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QuikTrip marketing food with fresh idea: QT Kitchens products latest strategy
(Tulsa World (OK) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Aug. 13--For all the speedy service and time-saving measures its gasoline pumps and snack-filled retail stores already offer busy consumers, QuikTrip wanted more.
So in 2002, the Tulsa-based chain took an in-depth look at the convenience store industry and made a company-altering decision to transform into more of a destination instead of a brief stop for a fill-up and cup of coffee.
Offer fresh food, the company decided. Every day.
QuikTrip Corp.'s step outside age-old convenience store boundaries came about slowly and discreetly. But today, close to two-thirds of the 55 Tulsa-area stores are now sporting redesigned interiors and display fixtures for sandwiches, wraps and fruit cups that hit the shelves fresh every day.
They originate from a somewhat hidden, 40,000-square-foot production facility in an industrial park just east of U.S. 169 between 51st and 61st streets.
QT Kitchens is fronted by a small fleet of seven refrigerated delivery trucks, and inside, 95 employees start their workday early by preparing thousands of lunch items that rival any number of local fast-food and quick-casual eateries.
Convenience doesn't have to mean prepackaged, made-somewhere-else products with a long shelf life, the company maintains.
"It's been a long-term initiative," said QuikTrip spokesman Mike Thornbrugh. "It's been in the works for four years, and now we're rolling it out."
Privately held QuikTrip won't divulge its investment in QT Kitchens or the revamped stores, but "it's substantial," Thornbrugh said.
The program began at 12 locations, and now 35 stores have been renovated to incorporate new fixtures and the latest grab-and-go foods.
"We're excited," he said. "This is huge. And almost 100 new jobs -- that's not a bad deal."
In the past year or two, a new generation of convenience stores began to emerge featuring bright and cheery interiors with wider aisles; decidedly more upscale than their dingy, cluttered predecessors.
Convenience stores are changing the very nature of convenience, says the National Association of Convenience Stores, a Virginia-based trade group that tracks sales and trends. And last year, even the National Restaurant Association admitted that convenience stores are one of the fastest-growing segments of the food-service industry.
QuikTrip's Thornbrugh believes the Tulsa chain recognized that new direction early on.
"We think we were ahead of it," he said, and the company's extensive research zeroed in on consumers' taste preferences and food industry trends.
"We're in the fresh food business," Thornbrugh says. "We are going to compete."
Spicy Southwestern chicken wraps and lettuce- and tomato-filled turkey sandwiches are just the latest offerings to show up in local QuikTrip stores.
First the company revamped its beverage stations, adding space in stores to accommodate new frozen and energy drinks and coffee, hot chocolate and milk shake machines. QuikTrip now also sells its own in-house brand of Colombian and decaffeinated Colombian ground coffee.
The next step in enticing customers to linger -- after fueling their cars and grabbing a coffee or soda -- came in the form of doughnuts, cookies and other fresh-baked goods.
A QT Kitchens bakery opened in early 2005, and those sweets began popping up in stores last September. At the same time, three locations were remodeled to taste-test a sampling of cold sandwiches, hot dogs and hot chicken- and beef-stuffed taquitos.
Egg rolls now round out the hot-food case, and fresh fruit cups are displayed near the wraps and sandwiches.
Everything -- from the displays, the rearranged counters and the food -- was planned out in minute detail months before any stores were redesigned, Thornbrugh said.
Two different store mockups were constructed at the QT Kitchens facility and filled with every product actually sold in each store so the company could decide on the best floor plan and the most advantageous placement.
"We built them over two years ago," Thornbrugh said. "Then we tweaked them."
And with the competition in mind, it was all worked out secretly.
"It was highly confidential; no one knew what we were doing," said QT Kitchens manager Jeremy Stanford.
Stores remained open during renovation work so the transition was fairly seamless, Thornbrugh said. "The key to this whole thing is we're going to change the stereotype that convenience stores can't have fresh, high-quality foods."
In a chilly, 40-degree stainless steel production room at QT Kitchens, employees working in assembly-line style put together sandwiches layer by layer. At the end of the line, the products are wrapped and packaged.
With 33 stores to supply, "We're making about 3,000 a day," Stanford said, although QT Kitchens has the capabilities, and staff, to produce from 10,000 to 15,000 sandwiches every day.
Even now, "We're staffed to service all 55 Tulsa stores," he said.
And in true QuikTrip fashion, the facility was built with the future in mind, Thornbrugh added. "We overbuild because we know we'll grow into it."
QuikTrip hired a chef to create the lunch menu and dream up new offerings. "We gave him carte blanche to find the best ingredients," Thornbrugh said.
Research looked at what was already available, and feedback was gleaned from focus groups. So far, "We have come up with 100 different food offerings," Thornbrugh said, and recipes and flavors represent every imaginable ethnicity. "You name it, we'll be testing it."
The role of QT Kitchens' chef, which was posted online, caught the eye of Jeff Ball, who was already cooking for another Oklahoma company.
For him, the QuikTrip position represented a longtime goal.
"Being a corporate chef is my dream job," said Ball, who came on at QuikTrip two years ago and is constantly working on new recipes.
"The challenge was coming up with something fresh daily," he said, and overseeing that production's larger-than-life scale. At QuikTrip, "You can be creative, and you direct it, " he said. "You have more input."
Ball said his selections were chosen in part by QuikTrip visitors who sent in suggestions through the company's Web site.
"Customers have been asking for deli sandwiches and wraps," he said, "and QuikTrip listens to its customers."
More upscale merchandise, restaurant-style foods and beverages, and improved customer service are just some of the ways convenience stores are trying to appeal to those beyond its core customer.
With profit margins on fuel and cigarettes decreasing, the industry is dealing with increased competition from grocers adding gasoline pumps, drug stores adding more food to their merchandise mix and the proliferation of fast-food outlets, the NACS said.
Tulsa, obviously, is the test market for QT Kitchens' run at the quick-casual, fresh-food market.
"It's doing very well in Tulsa, or we wouldn't have expanded it," Thornbrugh said. Whether the program goes companywide in QuikTrip's nine-state region remains to be seen.
"We really don't set a timetable for ourselves," he said. "We'll sit back and watch and see, and learn from it. . . . When we're comfortable and satisfied it's a hit, we'll move forward."
The menu in place now with three sandwiches, three wraps and three salads will change over time, just as restaurants rotate specials and introduce different items. And the made-fresh-daily selections aren't the only in-house offerings.
A selection of bagged Cafe QuikTrip sandwiches -- cheeseburger and chicken subs made frozen and shipped to the stores from three distribution centers in Atlanta, Phoenix and outside Kansas City, Mo. -- is ready to pop into the microwave.
After gaining a foothold in the market with its coffee and Big Gulp drinks, QuikTrip is simply looking to take charge of its own destiny, and its profit margins.
"We want to produce; we want to transport," Thornbrugh said. "We want to control every aspect."
And the innovation won't end with fresh food.
On the radar now and being tested at one location -- 96th Street and Riverside Drive -- is a touch-sensitive screen at the fuel pumps that lets customers order items from inside the store without having to go inside.
"We're looking to see if people have any interest in it," Thornbrugh said. The service doesn't apply to merchandise that is age-sensitive and requires identification, he added, including alcoholic beverages, cigarettes and lottery tickets.
"In the next six months, in the next nine months, we're going to be doing all kinds of things," he said. "Our customer two years from now won't recognize us."
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