After several months of foodservice sales declines due to pandemic-driven restrictions on self-serve food and beverage options, by late spring the tides began to turn and many convenience retailers brought back self-serve foodservice in areas where permissible and in accordance with local health departments. Wawa announced a gradual reintroduction of self-service coffee and beverages in a limited number of stores and markets, and Yesway began its gradual reopening of roller grill and dispensed beverage offers at Yesway and Allsup’s locations.

Allowing customers to use their own refillable cups remained iffy for some retailers, while chains like RaceTrac implemented a fresh cup policy for coffee and fountain beverage refills, in which employees provide cups to customers to fill and then transfer the beverage into their own cups.

For some operations, self-serve bakery items revealed an unexpected shift—consumers liked having donuts, muffins and pastries packaged, and the cleaning process for the bakery case became less time consuming for staff. For the foreseeable future, Yesway’s branded bakery program is completely packaged, said Derek Gaskins, chief marketing officer at Yesway.

The million-dollar question seems to be what’s next for foodservice, namely the longer-term changes customers will see and operational shifts moving forward. Phrases like “back to normal” resonate like fingernails on the chalkboard, and although crystal-ball clarity isn’t in the cards, there are corners convenience retailers can look around to help future-proof their businesses and move forward amid new realities and consumer expectations.

Drive-Thrus and Curbside

SeeLevel HX’s 2019 QSR Drive-Thru Study, conducted in conjunction with QSR magazine, found that the U.S. QSR industry was losing roughly $178 million per 2,000 locations in 2019—that’s an estimated $89,000 loss per location per year because of increased service times and order inaccuracies. Nowadays, the drive-thru could be what saves QSRs during the pandemic.

At McDonald's, 95% of its restaurants worldwide have a drive-thru, and about 75% of its locations remained open to serve customers. Most adapted to focus on off-premise sales like drive-thru, delivery and/or carryout. “I am confident in our ability to manage through the immediate challenges and emerge from this pandemic in a position of competitive strength,” McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said in announcing the company’s first-quarter 2020 financial results.

In June, Starbucks announced plans to accelerate more “convenience-led formats” with drive-thru, pickup and curbside pickup options during the next 18 months to meet consumer needs for convenience, connection and personalization. “Starbucks stores have always been known as the ‘third place,’ a welcoming place outside of our home and work where we connect over a cup of coffee,” said Kevin Johnson, CEO of Starbucks. “As we navigate through the COVID-19 crisis, we are accelerating our store transformation plans to address the realities of the current situation, while still providing a safe, familiar and convenient experience.”

Don’t expect consumer preferences for cleanliness and safety to go down, even after the pandemic subsides.

QSR chains were able to quickly move operations off-premise after dine-in restrictions took effect across the U.S. And since many have drive-thru windows, QSRs were set up to handle a high volume of takeout orders. “The value of incremental on-premise sales isn’t as important to quick-service restaurants,” said David Portalatin, NPD food industry advisor, in a press release, adding that some QSRs resisted reopening dining rooms to forego the incremental cost of doing so and continue to optimize off-premise sales.

Drive-thrus aren’t that common in the convenience store industry, but one retailer in Kenton, Tennessee, moved quickly in March to build a drive-thru in less than a week. Dawkins Convenience Store owner B.J. Dawkins told the local WPSD news that the drive-thru would help his team with social distancing, while providing another way for the community to access the items they need. “This is one thing that I can add to my business. … To help the community as well,” he said.

Mike Lawshe, president of Paragon Solutions, said that curbside pickup extends the drive-thru offer and saves valuable time for customers who don’t want to leave their vehicles, which also has implications beyond the pandemic. Parents with kids, elderly persons, people with health issues or customers simply pressed for time want to pull up, have their online or mobile food orders and other essentials handed to them and drive away.

Curbside also can make sense for legacy stores where a drive-thru may not be possible, suggests Lawshe, noting that retailers can dedicate parking spots for curbside pickups, which QSRs and fast-casual chains have done for years to grow online and mobile ordering capabilities.

“The difference between now and more than a decade ago is the technology piece, and that more consumers and retailers are embracing these innovations,” said Lawshe, adding that curbside and drive-thrus are essentially a variation of service that accomplishes the same goal for the consumer. “Curbside and drive-thru are entirely different yet exactly the same,” he said. “To me, convenience stores have a distinct advantage over the QSRs because they offer so much more” like in-store merchandise and, where possible, alcohol sales, Lawshe noted.

Drive-thrus could—and perhaps should—have stickiness beyond the pandemic. Lawshe noted that one convenience retail client saw about 5% of total sales coming from the drive-thru prior to the pandemic, which jumped to 25% to 35% of total sales as the pandemic continued.

