LONDON – The NACS Insight Convenience Summit – Europe kicked off the London leg of the event yesterday with thoughtful discussions and ideas for industry stakeholders, focusing on topics such as better positioning fresh food offers and the massive rebranding of an international convenience retailer.

Building on the energy from the event’s few days in Stockholm, Darren Tristano, president of Technomic, began with an overview of the U.S. convenience retail market and its evolution into the foodservice arena, discussing operators excelling at the basics and those that operate sophisticated offers on par with restaurants and fast-casual chains. Similar to the Stockholm convenience market, the U.S. foodservice industry is contending with fragmentation, as the top 10 restaurants are dominated by limited-service chains (Panera is No. 1). He noted that quality is the new currency in U.S. foodservice, where consumers are willing to pay more for high quality product with clean ingredients.

In terms of positioning better-for-you (BFY) offers in convenience stores, Adam Brumberg of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University shared how understanding food psychology can help drive food purchasing behavior. Principles such as adding variety to BFY offers can enhance awareness of a retailer’s healthy offer, but he cautioned that a basket of bananas at the register is just lip-service. A better strategy is creating meaningful displays of several items merchandized multiple times, which gives the perception that there are six varieties of apples, for example, when there are actually three varieties merchandized in nine bins.

Brumberg shared eight evidence-based, convenience store-specific examples of how convenience store operators can successfully increase BFY sales and deliver healthier options to their customers. (Cornell partnered with NACS through its reFresh initiative, and you can access the eight examples at nacsonline.com/refresh.) He also cited ongoing research at MCX Marine Mart to test a “healthy cooler planogram” that promotes more water and lower calorie options without cannibalizing sales of other beverages, and ongoing research at E-Z Mart Stores where co-displaying indulgent and BFY offers is helping to drive impulse purchases.

Day two of the London portion of the event takes place Thursday with discussions on the last mile (with a presentation from DoorDash’s Prahar Shah) and the future of mobility.  The day’s learnings will commence with an evening reception and the awarding of the International Convenience Retailer of the Year Award.