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Get healthy for back-to-school

September is just around the corner, which means students and parents are preparing supplies, clothes and themselves for another (long) year of classes.
Convenience stores near schools, universities and colleges also need to be ready, making sure they’re fully-stocked and staffed, especially at busy lunchtimes.
They might also want to consider whether they offer enough healthy foodservice.
A March 2007 report by the standing committee on health stated that Canada has one of the highest childhood obesity rates in the developed world. According to Statistics Canada, in 2004, 26% of Canadian children and adolescents ages two to 17 were overweight or obese based on body mass index, a 70% increase from the 1978/1979 level of 15%. The problem is especially notable among high school students, as the proportion of overweight and obese 12- to 17-year-olds more than doubled to 29% from 14% over that 25-year period.

A c-store solution
The 2007 report identified ways of reversing this trend, one of which is increasing children’s consumption of healthy foods, particularly fruits and vegetables.
Your store can be part of the solution, simply by offering bananas or apples near the front counter, or fresh, lean sandwiches in an open cooler that appeal to children and are good for their health, too. According to Canadian Food Trends to 2020, a report commissioned by Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, the demand for quick, convenient and, most of all, healthy meals is rising as time-starved shoppers become increasingly aware of the link between diet and health. And, since some studies have shown parents’ diet and lifestyle choices influence those of their children, kids aren’t always looking for a sugar-rush.

Make the grade
On the whole, c-stores aren’t yet meeting this demand for healthy options: according to YCM Profiles, only four percent of shoppers expect to find healthy products or fresh, high-quality meals on-the-go in a c-store, and only five percent expect to be able to buy fresh fruits and vegetables there. However, 23% of consumers asked said they would increase c-store use if there were fresh, high-quality meals to eat there or take away, and this number rises to 24% if more fresh vegetables were offered. Moreover, 40% of consumers said they were interested in buying better-for-you snacks.
So, fresh and healthy foods may not only be part of the answer to childhood obesity, but also part of the future for convenience stores.

Anna Konewka, YCM editorial intern

The power of smell

Smells can evoke memories, induce emotions and set a mood. They can also sell. 
This morning, when I went to a Hasty Market convenience store near my apartment in the west end of Toronto to buy bus fare, the scent of warm, buttery croissants filled my nostrils. I couldn’t resist the flaky, baked beauties, and bought one along with my TTC tokens – a completely unplanned purchase.
I realize that this store has tapped into the power of smell to entice shoppers. It offers fresh bread, butter tarts, pastries and croissants daily. The croissants are housed in an island display near the front counter, in clear plastic bins with angled top flaps that are kept open in the morning, which inevitably wafts their delicious scent throughout the store.
Because this store’s baked items smell so good, I would not hesitate to buy a fresh sandwich or other foodservice item from its deli counter. So, smell can be a potent purchase motivator. There’s a flip side to this, however. Bad smells turn customers off – the rancid smell of spilt milk in store fridges immediately comes to mind. Keeping stores clean and fresh-smelling is essential.
Consumers are divided about whether they would buy a freshly-made sandwich in a convenience store (Source: YCM Profiles 2009). If c-stores play their olfactory cards right, consumers’ noses might just help them decide.

Anna Konewka, YCM editorial intern

Three small stores think big

Downtown locales have the benefit of high-density foot traffic, but the challenge of limited space that’s at a premium. We recently checked out three different types of stores – specialty, grocery and convenience – in the same area of Toronto’s core to see what they’re doing to stay competitive. The conclusion:  All three have blurred the lines between convenience, grocery and foodservice, but with different results.

Fresh & Wild Food Markets
Gourmet cheeses, healthy-looking foodservice and high shelves stocked with premium products are features of this flagship store near King and Spadina streets.  The store is small, but neat. It uses the little space it has creatively to offer a wide selection of produce and grocery items, and has multiple checkout points throughout. It also has a sit-down area and patio for its café and ready-made meals. The fresh food was tasty, albeit a little pricey, which can be said of most items in store. Marketing itself as ‘a truly urban, modern and fun shopping experience,’ the focus seems to be on quality and selection over price, appealing to downtown dwellers with disposable income, a penchant for unique goods and little time to shop around for deals.

Sobeys Urban Fresh
Smaller than its suburban stores, and with a distinctly modern feel, this Sobey’s location is big on foodservice. A large portion of the sleek store at Spadina and Bremner is devoted to fresh food, with staff at some stations even ready to cook a custom stir-fry or pizza as you wait. There’s also a sushi bar and sit-down café. The signage is a dramatic black instead of the usual bright green. At heart, however, it’s still a grocery store, and the setup reflects that. With this downtown location, Sobeys targets shoppers looking to get their staple shopping needs and maybe pick up pre-cut fruit for lunch and a fresh, ready-made meal for dinner.

