Re-conceiving the convenience store

Convenience store operators may be more willing to try out new ideas because they are facing intensified competition not only in their own trade channel, but from other channels as well: witness Tesco’s Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets, and reports that Wal-Mart is developing a small grocery format designed to go up against the Fresh & Easy stores. Then there are the quick-serve restaurants also fighting for the consumers’ “share of stomach.” Some of the competition takes a form that might not have existed years ago. For example, Dinner by Design is a “meal assembly company.” It announced Feb. 13 that it has a new package of convenience services designed to ease meal preparation and planning for time-pressed families. Dinner by Design said its Convenience Services will save an average family up to 35 hours a month or 10 hours a week in menu planning, shopping and meal preparation. With added variety, the average cost is $3 to $5 a serving, less than many fast food meals, the company said.

One of the convenience store operators trying something new is New England Pantry Inc. of Norwood, Mass., operator of White Hen convenience stores. It opened an upscale convenience store last month under the name Pantry Gourmet, in Northboro, Mass.

The store features gourmet pasta and Black Angus ground beef, according to an article by Lisa Eckelbecker in the Telegram & Gazette, a newspaper in Worcester, Mass. The article describes the store as “a bigger, upscale version of traditional White Hen convenience stores” complete with a seating area designed to encourage lingering.

"This is a moment of unparalleled change in c-store retailing," said Thom Blischok, president of consulting and innovation for Information Resources, Inc., a research and consulting firm. “Consumer demand is altering the definition of convenience, leading retailers and manufacturers to transform the shopping experience, according to the company’s research.”

Overall in the food retailing business, big supermarkets still dominate, and will endure as a format, but some retailers think one version of the supermarket of the future will be smaller, with less selection and more prepared foods, according to the Telegram & Gazette’s Eckelbecker.

That is the model for the Fresh & Easy stores that Tesco, a U.K. retailer, is opening in Western states.

At roughly 10,000 square feet, Fresh & Easy markets are smaller than the typical supermarket. In addition to fresh, prepared meals and produce, Fresh & Easy markets offer national brand products and household items, in an “everyday low price” format.