Convenience Stores Look to Entice Customers With Tasty Snacks
Meanwhile, older dependable items like cigarettes and maps lose favor.
In the town of Windsor, Massachusetts, an enclave of 984 people settled in the Berkshires, there is a convenience store called Sangar General Store. Get there early enough and you may snag one of their Indian samosas. The fried savory turnovers are a regional legend. People will travel a considerable way in hopes of getting one. The store regularly runs out.
Why aren’t more convenience stores like this/? Some chains are trying. Not Sangar’s samosas — you still have to head to Western Massachusetts for that particular treat — but all sorts of foods for various parts of the day that might bring in customers on the promise of an aroma.
As a Placer.ai report from April noted, food has become one way for the big names to draw consumers in. Casey’s has grab-and-go breakfast items, including breakfast pizza. Maverik has burritos and items that would seem to go far beyond the first thing you’d have in the morning, such as “made-to-order street tacos and burritos, cookies baked in-house with whole ingredients, loaded nachos, and steaming bowls of chili mac” created by a legit chef, according to Thrillist.
“Today, C-Store customers can expect to find brisket sandwiches or craft beers, rather than the stale cups of coffee of old,” Placer.ai said at the time. “And the data shows that customers are receptive to these innovations, helping drive the segment’s success.”
They have to do something. Some older categories of convenience standards seem to be depleting. Non-fuel sales grew 36% between 2018 and 2023, according to National Association of Convenience Stores data, as reported by the Associated Press. But cigarettes as a percentage of the sales fell from 31% to 20%. Maps and soft drinks are also down in popularity.
The American Heart Association wants convenience stores to focus on fresh foods like fruits that are healthy. That doesn’t seem to be the first choice of the retailers. Wawa has a hit on its counters with the Gobbler, a hot turkey sandwich with stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce, AP reports. Landhope Farms has ice cream cones and milkshakes. Texas-based Buc-ee’s offers popular breakfast tacos and Beaver Nuggets, which are caramel-coated corn puffs.
7-Eleven, owned by Japanese company Seven & i Holdings, “offers select Japanese items like chicken teriyaki, rice balls, miso ramen, and sweet chili crisp wings at some U.S. locations and at its recently acquired Speedway and Stripes stores,” AP wrote.
And as the stores beef up popular meals, they strengthen their revenues, which is good news to the landlords.