Upscale Coffee Attracts Customers and Drives Sales

This article is brought to you by Core-Mark.

WESTLAKE, Texas – For a few hours every morning in America, it’s all about coffee. According to Coffee-Statistics.com, Americans drink 400 million cups of coffee per day (or 146 billion cups per year), which makes U.S. residents the world’s leading consumers of java. 

For some of those morning coffee lovers, Tom Prewitt’s GT Fast Mart in Riverside, California, is their go-to place. “Coffee is loyalty driven,” Prewitt said. “People either love or hate your coffee, and if they love it, they’re going to come get it no matter if it’s out of the way.”

Prewitt serves Arcadia Bay Select from a turnkey program created by Core-Mark International. The program features 10 varieties of both single-origin and blended 100% Arabica bean coffees sourced from eight renown coffee-growing regions. The coffee has qualities that many of today’s coffee consumers—especially millennials—demand, including organic, free trade and Rainforest Alliance certifications. 

Already, the program has helped boost traffic and sales at many convenience stores, according to Chris Scott, corporate director food service, Core-Mark. “Operators with moderately performing coffee programs have seen an average 63% jump in coffee sales,” he said. (See also, “Coffee Helps Boost C-Store Sales” from June 4.)

The Arcadia Bay program is supported with marketing assistance, signage, menu boards, prefab kiosks, branded cups, equipment, training and a team of Core-Mark representatives who consult with store owners.

“They also have quality food products, and we offer some of them—impulse buys, pastries, donuts— right by the coffee bar,” Prewitt said. “We have an open-face cold-cooler next to the coffee with breakfast items, hard-boiled eggs, egg burritos, egg sandwiches and cups of yogurt. You’ve got to have your breakfast items.”

With Gas Station TV at the fuel pumps, GT Fast Mart advertises in-store offers that change monthly. A promotion could be coffee bundled with a food product or the Kickback loyalty program that rewards customers when they buy a certain number of coffee drinks and gives double points on specific days of the week.

“When you make it easy for consumers to pair their beverage with fresh baked goods and other quality offerings, you create a memorable coffee-drinking experience,” said Scott.

“I’m very happy with our coffee sales and our customers’ comments [about our coffee],” said Prewitt. “Every convenience store carries Bud Lite, Coors Lite and Marlboros, but not every store has a good coffee program.”

This is the second installment of a two-part series on c-store coffee programs.