According to the National Coffee Association USA’s (NCA) fall 2021 National Coffee Data Trends (NCDT) report, out-of-home coffee consumption is up 16% since January 2021, nearly back to pre-pandemic January 2020 levels, said Bill Murray, NCA’s president and CEO. Seventy-one percent of Americans are already visiting coffee shops or plan to in the next month, up nearly 50% since January 2020.

“We expect to see the emerging recovery in the Spring 2022 NCDT,” Murray noted.

COVID concerns and restrictions steered an increasing number of customers toward using store drive-throughs to order and pick up their coffee. Stats from the NCDT report showed a 15% increase since January 2020, representing 55% of past-day café/gas station/convenience store purchasers. 

More customers are also ordering their coffee via store apps in numbers that remained well above pre-pandemic levels during the report period. App orders were up 46% since January 2020, representing 35% of past-week café/gas station/convenience store purchasers.

At Fast Break Convenience Stores’ 33 stores in Oregon and California, coffee sales have been rebounding, but not 100%, said Oliver Herting, beverage category manager for the chain. He noted that c-stores can build on the convenience factor to bring pandemic-shy consumers inside.

“The pandemic has changed some customers’ minds on where they want to go and how much time they want to spend in a store,” he said. “Convenience stores have benefited from that as long as we can get customers in and out of the store quickly.”

The biggest trend Herting has seen in recent times is the customer demand for flavors and seasonal customization of their coffee. Fast Break offers a minimum of six flavors of coffee and the option to customize with five different cappuccino flavors.

Herting also sees bean-to-cup equipment as the up-and-coming technology.

“We have implemented bean-to-cup machines in all of our stores to offer a great-tasting, fresh coffee throughout the day,” he said. “Customers are slowly adapting to the new addition and enjoying it a lot.”

He pointed out that the technology puts the convenience store coffee on the same level as the big chains.

“The next step,” he said, “is to win over some of those big-chain customers by showing them the value they can get with us.”