Keeping an eye on the competition, marketing to different demographics, providing an assortment of limited time offers and better-for-you options, incorporating online ordering and delivery, navigating fads and trends … these ingredients can advance a successful food program in convenience retail.

Philip Santini, senior director of advertising at York, Pennsylvania-based Rutter’s, and Dr. Jay Ellingson, chief science officer at La Crosse, Wisconsin-based Kwik Trip, shared their insights and expertise on building a food-forward culture in their respective organizations at the NACS Leadership Forum.

For most retailers with a foodservice offer, the competition is the quick-service restaurant (QSR) down the street. Both have food and drinks, and both serve a customer’s need for speed, but only one has a variety of options beyond the menu board. This leads to takeaway No. 1: competing with QSRs.

QSRs are typically associated with specific types of food, like Mexican, pizza, burgers and fries or sandwiches. In contrast, convenience stores offer so much more, making them a complete one-stop-shop with a variety of offers for different customer needs—aka the c-store industry’s differentiator, noted Santini.

“It’s that opportunity to take your day-to-day and condense it into the convenience space … I can get this opportunity for food. I can get some groceries ... our competitive edge lies in the fact that it’s not one sole purpose” that’s driving customers to convenience stores, he said.

At Kwik Trip, the competitive advantage is found in its consistency and hyper focus on exceptional guest services: clean restrooms, clean stores and forecourts, customer service and knowing the guest.

Ellingson shared how in 2009, Kwik Trip founder Don Zietlow asked of his team, “How do we get the sizzle in our food programs?” That sizzle today—or vibe—means hiring the right people to execute the company’s food programs and food protection systems at a high level and build trust.

“Our sizzle today is our family-style guest engagement, where our coworkers get to know our guests locally and the guests get to know the coworkers,” which creates trust within the community, said Ellingson.

Those customers Santini and Ellingson referenced range from Gen Alpha to Baby Boomers—and everything in between. How can c-stores be everything to everyone? That takes us to No. 2: marketing and messaging your offer.

Different marketing strategies appeal to different people. Rutter’s has digital capabilities that speak to different generations and customer segments who frequent its stores.

“We look at different ways to incorporate a digital presence inside of our stores with high-quality Photos of our foodservice offers and promotions,” said Santini. In addition, Rutter’s was one of the c-store industry’s earliest adopters of mobile apps, and the Rutter’s app helps promote the food offers.

Ellingson admittedly had not delved much into social marketing until his Gen Z son Ryan became a social media influencer. His son’s experiences—and his mostly Gen A followers—gave Ellingson a new perspective on how the youngest shoppers use convenience stores.

“This age group is young, they’re still around their home and they come into the store with mom and dad” and they are snackers, Ellingson said. “ They don’t sit down for three straight meals a day. They are picking up food and snacks and eating them all day.”

As for the Gen Zs, young adults who are forming their life-long shopping behaviors, “We know they are our future; we hope they will be in our stores for the next 50 years and we target those groups with our social media content” by showcasing trends and what’s new and exciting in Kwik Trip stores, he said.

Different customers want different things, as both Santini and Ellingson established. Which leads to takeaway No. 3: offering better-for-you choices.

A common and observed behavior across most food retail is that what customers say they want isn’t necessarily what they buy. A customer may intend to buy a salad, but man those french fries smell good. Just this one time, right? Yes, but sometimes shoppers’ good intentions win out.

For Kwik Trip, offering better-for-you choices is the norm. The company’s banana ripening rooms in its distribution centers support its massive sales of bananas, with well over 35 million pounds sold each year. Kwik Trip was the first convenience store company to make a commitment with the Partnership for a Healthier America. Through an initial commitment in 2014, Kwik Trip expanded its fruit and vegetable offers and prominently displayed healthier food choices to customers—a practice it continues today across its 878 stores.

