10p from the purchase of every sandwich or wrap from the dailyDeli Season’s Eatings range will go towards SPAR and EUROSPAR NI’s charity partners, Marie Curie and Cancer Fund for Children.

In the past four years, donations from sandwich purchases have raised over £9,000 for the charities which offer services across every community in Northern Ireland.

“Christmas sandwiches are a staple of the season, and often the first taste of Christmas ahead of the big day – our traditional turkey sandwich is our biggest seller each year,” said Bronagh Luke, head of corporate marketing at Henderson Group.

“We are delighted to be able to continue to support our two store partnership charities with this popular range, with donations growing year on year. We have raised over £9,200 so far, with donations rising alongside the popularity of our fresh, handmade Christmas sandwich range.”

Henderson’s partner Around Noon, the award-winning food-to-go manufacturer from Newry, has created the Christmas collection.

Gareth Chambers, CEO at Around Noon said: “We are extremely proud of our partnership with Henderson Group and our collective teams love developing great food for Christmas.

“We pride ourselves on producing quality food with great local provenance and our team of chefs are always seeking out new and exciting flavours from around the world to bring to market.”

The festive dailyDeli range of Christmas sandwiches are available across SPAR, EUROSPAR, ViVO, ViVOXTRA and ViVO Essentials stores now.

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As forecourt retailing faces a period of change, Gary told IFCR he recognises the need for change and incorporating alternative fuel options and how that will impact the traditional role of the forecourt store.

“As the EV market in Ireland and the subsequent demand for EV charging grows, the infrastructure must evolve to accommodate this as an option for commuters, ensuring access to charging points. As part of Ireland’s journey to Net Zero, we have a responsibility to provide access to these services that are designed to offset emissions and promote a more sustainable way of living,” he says.

“In terms of the impact that this will have on the Irish forecourt retailing market, it is important to consider the fact that EV charging will directly affect the role that forecourts play in customers’ day-to-day lives. As customers become able to charge EVs from homes, forecourts must diversify their offering for customers, innovating to provide products, services and food options that will encourage drivers to stop at forecourt stores for reasons other than fuelling up.

“Forecourts already provide much more than just fuel, offering locations for customers and commuters to stop and pick up essentials, stretch their legs, grab a coffee and a bite to eat, and recharge themselves while they’re out on the road.

“While EV charging Is increasingly factored into planning and infrastructure, having a population that is predominantly using EVs as their main mode of transport is still a long way off due to the costs and logistics involved for domestic and commercial drivers. So forecourts will continue to provide traditional fuel options for customers, and innovation will continue to play a key role in ensuring that Gala stores remain at the forefront of forecourt retailing in Ireland.”

As one of Ireland’s leading convenience groups with 248 stores within the Gala Retail family operating nationwide, the Gala Group serves thousands of shoppers daily.

The company has been keeping ahead of the curve as the market has developed, introducing chilled distribution, Gala own-brand products and fresh in-store concepts.

“One of the biggest changes in the market over the years during my time with Gala Retail has been the increased demand for fresh food and food-to-go offerings among customers, particularly forecourt customers,” Gary says.

“As the convenience retail sector has evolved, with fresh food offerings emerging as a key driver for consumers, Gala has responded by making fresh food a central part of our offering.

“In recent years we have invested heavily in the expansion of our Fresh Food team and in the development of our own exclusive range of in store concepts. The Gala Group has more Fresh Food Executives per retailer than any other convenience symbol group, demonstrating the pivotal role of fresh food in convenience retailing.”

Gala’s dedication to ensuring Gala retailers have access to innovative concepts that set their stores apart from competitors, delivering quality, convenient and food-to-go options, has proven to be a huge factor in driving footfall and increasing basket spend over the past few years.

“Fresh food-to-go is not just for people on the move. With the busy lifestyles that people are leading these days, they are also looking for high quality, convenient and fresh food-to-go options to enjoy at home and at Gala we are continuously innovating and developing our in-store offerings in order to cater for this market.”

To read the full interview, watch out for the next issue of Ireland’s Forecourt & Convenience Retailer.

