New Best-one store format focuses on food to go and chilled

Best-one has launched a ‘store of the future’ concept with a new emphasis on food to go and chilled.

The new format, which is now available to retailers, features expanded food to go, healthy snack, fresh coffee and impulse confectionery ranges at the front of the store to take advantage of daytime snacking and meal deal opportunities.

The rest of the store is designed to cater to the take home and meal-for-tonight missions with larger format snacks, soft drinks and alcohol as well as a larger range of chilled and fresh meat, ready meals and produce.

Best-one has also struck up deals with foodservice brands Cuisine de France and Starbucks for fresh food-to-go fixtures.

“The great thing about this new Best-one store is that we started with a shell and a blank piece of paper so we were able to tailor the store to the local community using detailed demographic information and evolve it into a fantastic example of how a modern c-store should look,” said Bestway symbol development director James Hall.

“Our model places great emphasis on chilled and fresh with a recommendation that 20% of floor space is dedicated to these categories.”

The new store is available in a number of styles to suit local demographics and the first Best-one store of the future, owned by retailer Ahmed Nazir in Kilburn, London, uses the large community format.

“We operate a range of different formats under the Best-one fascia from large convenience to value, and use each member’s shopper demographics to produce a shop flow, promotional activity, ranging and merchandising blueprint for each individual store,” says Best-one head of business development Paul Adams.

“In Naz’s case we implemented a large community format which focuses heavily on the shopper missions of food-to-go and chilled but also encompasses core convenience staples with a key focus on driving consumer promotions in store.”

Nazir added: “The transformation is unbelievable. There is a real buzz about the store and customers cannot believe they have a store of this standard on their doorsteps.”