The growth of labor-saving technology coincided in many ways with the labor shortage brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Coincidence? Steve Morris, president of St. Paul, Minnesota-based Retail Management Inc., said no.
“We had huge labor shortages, and we didn't have people to do the jobs, said Morris, whose company handles the operations, marketing and accounting functions for any small-format retailer including convenience stores and truck stops, vape shops and liquor stores. “That’s when technology stepped up. We said, ‘Well, how can we start to take these tasks and shift some of them to customers or to automation?’ And bean-to-cup is the perfect example. Industrywide, think of that impact to labor. It’s huge.”
Those times just a few years ago were a classic example of necessity being the mother of invention, Morris said.
“When the labor shortage hit, necessity was absolute,” Morris said. “We had to do the same amount of things and didn’t have the labor to do it, no matter how hard we tried, so it had to happen.”
Equipment, he adds, are becoming more affordable today than just five years ago. The mathematics of the technology, both AI and bean-to-cup machines, is “removing either labor and/or it’s improving operational efficiency and reducing waste. It has a return on investment that’s provable,” Morris said. “I can prove that I’m using less, throwing less roller-grill product and coffee away. I can prove that I’m reducing my labor burden because I don’t have to go out and make coffee every 30 minutes.”
Here are examples of what c-stores are doing today to be more efficient with fewer employees:
Freshies
The delis run by the 22-store chain Freshies, owned by Hampden, Maine-based R.H. Foster Energy, use Date Code Genie from the National Checking Company (NCCO) in St. Paul, Minnesota, said Jessica Thompson, foodservice category manager.
“Date Code Genie is great as teams can use their tablets to view recipes, print labels for product, SOPs and visuals for them as well,” she said. “The desktop platform I use for Date Code genie is amazing, I can add items, assign locations for specific menu items, UPC bar codes, two different labels to print one for specific items and another for inventory or spoilage of product.”
Date Code Genie helps employees with quickly printing a label for made-to-order items when customers are waiting for their specialty sandwich, she adds. It also helps with consistent and standardized pricing, labeling and marketing of items, as well as spoilage labels for prepped/thawed/cooked Items. This takes the burden off of staff having to write expiration dates on labels, she said.
Double Kwik
Nikki Gilliam, category manager at Whitesburg, Kentucky-based Childers Oil Co., which runs the 44-store Double Kwik chain, said they’ve been “super busy trying to find the next best technology to get our people back to the customers and away from daily tasks which can be time consuming.”
Double Kwik is in the process of transitioning its foodservice inventory to a PDI weekly audit at each store.
“This will save employees time by letting PDI keep an accurate list of items specific to their store, and it does away with the need for individual store count sheets in a spreadsheet program like Excel,” Gilliam said. “PDI keeps an accurate and up-to-date cost for all items in our inventory.”
In addition, Double Kwik is transitioning to be able to place orders from its foodservice provider using PDI. The order system is set up to automatically order based off an average order of the last six weeks’ purchases.
“Of course, our managers have complete control of the system and can make any changes needed, but if a manager has an emergency and must leave, the system will take charge and send their order,” Gilliam said. “We believe in a peaceful work-life balance, and we always put family first. We also have self-checkouts in select locations. We did not decrease labor when we installed them; we wanted customers to have a choice.”
Chillbox
At the 37-store Chillbox, owned by New Haven, Michigan-based Bazco Oil, Fady Bazzi, Chillbox co-owner, said they are working to launch Verifone K350 ordering and self-checkout kiosks.
“We are still in the development stages and buildouts,” Bazzi said. “The expectation is to increase revenue per employee across our center store and QSRs.”
That QSR is the company’s recently launched BirdBox, which started late in 2024 in one of its Warren, Michigan, locations.
“We will be able to shift resources to other key areas to optimize productivity and customer experience. We are piloting the hardware in the next 30 days with plans to launch chainwide in six months,” Bazzi said.
Chillbox expects to increase revenue per employee in two ways. The first, Bazzi said, is by deploying its freed-up resources to work the floor to merchandise, upsell and help customers register for its rewards program.’
