ALEXANDRIA, Va. – With more than 154,000 locations across the country, convenience stores are increasingly seen as a convenient destination for consumers to buy fruits and vegetables. And part of that reason is because NACS and the United Fresh Produce Association have worked together to significantly increase the sales of fresh produce in convenience stores.
In the latest NACS Convenience Matters podcast, program co-hosts Jeff Lenard, NACS vice president of strategic industry initiatives, and John Eichberger, executive director of the Fuels Institute, talked to Tom Stenzel, president and CEO of the United Fresh Produce Association, about how NACS is collaborating with United Fresh to help increase sales of produce in convenience stores. The program can be downloaded on iTunes by searching for “Convenience Matters” and is also is available at nacsonline.com/podcasts.
“Partnerships with groups like United Fresh offer NACS great insights and resources into growing sales opportunities like fresh produce,” Lenard said. “Two years ago we set out to develop tools to increase the sale of fresh produce in convenience stores, and we have been successful in our objectives, with much more to come.”
Through the NACS reFresh initiative, NACS and United Fresh have jointly developed toolkits and created task forces to continue to further their work.
Earlier this month, NACS and United Fresh jointly published “Convenience Store Distribution Options for Fresh Produce,” which provides an overview of the various options available to retailers seeking to increase their fresh produce offerings. The new publication is the third deliverable from the partnership that NACS and United Fresh formed in June 2014 to identify best practices to grow produce sales in convenience stores.
The groups published two documents in 2015: “Building the Business Case for Produce Sales at Convenience Stores”and “Are You Fit for Fresh?,” a 10-point checklist that looks at critical areas to assess whether a specific store should grow its fresh produce offer. NACS and United Fresh also were among the groups that worked with The Food Trust to develop its 2015 resource, “Healthy Food and Small Stores: Strategies to Close the Distribution Gap in Underserved Communities.”
A new Convenience Matters podcast is released every week, focusing on topics related to convenience stores.