Consumers Want Clean

Cleanliness and safety will have lasting effects long after COVID-19. In recent customer surveys, participants rank cleanliness as the No. 1 factor that would make them feel safe in a retail food location.

A May NACS consumer survey revealed sentiments around consumer expectations for safety and cleanliness in convenience stores. The survey found that consumers want retailers to:

• Provide free hand sanitizer or disinfecting wipes at all entrances (68%) and gas pumps (67%)
• Require all employees to wear masks (65%)
• Require all stores to perform enhanced cleaning and disinfecting multiple times per day (65%)
• Require all customers to stay six feet apart inside the store (60%)
• Limit the number of customers allowed in the store at one time (57%)

The NACS survey also noted that consumer interest in concepts like cashierless checkout, curbside pickup and delivery has grown and attracted more notice since March due to the safety benefits that these concepts could provide. “NACS consumer research shows that about two in five consumers base their store preference on cleanliness. Don’t expect consumer preferences for cleanliness and safety to go down, even after the pandemic subsides,” said Jeff Lenard, NACS vice president of strategic industry initiatives. “Retailers who address consumer concerns about cleanliness and build upon that with a compelling offer can find ways to grow their sales not just over the coming months but long term.”

For the foreseeable future, retailers cannot pump the brakes on enhanced safety measures, and some are dedicating staff to solely and routinely clean and sanitize stores.

Wawa’s Clean Force is an enhanced safety and cleanliness initiative that ensures every person who walks into a Wawa store is entering a safe, clean, welcoming and comfortable environment. The Clean Force staff focuses on ensuring all high-frequency touchpoints are sanitized and disinfected hourly, and every night Wawa closes stores for a deep clean.

Wawa also added new safety measures to the self-service beverage area that include:

• Wrapped stirrers
• Tissue paper for customer use with the pour handle
• Social distancing markers in the beverage area and throughout the store
• The presence of the Wawa Clean Force in-store, with associates dedicated to continuous cleaning tasks above and beyond Wawa’s already-strong protocols

In May, Wawa said that customer feedback on the return of self-service beverages with enhanced safety measures has been positive, and the retailer will continue collecting feedback from employees and customers as it continues reintroducing self-service beverages in additional stores, while also taking into consideration guidelines from state and local health departments.

“Our cleaning regimen has remained high frequency to allay consumer concerns,” said Gaskins of Yesway, and that employees “continue to service and operate as close to contactless as possible.” The retailer also supplies store employees with custom Yesway- and Allsup’s-branded masks.

Customers can expect to see Yesway and Allsup’s stores continue a heightened focus on safety and cleanliness with store “greeters” who thoroughly clean high-frequency touchpoints. “The core food program in Allsup’s is primarily crew-serve, and as we refine it, we will introduce that into many of our Yesway locations to align with customers’ expectations,” said Gaskins.

Joseph Bona, principle and founder of Bona Design Lab, said that personal safety and food hygiene link to consumer perceptions. “People eat with their eyes before making food purchase decisions, so how retailers embrace some of the social concerns around distancing, protective measures and general cleanliness will need to be elevated to a new higher standard,” he said.

How retailers embrace social concerns around distancing, protective measures and general cleanliness will need to be elevated to a new higher standard.

Bona notes that Pret a Manger, a U.K.-based fresh prepared foods and coffee chain, delivers high quality food in a quick, grab-and-go format without having preparation areas exposed and in an open environment. The chain “does a great job of communicating here today/gone today and through packaging, merchandising/display and communications, it all works seamlessly and in a unified way that adds credibility to their offer,” he said.

Here to Stay

While the immediacy of the pandemic brought on changes like shuttering self-service foodservice and plexiglass shields at counters, the long-term challenge for convenience retailers will be taking a step back and considering which changes will stick. “Many of the changes we’ve seen since March are here to stay,” said Lawshe, suggesting that retailers focus on the real motivations for customers around safety and relieving anxiety around purchasing.

“Change and the ability to adapt are core tenets of our industry,” said Gaskins. “I am more confident in our resiliency as an industry than ever before. We adapted quickly to the changing consumer needs in the face of the pandemic, and most stores maintained safe operations as the world shut down around us. This flexibility and agility are core strengths of convenience retail, and all the new consumers that began to rely on us in the face of the uncertain times now have higher esteem for what we can make happen.”

For Bona, retailers that articulate their story through smart store design and instill confidence that they are doing everything they can to provide a safe environment will speak volumes, and ultimately bring customers back into stores to buy their favorite foods and beverages.

“Delivering on those emotional experiences is what the great retailers have always done, and those will be the [retailers] leading the industry forward through their innovation and commitment,” said Bona. Tough times are about creating new and better opportunities—“like turning lemons into lemonade.”