“Our rewards program yields an average of 18% spend lift,” Bazzi said. “If we can increase our participation rate, the spend lift will drive up our sales numbers.”
The second way to boost revenue, he said, is during peak hours when “team members will be able to direct BirdBox QSR traffic, help customers place orders and improve throughput in our kitchens.”
T&C Market Basket
Krystal Schwartz, store manager, T&C Market Basket convenience store, Billings, Montana, said their self-checkout stations, one in each of their six locations, “has been an amazing tool for us here at Town and Country Market Basket. We have utilized that to help alleviate the line that sometimes forms at the cash register.”
This helps with staffing because T&C Market Basket “can staff with a little less people than we would normally just because the self-checkout is always there and available for the customers,” Schwartz said.
T&C Market basket has had the self-checkout stations for more than two years. They complement the two checkout registers in each location, and a third register at the deli counter, not only by being an extra checkout but also helping if a store is short-staffed by freeing up an employee.
Weigel’s
Ryan T. Blevins, director of food and beverage innovation at Weigel’s, Powell, Tennessee, which has 84 locations, said the only piece of technology Weigel’s has implemented in its foodservice program is the BOHA (back-of-house automation) Labeling devices from TransAct Technologies, Hamden, Connecticut.
“BOHA! Labeling ensures FDA compliant labels and simplifies a labor intensive and error-prone process previously done by hand,” Blevins said. “It automates our date code and grab ‘n go labeling with nutritional information, pricing and barcodes. It’s as easy as selecting the item you are preparing on the iPad that comes with the device, and then it prints out the label of that product with all pertinent information.”
Depending upon product, the label will show nutritional information, expiration date, times and pricing, Blevins said, and it allows batch printing if several of one item are being made.
The printer has two size labels, the larger one for all grab-and-go items and the smaller size for labeling pans when prepping ingredients.
“It also has features like timers that we can set on the device to let us know when products are expiring,” he said. “All of these features have saved our team members time from having to hand write labels, which can lead to illegible and/or inaccurate labeling practices.”
- Weigel's is No. 84 on CSP’s 2025 Top 202 ranking of convenience store chains by store count. Childers Oil Co./Double Kwik is No. 152, Kwik Trip is No. 11 and Stinker Stores is No. 67.
Kwik Trip
Kwik Trip last year completed switching all its stores to electronic shelf labels. The conversion of the La Crosse, Wisconsin-based convenience-store chain’s labels took nine months, three months faster than anticipated, Kwik Trip spokesperson Ben Leibl told CSP at the time. Kwik Trip has about 896 stores.
The technology lets Kwik Trip make price changes remotely, “saving our coworkers time from having to manually do it at the stores,” Leibl said at the time.
Each label contains a battery, which will last five to seven years, “But it really depends on how much you flip prices,” Leibl said. “The more you switch, the more it drains the battery.”
Leibl added that there isn’t any training required for store employees, as switching of prices occurs from Kwik Trip’s headquarters. The electronic shelf labels have allowed Kwik Trip to increase its efficiency and accuracy “while delivering the best experience to our guests every time they shop with us,” he said.
Stinker Stores
Stinker Stores, Boise, Idaho, which has 105 locations, has been working on a pilot program in about 20% of its stores with Atlanta-based UpDog, which offers an artificial-intelligence program that monitors roller grills with a camera.
Mike Abelson, director of sales at Inteladata, which owns UpDog, said, “Foodservice operations often lack the data and tools that consumer-packaged goods (CPG) operations rely on daily. UpDog bridges this gap by providing real-time insights into sales, waste and employee engagement with the grill, empowering operators to make data-informed decisions that enhance store level execution and drive sales.”
According to UpDog, the toolset:
- Analyzes sales patterns, time of day and traffic trends to create tailored strategies for each station, ensuring optimal product placement and preparation.
- Conducts real-time monitoring, ensuring grills are consistently stocked, clean and compliant.
- Drives accountability and motivates employees through engaging, gamified tools that enhance performance and boost job satisfaction.
The result of this analysis and monitoring includes the c-store receiving a roller-grill score showing how many dollars of extra sales could have been achieved over any number of days if the grill had been operated more efficiently, Stinker Stores told CSP earlier this year.
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