Fueling Up is a column from C-Store Dive offering a fresh perspective on the top news and trends in the convenience store industry.
7-Eleven’s mission to elevate its food was one of the convenience store industry’s biggest storylines of 2024. Late last year, the Irving, Texas-based retailer launched its new store format, which offers a larger product assortment and expanded food and beverage offerings in addition to in-store seating. At the time, 7-Eleven’s leadership said they wanted to open over 600 of these c-stores — which it has in the past referred to as its “New Standard” stores — by 2027.
7-Eleven has always offered food, mainly grab-and-go bites and roller grill dogs. And over the past decade, the company has explored branded QSRs, notably Laredo Taco Company and Raise the Roost Chicken & Biscuits. But launching a multi-year initiative in which the company aims to open several hundred stores with a fresh food focus and in-store seating is a whole new ballgame.
For the past few months, I’ve been wondering: Can 7-Eleven actually pull this off? Will consumers legitimately be saying in 2027, “Let’s go grab dinner at 7-Eleven?”
7-Eleven certainly has its work cut out if it wants to turn its stores into full-fledged food destinations. It will have to hire and retain more qualified foodservice employees, boost its portfolio of fresh food items and convince customers its grub is good.
“I believe that they can do it,” said a former 7-Eleven vice president of operations, who requested anonymity. The former exec emphasized, however, that the company must first address one major obstacle standing in its way.
Getting franchisees on board
Getting franchisees, who operate the majority of 7-Eleven’s U.S. stores, on board with its fresh food overhaul will be a major challenge, the former executive said, emphasizing that 7-Eleven has struggled with this over the years.
The former VP of operations said working with franchisees was an important part of their role with the company, and involved maintaining relationships with franchise associations and meeting with franchise owners to see how 7-Eleven could better support them.
Most franchisees, the former VP said, got into 7-Eleven because they didn’t want to deal with fresh food, which is typically more logistically complex and expensive to merchandise. The executive requested to be quoted anonymously to avoid retaliation from 7-Eleven.
“You have a bunch of people that bought into a system expecting to sell smokes, lottery, beer and Snickers,” the former VP said. “If they wanted to sell food, they would have gotten a Taco Bell [or] Dunkin Donuts.”
Many 7-Eleven franchisees live paycheck to paycheck, the former executive said. Agreeing to turn their store into a fresh food haven will cost them more money up front, and the return on investment may take years to realize.
“They can't afford $8,000 less income this year with the hopes of making $10,000 in the future,” the former VP said.
In a statement, a 7-Eleven spokesperson did not comment on the view that franchisees have opposed incorporating fresh food in past years and may potentially in the future. Instead, they emphasized that the company is “focused on our fresh foods growth strategy continually innovating our assortment to deliver on customers’ needs for high quality, fresh, craveable and on-the-go convenient food.”
Convincing shoppers
But what if 7-Eleven convinces most of its franchisees to embrace its New Standard stores? The next step would be pushing this food-forward mentality to the general public, whose view of the retailer’s food is far from that of a Michelin star restaurant.
7-Eleven has spent the past few years boosting its arsenal of food products, from launching dozens of private-label goodies to introducing variations of burritos and sandwiches at its Laredo Taco and Raise the Roost QSRs. What’s missing here?
Because 7-Eleven’s business has centered around Slurpees and roller grill dogs for so long, consumers may struggle to think of the retailer any differently, Norm Miller, former professor and chair of real estate finance at the University of San Diego School of Business, told the Los Angeles Daily News last year.
“Americans are slow to experiment once a solid stereotype is set in place,” Miller said of 7-Eleven’s food efforts.
With this difficulty in changing the public’s perspectives in mind, reaching consumers with New Standard stores must be done slowly and by region, the former 7-Eleven VP said. This strategy can ensure stores receive enough training and resources, and that the company invests enough advertising dollars targeting customers in these areas.
“If they try to do a shotgun approach where they're doing it everywhere, I don't believe that the organization has the discipline or the infrastructure to be able to raise all boats at one time.”