“In our organization, we’ve always had healthy alternatives. We always have fresh whole fruit and cut fruit, wraps, protein snacks and dairy,” said Ellingson. In terms of promotion, “You don’t need a ton of healthy alternatives, but you need enough so that people feel good about their choices—if they want it, they can get it,” he said.

Santini agreed, noting that there are ways to promote better-for-you options without having to bring in new menu items. “There are opportunities for us to present [healthier choices] by highlighting those options,” especially to younger customers, he said.

“Historically, we’ve had success with those products with the next generation of people coming into our stores. They’re going to want different things and now is our opportunity to learn from them what they want,” said Santini.

You don’t need a ton of healthy alternatives, but you need enough so that people feel good about their choices.”

Operationally and technically, online ordering and delivery—takeaway No. 4—are not accelerating at a fast pace, but enough to stay the course instead of abandoning ship.

For online ordering and delivery options, “There is an opportunity for us to expand with our foodservice program,” said Santini. Also, there is opportunity to decrease trips to other retail locations and drive more foot traffic to convenience stores.

“We have some of those essential products that can save you a trip to the grocery store. We have fueling, we have other opportunities inside the store to grab something to go with your family and not have to take another trip,” he said.

Kwik Trip uses mobile ordering and third-party delivery services, but is still “feeling our way through it” because teams want to interact with guests inside the stores, said Ellingson. The preference, he explained, is to drive guests to the store for pickup so as not to miss out on valuable opportunities to serve and engage with customers.

While new food items and products create excitement and brand awareness, one of the best ways to drive trial to new food items is through takeaway No. 5: leaning into LTOs.

Santini shared Rutter’s strategy for launching limited time offers. The chain runs new LTOs quarterly, either around new items or bringing back previous favorites that performed well. “The idea is to do something that is exciting, new and fresh—something that a customer didn’t think they could get at a Rutter’s,” he said.

A big part of this strategy is combining items that are already on the menu rather than bringing in something totally new. Rutter’s has also found that it can compete with QSRs by driving volume to its stores, where customers purchase a high-quality foodservice item at an affordable price while also picking up other in-store merchandise.

One way to enhance LTOs is through unique sauces and condiments, suggested Santini. For example, if a menu already offers chicken tenders, adding a spicy aioli and pepper flakes can create a “fire-breathing LTO” that features a new flavor profile.

Kwik Trip has a six-week LTO rollout schedule and has found success in promoting its new offers through a classic marketing strategy: paper flyers. “We have people coming into our stores with these flyers in their hands, just like the old days,” said Ellingson.

So, what’s next for foodservice? What’s on the horizon for developing and marketing new food offers that keep customers coming back? That’s our final takeaway: No. 6, identifying future trends.

One that is top of mind is portion size.

With the rise of GLP-1 medications, “Portion control is obviously top of mind,” said Santini. “As we look at our menu development and engineering and the FDA’s perspective, we’ll be ready to take something like this on,” he said.

Kwik Trip has a six-week LTO rollout schedule and has found success in promoting its new offers through a classic marketing strategy: paper flyers.

“It’s wait and see right now, but it will impact our business,” agreed Ellingson.

Within a complex world of food, safe food handling and being a food-forward destination, a bonus takeaway from Ellingson is to keep it simple.

“We serve over 12 million guests a week in the upper Midwest. When guests say, ‘This is my Kwik Trip,’ I know that the engagement has come full circle,” said Ellingson. “They’ve tried our food and we’ve built that trust … they respect what we’re doing as a foodservice entity,” he said, adding the importance of not overcomplicating human interactions and exceptional customer service.

“As a scientist, I like to boil things down to how simple they should be, and I think the reason why our organization is successful is because of our customer engagement,” he said.

Santini’s bonus takeaway comes from how he finds ideas.

“Being a chef by trade and working in the QSR space, I look at food differently than most,” he said. He keeps a journal of things he sees, like ingredients or new food items. “I have a long running list of ideas that I continuously go back to” and share with his colleagues.