Dive Brief:
- The USDA has released a guide for the food and beverage industry and community organizations to strategize how to bring more healthy foods into c-stores. C-stores are now a primary food and beverage retail channel for consumers who lack access to conventional grocery stores.
- Manufacturers have an opportunity to boost sales and reach in these communities while also promoting a healthier food supply by partnering with c-store owners to integrate healthier packaged options and fresher foods onto c-store shelves.
- In addition to assistance with product selection, manufacturers can also work with c-stores on shelf placement and promotions, such as placing healthy products at eye-level or in more prominent and high-traffic areas, including the checkout counter and entryways. Manufacturers can also assist c-stores in enhancing shelf tags, posters, price call-outs, and other promotional displays to boost sales of healthier offerings.
Dive Insight:
C-stores play a key role in providing food for communities known as food deserts, which don't have adequate access to conventional grocery stores and items like fresh produce. The opportunity for manufacturers here is to get in early with healthier offerings in addition to classic packaged food products. The competition among better-for-you products in food deserts and c-stores is slimmer than in retail channels like health food stores or larger grocery retailers with their own better-for-you private-label products.
Manufacturers have increasingly identified sales opportunities at c-stores, such as Tyson selling cooked chicken and prepared foods to on-the-go consumers in need of a meal or Hershey leveraging consumer insights to enhance product mixes and promotional displays in this retail format. Food retailers see the same potential: Krispy Kreme, recently purchased by the same company that acquired Keurig earlier this year, has launched new lines of packaged foods in c-stores.