Consumer Attitudes Reveal Opportunity for C-Store Foodservice

Millennials—or what researcher Michelle Barry calls “digital natives”—are generally ambivalent about buying food from a convenience store.

They crave the idea of healthier, fresh-made products with a variety of options: “I would prefer that something be fresh—made by a person,” consumers born after 1980 told Barry’s Centric Brand Anthropology Inc.

But they fear the food-preparation area is a disease-ridden mess: “Something in a (factory) package seems safer.”

Here’s a look at how this younger generation’s attitude toward c-stores and foodservice shakes out, according to Barry’s presentation titled “Digital Natives and C-Stores: Food and Beverage Opportunities,” presented during CSP’s Shopper Insights & Engagement Forum.