Rabba’s Fine Foods
At Front St. W. and Blue Jays Way, this European-style store offers complete food shopping with a focus on convenience. In fact, great food and convenience are Rabba’s top priorities. Pineapples outside the front doors, pre-cut fruit as soon as you walk in and the enticing smell of warm potato wedges all signal to customers that they have lots of choices when it comes to fresh food. Still, the front cash area screams convenience, with wide confectionery displays beneath the long, arced counter, easily-accessible beverage coolers and a random assortment of personal care items, such as shampoo. And, since the store is open 24/7, night owls and party hosts would find it very useful in a pinch.

Obvious origins
The three stores are trying to become a one-stop-shop for their consumers, who likely live in nearby condos. They’re also focusing on foodservice, which is a smart move: 23% of consumers said they would shop more often at c-stores if they could get fresh, high-quality foodservice there (Source: YCM Profiles). Despite this channel blurring, the stores’ original roots peek through in their layouts and merchandising. Ultimately, grocery has bigger sites and a wider selection of goods, while convenience has the benefit of, well, convenience. And, in people’s time-pressed lifestyles, that’s a big draw.

Anna Konewka, YCM editorial intern

This week I travelled to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island for the second annual Atlantic Convenience Stores Association’s State of the Industry Conference. Convenience store sales thrive during the summer months as tourists flock to the Island’s red sand beaches and ocean-front golf courses. However, in addition to front page coverage of the Island’s largest outdoor concert by Taylor Swift, and the appearance of television personalities, Regis and Kelly, which put Canada’s smallest province at the top of Google’s daily searches, was the re-emergence of a debate on energy drinks.

According to the CBC, Murphy’s Pharmacies has stopped selling energy drinks to customers under the age of 18 at nine stores. “We know that Health Canada has advised that children under the age of 18 should not be consuming energy drinks, and we felt that it was responsible thing for us to do,” Heather MacLean, sales and marketing manager for Murphy’s, told the CBC. Energy drinks are already banned at schools on PEI, but there are no government regulations to stop minors from buying them in stores.

Mike Hammoud, president of the ACSA, addressed the issue during the conference: “To us, it’s a dead issue. We’ve done what we need to do to address the problem…. We have been working to educate politicians and the public on responsible use of energy drinks. The PEI legislative committee listened to our presentation and did not advocate further restrictions.”

For an industry with regulations on many top-selling categories, retailers believe adding another item to the age-verification list would be too much. “We are already regulated to death on tobacco and lottery. Adding another to the list would be overkill,” said Ramona Roberts, owner of Big Dog Convenience with eight locations on PEI. Rather than restrict to minors, she tells her employees to use their own discretion, and not to sell to anyone under the age of 16. “If they come to the counter with three or four, we won’t sell that many to one person.”

Do you have a policy in place for energy drink sales at your store? Do you think the issue will re-surface with politicians? Leave a comment and tell us what you think.

Today I ventured into a Mac’s Convenience Store near Dundas and Bay St. in downton Toronto. While I’ve walked by the store several times, this was the first time I went inside. To my surprise, the store looks incredibly similar to those featured in our July issue of YCM. While we were in Calgary for the Convenience U CARWACS Show, we visited several Mac’s Convenience Stores in the city and learned about the extensive investment the company has made in their foodservice program. Those stores had everything from sandwiches, salads, sushi, iced coffee and frozen meals inside their TakeAway Cafes. The Toronto store looks very similar to these ‘concept stores,’ with innovative Bus Station decor, a do-it-yourself milkshake machine, and several lunch options, including fresh fruit and sushi. With a little bit more marketing and some signage posted outside, the quick offerings would be an appealing alternative for the commuters, tourists, and local residents lined up across the street at Longos and Starbucks during the lunch hour.

