more and more advanced as culinary experts and foodies, so customers are expecting more from flavor profiles. They want better food, they want better quality, they want you to be more on trend. It’s going to require the industry not just to keep doing what they’re doing and evolving in foodservice but to be faster to market with new trends, new flavors—that’s going to be a big push I think you’re going to see everywhere.
And you’re starting to see a lot of really good brands come out with unique menus and unique items that are talking to the customer about these cool things they’re experiencing, whether it be through different social channels like YouTube and TikTok, and they’re seeing all of these influencers out there. The convenience-store space is starting to play a really big role in all of that which is very, very exciting.
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