Country Choice at Londis Caenby Corner

The Londis forecourt site at Caenby Corner is a brilliant example of how a convenience store can gradually grow its food to go offer in partnership with Country Choice.

“Country Choice was recommended to us by Londis when we decided to have a store refit in January of 2014,” says store manager, Kerry-Anne. “We started off by selling a core range of pastries and bacon baps aimed at capturing the breakfast trade and, following the success of that, progressed to offering a wide selection of other food to go options including freshly prepared sandwiches, baguettes, wraps, and salads, along with garlic bread, fries, chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, morning goods, and one of our most exciting launches to date, Country Choice’s Flatstone Pizza Co. pizzas…

New Opportunities

“Having identified the opportunity that pizzas presented we looked at the options available and chose Flatstone Pizza Co. because we liked the fact that it was an all in one concept. We had previously offered pizzas from another brand, but they never really took off - I suspect it might have been because they were a bit too greasy, whereas the Flatstone Pizza Co. ones are not. Also, our customers love the fact that the pizzas are freshly prepared, and baked, in store, rather than being taken out of a box and cooked. Of course, this means that they take a little longer for us to bake and serve, than say a Steak Bake, but the end product is well worth that extra bit of time and effort. Also, having the half boxes available as a grab & go option makes them perfect for our customer demographic as many of them are passing through and just want something that they can easily pick up and eat on the move. This might explain why our bestselling Flatstone Pizza Co. products are the pepperoni half pizza and meat feast half pizza. And we love the display boxes because they look great and show off the pizzas really well. We currently sell around 50 pizzas per week, depending on variables such as the weather, school holidays, etc, on a very healthy margin of between 25% and 35%.

Excellent Customer Feedback

“Feedback has been excellent, not just because the pizzas are really good, but also because of the efforts of our fantastic kitchen team. We don’t just throw our food to go together and hope someone buys it, we try to be proud of what we offer – if we wouldn't eat it ourselves then why should we expect our customers to buy it?

Healthy Margins

Whilst Flatstone Pizza Co. pizzas have been an excellent addition to our range, they are only part of what has become a very successful food to go offer. So much so that we now average around £4,000 to £5,000 per week on hot food, and around £1,000 to £1,500 on sandwiches, which remain our bestseller. And, again, the margins are very healthy, coming in at between 30% to 40%.

Great Support

The support we get from Country Choice is also really good. Our rep, Karen, is very helpful and I feel that we work really well together, being able to listen to each other and exchange ideas. I am not sure how much further our food to go offer can go at the minute – we must sell most of Country Choice’s range already! - but we continue to work closely with Karen to come up with new ideas that will keep our food to go proposition interesting, varied, and on trend.