Good morning
Following on from last week’s focus on New York and the American convenience industry I wanted to share two more trends/thoughts with you.
Firstly, there’s a focus on “protein-based snacks” in most of the convenience stores that we visited; I’ve only ever seen more biltong in South Africa! Conversations with store managers confirmed my theory that these “grab and go” snacks have increased dramatically in popularity in the last 12 months and that demand is high. We asked the members of KAMunity, our online community of convenience store shoppers (contact me for more information on access etc etc!) whether they would like to see more protein-based packed snacks in their local store; 38% said yes, they would- the younger the voter, the more they wanted to see that change!
Meanwhile, as we all know, New york is the city that never sleeps (I certainly didn’t get a lot whilst there!), and so, convenience stores had much longer opening hours- with many of them being open 24 hours.
We asked the members of KAMunity whether they would like to see their C-Store in the UK open 24 hours; the result?
A dead heat, 50% said yes, and 50% said no thanks. I’d love to know your thoughts on this issue?
Tonight I’ll be staying up in Newcastle, I’ve been up here for a couple of days reviewing pubs and interviewing Publicans as part of the hospitality side of KAM Media, so any recommendations for a nice pub/restaurant for dinner will be gratefully received! Tomorrow, its down to Essex to stay with friends and a family outing to a fireworks display and Sunday is roast dinner and a movie day (it’s got to that time of year, hasn’t it?)
Please keep your comments and pictures coming and see you all next week!
