In her new role as vice president of retail foodservice at McLane Co., Farley Kaiser has two main goals she’s focused on: making sure the programs McLane is building for its customers are profitable and executable.
“I was an operator most of my career, and so, I recognize that you can build anything you want, but if it doesn't work and you can't execute it, it doesn’t matter,” Kaiser said, speaking to CSP in an interview at the McLane Engage trade show, held Aug. 26-27 in Grapevine, Texas.
McLane can partner with a convenience-store operator at any part of their foodservice journey, Kaiser said. McLane can act as another arm of their innovation team or help a retailer build a food program from the ground up.
When a person walks into a c-store, they get their cup of coffee and grab their sandwich, and they don’t think about all the rules and regulations behind tobacco or fuel—or foodservice, Kaiser said. It’s an added skill to have to train and retain teammates to be able to do foodservice well and safely for the customer.
“[Foodservice is] an add-on that is going to be the viability of the future for the c-stores, but it's not easy to understand if you haven't been in it or you don't have someone to teach you that,” she said. “It’s about labor, and retaining labor, and being able to do so with programs that make sense and that are profitable. There's that magic piece that comes together when you have all of that.”
Two of the food programs Kaiser highlighted are McLane’s Prendisimo Duo Slice Pizza and its HiBird fried-chicken program. The latter launched at Engage last year, and it is designed to be a plug-and-play solution for c-stores of all sizes. HiBird is expanding, and McLane is currently working on innovation with sauce flavors to go with the chicken.
One flavor that’s not going away: spicy, Kaiser said.
“Everyone’s trying to find out, ‘What's the next version of spicy that is going to be on trend?’ So Mike's Hot Honey is blowing up like crazy. One of my favorites right now is you're seeing a lot of hot chili crisp as well,” Kaiser said.
People are pairing hot chili crisp with unexpected items, she said, like honey or ranch.
Another consumer trend that’s driving foodservice innovation is people want to make sure that every bite they take is worth something, she said. That could mean the nutrition they’re getting, the value of the dollar they’re spending or how satiating the food is, Kaiser said.
McLane is also revamping some of its packaging to make sure that they’re calling out details, like how much protein an item has.
“That is one of the number one things that people are looking at when they're looking at packaged goods is callouts,” she said. “We're looking at proteins specifically, obviously. Fiber is also really important.”
C-store customers still want indulgence, too, it has just changed sizes, Kaiser said.
“People still want a doughnut. They just might want a donut hole,” she said.
As Kaiser, who started with McLane in June 2023 as senior director of culinary innovation, embarks on her new role, she remembers that there’s a value to taking a risk and not being afraid to try something different.
When asked what advice she’d give to other emerging leaders in the industry, she said: “I've taken a lot of risks, and that's truly what I think has been the most beneficial to my career, and my learning and my growth is being able to say, ‘I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm going to give it my best shot and we're going to jump in there and we're going to try it.’ If we fail, we will fail fast, and we’ll move on to the next thing quickly, and use that as a learning experience.”
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