Dive Brief:
- Kum & Go has expanded its healthy foods strategy by partnering with natural and organic distributor Kehe to bring its healthier-for-you offerings to 80 of its roughly 400 locations.
- The selected 80 locations align with where Kum & Go has completed store remodels and rolled out its new fresh food program, Stephanie Poitry, director of category management for Kum & Go, said in an email.
- Kehe’s foods belong to many of the same categories that traditionally work well for c-stores — like beef jerky, salty snacks, candy and cookies — but will include more premium offerings that complement Kum & Go’s traditional mix, Poitry added.
Dive Insight:
Better-for-you food has been a hot topic in c-stores for years. And the agreement between Kum & Go and Kehe highlights the chain’s recent focus on improving its food offerings along those lines.
“In addition to our fresh food menu, our overall strategy always included enhancing our retail assortment as a way to differentiate across our entire store,” Poitry, said.
Kum & Go set out to find the right distributor to augment this healthier focus. Poitry said the company talked to several distributors looking for the right mix, and ultimately settled on Kehe.
Poitry added that the company expects to expand some of the products to more of its locations in 2023.
This announcement comes on the heels of Kum & Go building out its fresh food menu in Des Moines locations, after piloting the program in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Omaha, Nebraska, in 2021. That new menu covers breakfast, lunch and dinner, with a variety of made-to-order options to choose from including breakfast burritos and bowls, burrito bowls, stackers and pizzas.
At the time, Kum & Go said it was focused on the quality of its ingredients and offering customers something they might not expect in a c-store.
In a press release, Marc Rosenthal, executive director of business development for Kehe said, “we are proud to partner with [Kum & Go] to broaden their product assortment and help them continue to challenge the perceived ‘norm’ of convenience store food.”
Kehe focuses on “natural & organic, specialty and fresh products,” according to its website. While not a big player in the c-store space yet, its products can be found in over 30,000 stores currently, Rosenthal said in an email.
Kehe has worked with plenty of chain stores before, including Popshelf, a retail chain store owned by Dollar General; Meijer Express; and CIBO Express Gourmet Markets, said Rosenthal.
But this agreement is its first big foray into the convenience store space.
“Kehe is new to convenience and we are new to this level of specialty items,” said Poitry. “They have been great partners so far and willing to learn and go above and beyond.”
In the press release, Kehe also said this partnership is a step towards its own goals of bringing better-for-you options to more convenience retailers.
Des Moines, Iowa-headquartered Kum & Go currently has stores in 11 midwest states, including Iowa, Arkansas, Colorado, the Dakotas and Minnesota.
Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified the source of some information from Kehe. the information came from Marc Rosenthal, executive director of business development for Kehe.
