Convenience retailers are competing with quick-service restaurants for a share of prepared food sales, and they can only be successful if they can provide a high level of quality. Packaging that protects the integrity of grab-and-go prepared food items—helping maintain texture and temperature—is just as important as the food itself.
The benefits of a strong foodservice offering are clear. Prepared food provides a higher gross margin percentage—58%—than any other category in the store, according to the NACS 2022 State of the Industry report. Also, a high-quality foodservice offering will bring customers back again and again.
What’s more, strong demand for on-the-go foodservice is already in the store. Nearly a third of convenience-store shoppers stop at a quick-service restaurant within 30 minutes of a convenience-store trip, the NACS research found. And convenience shoppers are not just looking for snacks. One in four seeks prepared food, and among those, nearly half—48%—want a meal to take home.
Maintaining quality and freshness can be a difficult challenge in the retail environment. Grab-and-go convenience is critical for shoppers. In order to capture as much demand as possible during peak periods, convenience-store retailers must maintain food’s taste and quality for longer hold times in grab-and-go displays. This is one of the reasons that investing in the right packaging is paramount.
Food items served hot and crispy need to remain that way all the way to the consumer’s final destination. As delivery and food-for-later become increasingly important to consumers, convenience retailers need to rethink their foodservice packaging strategies with that in mind.
In addition, prepared foods need to present visual appeal, which can help convey the quality of the products and drive more sales.
Anchor Packaging offers hundreds of SKUs and solutions for unique packaging challenges, such as the Crisp Food Technologies® containers line, which offers advanced ventilation to protect the temperature, texture, and taste of hot & crispy customer favorites. These packages preserve the fresh-made quality of food like fried chicken, chicken tenders, and potato wedges for up to three hours in a hot grab-and-go display. This extended hold time enables retailers to produce enough before peak hours to capture the available demand while reducing waste.
Beyond the Crisp Food line, Anchor offers a full range of microwave-safe containers for hot to-go foods and crystal clear containers for salads, which can help retailers present an appealing, healthy assortment. Anchor also offers tamper evident containers to ensure safety and consumer confidence, and a wide selection of shrink film tailored to retailers’ needs.
Whatever a store’s specific goals or challenges, Anchor Packaging has a solution to help exceed customers’ expectations. Request free samples at anchorpackaging.com.
This post is sponsored by Anchor Packaging