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While inflation is set to be the main driver of growth, operators and retailers have an opportunity to support consumers through the cost-of-living crisis as they look to save money, the latest update from the insight provider says.

This year (2022) the UK food-to-go channel will be worth £18.9bn, 3% more than its pre-Covid value in 2019.

The market has performed better than predicted since the pandemic, but this is expected to slow by the end of the year and throughout 2023 as consumers battle rising energy, fuel and food costs.

Pent-up demand

Nicola Knight, Senior Analyst for Food-to-Go and author of the forecasts, said: “Foodservice businesses were the biggest beneficiaries of pent-up demand for food on-the-go last year because of all the innovation they put into working around lockdowns, such as flexible delivery solutions and click and collect offers.

“But as the cost-of living-crisis comes in these operators will be under pressure as they become more of a premium option compared with lower priced food-to-go alternatives from a retailer, or preparing food at home.”

Growth driver

Inflation will be the main driver of growth over the next 18 months, Ms Knight says.

“Inflation is already affecting many consumers but until now food-to-go has continued to perform strongly.  This will change as the true impact of rising prices really kicks in in the last quarter and takes hold next year. So, while inflation will boost the overall value of the market, volume will, at best, stay the same in 2023.

“The next 18 months will be a challenging period for the sector, mainly for coffee and food-to-go specialists, as operators attempt to balance rising costs with helping consumers to save money.

“Quick Service Restaurants (QSRs) that focus on communicating their value, particularly around deals and family offers, will do well with consumers that are still looking for the occasional treat without breaking the bank.”

Challenges and opportunities

The cost-of-living crisis will bring challenges for foodservice food-to-go operators but opportunities for retailers, she added.

With the focus back on value for at least the next 18 months, retailers are in a strong position. The price point, range and execution of meal deals will become fiercely competitive, as they aim to capitalise on the opportunity.

“During the pandemic, retailers deprioritised food-to-go space in favour of in-demand categories, leaving them on the competitive back foot as footfall returned and consumers sought a change from homemade meals,” Ms Knight said.

“However, if they can get their price, offer and format right, by 2027 retail could more than regain the share lost to foodservice operators during the pandemic to claim 23.7% of the food-to-go market, compared with 22.9% in 2019 and 20% in 2020/21.

Meal deal offers

“Key opportunities for retailers over the next 18 months will include strengthening their meal deal offers as consumers become more value-led, and utilising customer data to create tailored offers that are relevant and savings-focused. There’s also an opportunity for them to increase food-to-go ranges to meet consumer needs across a wider variety of meal occasions.”

The annual Food-to-Go forecast report from IGD examines in detail the outlook by sector for: QSR, coffee shops, food-to-go specialists, supermarkets/hypermarkets, and convenience, forecourts & other retailers.

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Husband and wife retail team John and Donna Moran spotted early on that food to go was the way forward when it comes to forecourts.

After buying and establishing their three forecourts in the late 90s and early 2000s, their top priority was to develop their food to go range.

Point of difference

“We’ve been doing that now for the 20 plus years,” Donna explains.

“What we felt we needed to do was make it a point of difference. A lot of people were doing what we were doing as far as forecourt retailing was concerned, but we wanted to make a point of difference and we felt this was an opportunity to go down the road to producing our own homemade food.

“We’d been making our own sandwiches in-store since we opened the stores, but we were always wanting to improve our range and our product.

“Now we put our product – our sandwiches and our salads – on the shelves and we say ‘Made today – gone today’, in that they’re going to be sold within 24 hours, because we want to retain that quality.”

Next step forward

The couple have just completed the third stage of their production kitchen and are looking forward to developing their range even further.

“We had been making our sandwiches and salads in the shops and then we decided that the best way for us to retain our quality was to have one central distribution hub. So we built the first stage of our production kitchen in Ballykelly and now we have just completed the third stage of our production kitchen,” Donna says.

“It employs about 15 people for the production alone and we call it Bring Good Food Home – ‘From our Kitchen to Your Kitchen’ It produces our ready meals. ‘Moran’s Makes its Own’ is our mantra. We do all our own sandwiches, make all our own mixes, make all the food for the deli, so our production kitchen can supply each store with all our deli food and with all the sandwiches that we sell off the shelf as well as salad ranges and the likes of stews and curries.

