TORONTO, Ont. – This week, the Globe and Mail writes about a growing trend in Toronto’s local corner stores: premium placement of fresh produce. The article gives the example of Lucy’s Fresh Food Market, a 900-square-foot store tucked into the first floor of an apartment building. Working with the Toronto Public Health Department’s Food Strategy team, store operators have begun carefully (and prominently) displaying fresh fruits and vegetables in an open-air cooler and in wicker baskets near the front of the store.
According to the article, Food Strategy team lead researcher Brian Cook views convenience stores as an important indicator of impulse buying, and too often in a negative way. By working with some of Toronto’s nearly 2,000 c-stores and corner stores, his team hopes to support community health and economic development.
If successful, this new, healthier sales model could help revitalize a waning business model that sees many Toronto store owners working long hours for profit margins that are shrinking as cigarette revenue continues to fall and customers move online to buy lottery tickets.
The Food Strategy team launched the Healthy Corner Stores project, which is funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada, in the spring of 2014 to study whether a small retailer in a low-income area can make money selling nutritious food, and what impact, if any, these changes have on customers’ overall diets.
The pilot project provides advice and support for store owners to execute a business plan, including cosmetic improvements, procurement, marketing and sales. In addition to the attractive displays, the team helps install signs with a custom-designed “Good Food” logo and place small decals – in the shape of fruits and vegetables – on the floor to further attract customers’ attention.
They have found that a store owner can make good profit from selling fresh produce, but it takes a lot of work figuring out where to get it at the best price. Lucy’s Fresh Market, the first store to participate in the program, now sells about $480 of fruits and vegetables a month. The property owners also purchase fruit from the store for a snack program they run during the school year for kids living in the apartment complex, raising the total to more than $1,700 a month, with their profit margin on items varying between 30 to 50%.
Read more in the Globe and Mail, here. To learn more about similar efforts in Philadelphia, read “Good for You and the Bottom Line” in the April issue of NACS Magazine.