By Pat Pape
The dog days of summer are over, and soon your customers will be in the market for heartier versions of meals-to-go to help get them through their busy days. For most of those shoppers, hearty also means hot and toasty.
“Probably 80 percent of all food served for immediate consumption is hot,” said Kathy Hasty, senior product director for fresh foods at 7-Eleven. “As a general rule, we are more satisfied with hot food. Warming food brings out the flavor.”
7-Eleven frequently looks for ways to keep hungry customers coming back, and one of those ways is with its toasted sub sandwiches, which were developed in the company’s in-house kitchen and then tested in stores. Hasty described customer feedback as “very positive.”
Although all varieties aren’t being launched at the same time, eventually 7-Eleven will offer five different toasted sandwiches. The Philly cheese-steak, meatball and Italian sandwiches are served on a sub roll; the crispy chicken and grilled chicken sandwiches are teamed with a buttery round roll. Additional versions of the “hardy and filling” toasted sub will be introduced in the future. Currently available in a limited number of stores in the Northeast, the sub program will roll out to other areas next year.
Recently, some 7-Eleven stores began selling pizzas (both whole and single slices), chicken tenders, BBQ and Asian-style wings, spicy wings, soft pretzels and potato wedges. The foods are heated in the store’s Turbochef pizza oven and held in a heating unit. To make customers aware of the new products, stores offer meal deals, such as pizza with soft drinks or multi-packs for parties, or tailgating deals that combine pizza and wings.
Spinx convenience stores, with headquarters in Greenville, South Carolina, makes use of a research kitchen that develops and tests new products. About one-third of the 75-plus Spinx locations feature a deli, which is open 5:30
a.m. to 8:00 p.m. to serve the company’s Good to Go food offerings. Some popular items are bone-in chicken sandwiches, southern fried chicken pieces with hot potato wedges, and an array of breakfast items.
“Our menu changes somewhat every two months with the addition of three or four specials,” said Bryan Zeiger, spokesman for Spinx. “If something is a big hit, we’ll add it to the menu or bring it back frequently.” Zeiger estimates that about 75 percent of all to-go food sold at Spinx is hot. “It’s a big part of our business, and we’re looking to grow it,” he said.
According to a survey by the American Egg Board, 62 percent of Americans report that they have less money to spend now than they did a year ago, and 50 percent say they are turning to less expensive restaurants to meet their away-from-home dining needs.
But despite the economic slump, consumers remain busy as ever and still want a fast, filling breakfast to help them rev up their day. According to the Egg Board, quick-serve restaurants have seen the sale of morning meals grow by 5 percent since 2001, and for the past two years, the morning meal has been the strongest contributor to QSR traffic gains. Breakfast sandwiches remain the most popular morning daypart item at QSRs, the survey revealed, with burritos and breakfast wraps growing in importance.
Ryan Strem knows all about breakfast sandwiches. At his Win-E-Mac convenience store and truck stop in Erskine, Minnesota, he sells about 100 breakfast sandwiches every morning. “It’s a good-quality sandwich and inexpensive,” Strem said of the products that he buys from Hot Stuff Foods, a Sioux, South Dakota-based food company that serves the convenience industry.
Customers can choose from a biscuit or a croissant with a combination of eggs, cheese and breakfast meats, all of them heated and ready for a grab-and-go crowd. Strem also purchases pizzas, egg rolls, bread sticks, chicken strips, wraps and other heat-and-eat items from Hot Stuff and appreciates the support the company provides, such as training and POP materials. “They show up every 30 days to make sure we’re on the right track,” he said.
Like other savvy retailers, Strem wants to spare his customers the agony of menu fatigue, and “every 60 days we add and drop items,” he said.
Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes, the Canastota, New York-based chain with more than 80 locations, has come up with an attractive option for health-focused pizza lovers: a wheat crust.