“We make all our Sunday roast dinners for deli customers to come and buy from the deli on a Sunday and we also have them to take home as well, which means we have the spider fridges filled, so you can just lift your dinner, bring it home and heat it.”

Family of retailers

Donna grew up in a family retail background, as her parents owned a forecourt, and that has stood her in good stead in developing the business.

“My husband and I owned a tyre and exhaust centre and forecourt in the early ‘80s and in 1997 we took on our store on Strand Road in Derry under the umbrella of Musgrave SuperValu Centra,” she says.

“Centra was a new brand into Northern Ireland and we were the third store in Northern Ireland to open a Centra store and we have never looked back since.

“We had a small shop in our forecourt where we sold tyres and exhausts before, so we wanted to expand into the new concept of forecourt retailing. We could see that there was a vision there to expand our business.

“Then in 2002 we purchased our Centra in Coleraine and in 2004 we purchased our SuperValu in Ballykelly – the three of them are forecourts.

Location is key

“The Strand Road store is on the main road into Derry/Londonderry, and the Coleraine one is on the outskirts of Coleraine on the main thoroughfare to the north coast, so it gets a lot of passing trade. The Ballykelly store is in a rural village in the north west but it’s on a main road going to the north coast as well.”

Word of mouth as well as digital marketing in-store has played a major role in the development of the food to go offer, Donna says.

“We call it Kitchen to Kitchen, from our kitchen to your kitchen. We would do a lot of curries, stew, dinners, we do a lovely boeuf bourguignon, we do a huge range,” she says.

“We have chefs there constantly developing new lines and developing the third stage of our production kitchen has led us to be able to expand our equipment and be able to produce more new lines.

Healthy options

“So we’ve a new healthy option coming out now, with four new products coming in our salad range. There are going to be a lot of different salads – it will go according to what the season is.

“We like to think that we’re taking the hassle out of mealtimes and promoting no pots, no pans, no washing – because all our dishes are all overproof and microwave proof.

“We do our Christmas in a box, which means you can get your Christmas in a box delivered to you, from your starter to your dessert. You can have your entire Christmas dinner cooked for you, or you can have it uncooked – it takes all the stress out of Christmas because all the dishes are oven-proof and you just put them in the oven and just dump them into the black bag when you’re finished and serve your dinner.

“We actually tried it out on our family ourselves first to see how it would work and I mean it was unbelievable. We had to turn people away because we hadn’t got the capacity to cover the amount of people looking for it, but now that we’ve brought on our new phase, hopefully in 2022 we’ll be able to do more.”

Fresh ideas

The business also came up with some new food to go ideas to support customers during the pandemic restrictions, Donna says.

“We do a lot of stuff for barbecues, so because the weather was so good during the pandemic we sold a lot of burgers and barbecue products. We also have our outside catering business as well which did very well during the pandemic,” she says.

“We had afternoon teas where we had people who lived across the world booking afternoon teas, especially for Mother’s Day for their mothers. There were people who rang me from America, placing an order to send their mum afternoon tea if they lived here locally in the city – cakes, traybakes, a complete afternoon tea.

“We also did the cheese platters as well, and they also had the choice of getting Prosecco or white or red wine. They also delivered for Valentine’s Day, and we had a huge range of flowers for Valentine’s Day.

Hampers for occasions

“In our Ballykelly store we have an off licence so we were able to provide people what they wanted, Prosecco, wine or gin, to make hampers. We’re now in the process of doing the drink hampers for Father’s Day which is coming up next, and we’re gearing up now for the summer and the barbecue weather.”

Just before the pandemic reached Northern Ireland, the couple had just reopened their Strand Road stop in April 2019 as a new state-of-the-art store.

“We were just going to celebrate our first year in business with our new store and then the pandemic came along in March and that really changed our whole lives,” Donna says.