The Maritime portion of the anti-contraband tour got started this week in Moncton and Fredericton before making its way to Saint John for the final city in the New Brunswick tour. I joined up with Mike Hammoud, president of the Atlantic Convenience Stores Association and Michel Gadbois, vice president of the Canadian Convenience Stores Association at Scholten’s Somerset in Saint John.
Before the announcement was made, I was feeling optimistic. The last city I visited was Cornwall, Ontario – the city closest to the Akwesasne Reserve and where 90% of Canada’s illicit tobacco is believed to be sourced. Liz Nurse, owner of Short Line Convenience, said rising Ontario taxes and a weak economy pushed many of her customers to the illegal channel. As a result of fewer tobacco customers, she estimates store sales are down 50%.
In Saint John, retailers I spoke to before the press conference began didn’t seem too worried. Margaret Stratis, owner of Shawn’s Variety, located on Broad Street, said her tobacco sales are still high, making up about 50% of store sales. While she knows contraband is widely available in the area, she benefits from having an excellent location, close to the waterfront and along a busy stretch of road that is separate from the uptown area.
However, a quick walk through town shows many stores in the area have shut their doors or are for sale. An empty shell of a sunshine-themed convenience store still looks open on Union Street, with bright signage advertising healthy snacks and fresh foodservice. But a large ‘for lease’ sign covers most of its front window.
Last year in Atlantic Canada, 11% of c-stores closed their doors.
“Our retailers simply cannot compete,” said Hammoud to a small crowd of reporters at Scholten’s. “We are seeing contraband sales gaining momentum year after year despite efforts by government and law officials to halt its spread.”
Hammoud said the Association thought figures would be in the 11% range in the Maritimes, based on previous research done in the area. The last numbers recorded for Saint John estimated that 4% of all cigarettes smoked were contraband. However, in the last four years, the market has grown from being “virtually non-existent” to now making up one-third of tobacco sales.
In Saint John, 20% of cigarettes are contraband. Butts were collected from 42 locations in Atlantic Canada as a part of the 2010 Butt Study, including several in Saint John, such as the Market Square, Saint John High School and the Canada Revenue Agency building. About 20% of butts picked up in the Market Square area were contraband. The only good news of the day came from the findings of Saint John High School, the lowest location in the region, where just 6.1% of cigarettes were found to be illegal.
Chris Scholten, owner of several stores across New Brunswick, including Scholten’s Somerset in Saint John, said as a father of children, he’s concerned that contraband is so readily available at high schools. Almost half of cigarettes collected outside of Moncton High School are illicit, according to the Butt Study.
Scholten said demand for cigarettes goes up and down across all of his stores – a fluctuation he attributes to the availability of cheap smokes in the area. His sales remain in the 15-20% range, with tobacco sales growing as competitors shut their doors.
Scholten, along with other retailers in the area, will be asking their politicians to sign on to the 10% in 2010 campaign led by the CCSA. The hope is for more dialogue, interaction between schools and police authority, and a promise to bring the level of contraband back down to a more acceptable level near 10%.
Today, the tour moves to the second province – Nova Scotia. In a short few hours, retailers will hear the results for the provincial capital, Halifax. With tobacco taxes being the highest in the province, I predict much higher numbers than those presented in Saint John. Hammoud will present findings at noon today at J.C.’s Store on Albro Lake Road.

Michel Gadbois addresses the media on Parliament Hill.

The first stop on a 25-city tour was made yesterday in Ottawa with Michel Gadbois, vice president of the CCSA and Chris Wilcox, general manager of Quickie Convenience Stores challenging government officials to reduce tobacco smuggling in their ridings to 10% in 2010.

The aim of the tour is to generate grassroots support for government action, Gadbois said. “We have 50 to 85 retailers in each riding, and we need them to ask their MPs and MPPs to sign the target.”

Contraband tobacco continues to thrive in the province, and is now turning up outside of locations that should have zero, such as government buildings, the highest court of Canada and high schools.

This could be your child.

An April 2010 Cigarette Butt Study revealed 22% of cigarettes smoked outside of the Supreme Court of Canada and 32% of cigarettes outside the offices of the federal Finance Minister are contraband. One-quarter of cigarettes outside of Rideau High School are contraband.

“The government strategy of pricing tobacco out of reach is completely undercut by this cheap tobacco going into our streets and our school yards,” said Wilcox. “These illegal networks, once established, are being used to traffic other illegal items, like drugs and guns, so by not controlling the trade of contraband tobacco, we’re allowing all kinds of criminal activity to go unpunished in this country.”

Quickie has already closed two of their stores in the last 18 months because of contraband, and the arrival of the HST in Ontario will just exacerbate the problem, he said. Currently, a carton of cigarettes sells for about $90 at his stores. A baggie of illicit will go for $10 to $15.

Asking politiicans to acknowledge the issue is the first step, he said. “Let’s put one person in charge. Get all parties involved: Revenue Canada, Health Canada, the police, and then lets get some organized action. Right now, it’s a disorganized mess.”

The touring RV moves to Cornwall today. Gadbois will be addressing local media outside of Short Line Convenience. Ninety percent of the country’s contraband product is believed to be sourced in this area near the Akwesasne Reserve and in factories along the US side of the St. Lawrence River.

More than 3 million contraband cigarettes from several seizures fill the New Brunswick Customs bond room in St. Leonard, NB.

The Atlantic Canadian Convenience Stores Association will kick off their Anti-Contraband tour May 25, 2010 in Moncton, New Brunswick. ACSA President Mike Hammoud will be presenting findings from the 2010 Butt Study – a report analyzing discarded cigarette butts found outside government buildings, high schools and universities in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador. The study is the first of its kind for Atlantic Canada. In 2008 about 9% of tobacco purchaesd in the east was contraband, but by 2009, the figure had jumped to 19%. This year’s figures are expected to be even higher, according to Hammoud, due to provincial tax increases, an unsteady economy and loose border control at the Akwesasne Mohawk territory Aboriginal reserve (where 90% of contraband is smuggled ) near Cornwall, Ontario.