While it’s not designed to be the base for low-calorie pizza, it is a better-for-you product, “unless you’re on the South Beach diet,” said Jack Cushman, vice president for fresh food at Nice N Easy. “We promote it as a veggie pizza, but we’ll serve it with any toppings the customer wants.”
He described the wheat crust as “slightly sweet to complement the vegetables. And it tastes good.” Every quarter Nice N Easy sends out a direct mail piece, and the most recent one promotes the new wheat pizza crust. Customers who buy a regular pizza will receive a single-topping wheat crust pizza free of charge. “It’s a pretty aggressive offer,” Cushman said.
Hot pizzas also are popular at the Sooner Superette in Hinton, Oklahoma. Owner Shelly Newton buys her pies from Hunt Brothers Pizza, a Nashville, Tennessee-based food company. Her best-selling pizzas are pepperoni and the loaded Supreme, topped with pepperoni, sausage, onions, green peppers, mushrooms and a big banana pepper. But she also does well with breakfast pizza, which features two types of cheese, eggs, bacon and sausage. “We put a few jalapenos on them, and then all we have to do is run them through the oven,” Newton said.
During daytime hours, pizza slices are big sellers. At dinnertime, customers choose whole, hot pies. Many of those pizzas are consumed on the premises, thanks to Sooner Superette’s seating for up to 55 diners.
According to Bolla Wines, 93 percent of all Americans eat pizza at least once a month, while the Web site pizza.net claims American diners consume about 100 acres of pizza each day. But no matter how popular the pies may be, people cannot live by pizza alone.
In addition to a full deli and a line of heated Sooner subs, Newton recently added Hunt Brothers’ hot wings to the store menu. The wings come in two flavors — Southern style and hot-and-spicy — and can be warmed up fast in the pizza oven. “They’ve been a good addition,” she said. “In my business, you always have to come up with something new.”
Parents spend about $65 billion annually on food for their kids, including restaurant meals, according to research from brand marketing agency C3 and Technomic Inc., and moms tend to select fast-food options when dining with youngsters. While kids are more aware of healthy eating options than in the past, they still tend to order French fries, pizza and chicken nuggets when they dine out, the survey reported.
The 50-plus Rutter’s Farm Stores, a family-run business based in York, Pennsylvania, is making it easier, faster and less expensive for parents to feed junior a hot meal. In July, the stores began offering special kids meals that include a choice of chicken nuggets, a grilled cheese sandwich or a hot dog, plus fries, macaroni and cheese or a banana. Youngsters may also select a frozen or fountain drink, iced tea, milk or juice, and the meal comes with crayons in an activity bag, all for $2.99.
“The kids meals have done very well,” said Jerry Weiner, vice president of foodservice for Rutter’s. “We’re also selling some to adults, and I have no problem with that.”
Rutter’s offers plenty of selections for hungry adults. Last year, the chain introduced a new foodservice menu that includes custom stir-fry dinners and fajitas, crisp tossed salads and several varieties of freshly baked bread. It was designed as a non-convenience-store menu with the benefits of traditional fast food.
Now the company has expanded that program and uses the same packaging to serve nine different hot-to-go dinner combinations. Selections include grilled chicken Alfredo with spaghetti, pot roast with mashed potatoes, spaghetti with meatballs and meat loaf over mashed potatoes with brown gravy. Each take-away dinner comes with a fresh baked dinner roll or a slice of garlic bread for $5.99.
The wide range of mix-and-match products gives Rutter’s tremendous flexibility with its menu and more opportunities to meet customers’ special requests. “We can take the meat loaf from the dinner meal and turn it into a sandwich, either hot or cold,” Weiner said.
He admits that buying dinner from a convenience store is still a concept many consumers have yet to accept. “That’s a daypart we have to sell,” he said, noting that many hungry customers have no qualms about meat loaf or fried chicken for breakfast.
“One person’s breakfast is another person’s dinner,” Weiner said. “I just give them all the choices and let them make the decision.”
Pat Pape worked in the convenience store industry for more than 20 years before becoming a full-time writer.