“But our staff were amazing – 95% of our staff were standing with us. Some ran for the hills as they say, because they didn’t know what was ahead of them: others were vulnerable so they had to stay at home. But we followed all the restrictions and guidelines, and put up all the safety measures that had to be put in place.

Delivery service

“We offered a home delivery service for our elderly and vulnerable customers – we told them just to ring us in from their car and we would bring out their groceries to them in the forecourts.

“Some of our customers are elderly and they always loved coming in for their newspapers, so some of our staff went out and delivered their newspapers in the morning.

“But they loved coming into the forecourt, even sitting in the forecourt. We would have brought them out their coffee – some of the husbands and wives would literally have sat in the forecourt in the car and had their wee traybake.

“Our staff were amazing and we all pulled together and stayed united, so I suppose we were like frontline workers as well when you think about it.”

Pandemic boost

Sales of ready meals and food-to-go increased over the pandemic because other shops and hospitality businesses were closed.

“The other thing during the pandemic was the Christmas dinners as well – that did take a lot of hassle out of people’s lives, getting their dinners delivered to the door. The deliveries would only go to a 10-mile radius of the town, but we offered click and collect,” Donna says.

“We extended our opening hours from 5.30am to 2am, so we were able to serve the emergency services with their fuel as well and they were able to get their lunch breaks or any food that they needed.”

All three forecourts are Go forecourts and Donna says they get a lot of support from the company.

Forecourt revamp

The Strand Road forecourt and store was completely demolished and a new 4,000 sq. foot shop, offices, forecourt with extra parking, new canopy, fuel pumps and storage tanks were added during the redevelopment.

“We’ve also invested in the Coleraine forecourt. We completely redeveloped the 3 sq. foot shop and deli including seating area. We put in all new pumps, incorporating pay at pump terminals, a brand new state of the art drive-through car wash, new jet washes, air & water towers and rebranded to Go. It’s all really popular, it never stops,” Donna says.

“We are also looking into putting electric charging into some of our forecourts as well because that’s going to be the future.”

Supply chain issues haven’t been as much of a problem as elsewhere, because the stores come under the umbrella of Musgrave SuperValu Centra which sources a lot of local products and have been brilliant throughout.

Turbulent times

“At the same time it’s been challenging through Brexit and a huge challenge now with the price increases. All our costs have gone sky high and then the fuel price has gone sky’s the limit as well. The fuel price is changing every day and going up every day,” Donna says.

“Everybody needs fuel to travel so they are very conscious of the price.

As for her wish list for the future, Donna says three adult children have now become involved in the business.

“We hope they will be able to take over and I will be able to retire some time,” she laughs.

“I would say that our wish list would be to keep going and be able to survive in this market. Once we have our production kitchen updated to full capacity – we’re waiting on planning permission for another phase of it – that’s the future for us.

“Of course we would like to expand the business and with our family involved it’s a great opportunity.”

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For the three months to March 31, 2022, the UK petrol station and food retail business reported a 2% increase in group EBITDA to £215 million and a 25.1% jump in revenues to £5.5 billion.

EG Group, which is owned by brothers Mohsin and Zuber Issa,  said its foodservice operation saw gross profit increasing 54% year-on-year to £140 million and up 20% on a like-for-like basis.

The forecourt giant said foodservice growth continues to be “supported by the group’s pipeline of openings and investment in EG’s existing estate”.

EG Group opened a further 26 foodservice outlets in the period around the world, 21 of which were opened in the UK and Republic of Ireland — including Subway, Greggs, Cinnabon and Sbarro sites.

Grocery and merchandise gross profits inched up 0.8% to £234 million, with margins staying comparable to the previous year despite increases in wholesale and distribution costs.

EG Group co-chief executive Zuber Issa said: “EG Group performed resiliently in the first three months of the year. Against an uncertain and fast-changing backdrop, the business continued to make good progress against its strategic objectives across the group’s operations.

“The outlook for the year remains uncertain with household budgets already coming under significant inflationary pressure.

“However, we remain confident that the geographic diversity of our business, and our highly complementary grocery and merchandise, foodservice and fuel operations will continue to underpin our resilience and allow us to outperform the wider market.”

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