Whether it’s for dashboard dining or taking home to the family, during different times of the day chicken offerings are helping retailers satisfy customers’ cravings for delicious, economical and wholesome food options.
By Marilyn Odesser-Torpey, Associate Editor
Marinated, spiced, glazed, baked, broiled and especially fried, Americans seemingly can’t get enough chicken.
In fact, 89% of consumers recently told Chicago-based Technomic market research company that they eat chicken at least weekly. So it’s no surprise that chicken is the most prevalent protein on both limited and full-service restaurant menus.
It’s certainly no surprise to Kevin Bible, food service district manager for Beck Suppliers Inc.’s FriendShip Food Stores, a convenience store chain based in Fremont, Ohio. At the 11 FriendShip locations that sell fried chicken under the Charley Biggs’ Chicken n’ Sauce banner, sales of the popular poultry have been consistently growing.
Fried chicken sales have increased for FriendShip anywhere between 8% and more than 20%, depending on the store, Bible reported. FriendShip first started a Charley Biggs’ Chicken n’ Sauce program in one of its stores in about 2003. Today the program has been expanded into the chain’s stores that are large enough to support the program and its equipment.
FLYING HIGH
This fall, FriendShip will debut a proprietary foodservice concept called Anchor Café at a store in North Ridgeville, Ohio. This new concept will use the Charley Biggs’ products and procedures, but sell the chicken under the proprietary Anchor name. As new stores are open, this is the branding model they will follow, Bible said.
The chicken is delivered to the stores fresh from local vendors three times a week. It’s marinated, battered and fried on site.
Although the stores do not offer special chicken breakfast items, in some markets, they still have to start frying as early as 6 a.m. to serve people who may be on a late shift or who want to pick up lunch to take to work. Bible doesn’t hesitate to put this chicken program up against any of the major fast food chains, including KFC and Popeyes.
“As a convenience store, we can be more efficient with our labor so we can be way more price competitive,” Bible said.
In addition to a deli manager and other personnel dedicated to the chicken concept, FriendShip cross-trains its other employees so they are able to help out when needed. But, he noted, efficiency is not the only thing the FriendShip stores have over the major fast-feeders.
“I really think we have a better product,” Bible said.
As the stores continue to make headway as a destination for picking up a bucket of chicken for the
family dinner, Bible sees see more sales potential.
“You can’t pick up a 12-pack of beer along with your chicken dinner at KFC or Popeyes,” Bible said. “The convenience factor alone is a selling point for us.”
The stores sell family-size 8-, 12- and 16-piece dinners. The flexible chicken program also allows the FriendShip stores to offer catering, a segment which is growing for them.
A new product that is causing a lot of buzz in the stores is popcorn chicken, bites of white meat chicken cut in-store from fresh tenders. FriendShip sells 10 pieces for $2.19, making them the perfect portion and price for a snack to bridge the daypart between lunch and dinner, Bible pointed out.
“Between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., they’re one of the biggest things we sell,” he said. “We get a lot of high school kids who come in for the popcorn chicken as a snack.”
Friendship “aggressively” promotes its chicken program on social media and features it on an app that customers can download. Although it has been only eight months since the chain introduced its app, it already has between 3,500-4,000 downloads. The stores’ loyalty program also links chicken sales to cents off per gallon discounts at the pump.
A big seller is the combo meal which pairs a chicken item with a side and fountain drink. “We’ve worked hard to promote the combo meals and they’re very successful for us,” Bible said.
CHICKEN CHAMPS
Scott Zaremba readily admits that he was apprehensive to bring fried chicken into his Zarco USA c-stores.
“I didn’t want the whole store to smell of frying,” said Zaremba, Zarco’s president and CEO. “But, with the equipment we have, you don’t notice it at all.”
Zaremba also hesitated to add “another layer of foodservice” to his operation, which prominently features his proprietary and extremely popular Sandbar Subs concept.
“We’re known for the consistency of our food and I wanted to make sure that any concept we brought in would allow us to maintain that consistency,” Zaremba said.
Zaremba introduced the Champs Chicken-branded program into one of his two stores about seven months ago and he’s pleased with the sales progress the program has achieved in this short period of time. Zaremba was also pleasantly surprised at how easily Champs fit into his existing c-store foodservice format.
He described the Champs program as being “pretty much bulletproof,” making it “easy to start off on the right foot.”
Having developed the Sandbar Sub concept from scratch, Zaremba knew what it would take to create and build a brand in a highly competitive category. He liked the fact that Champs assigned a dedicated rep to his store, uses auto-timed fryers for cooking simplicity, provides comprehensive marketing materials and regularly brings in new product offerings to add variety to the menu.
“I was looking for a product that would be embraced by my entire customer base and fried chicken is loved by just about everybody whether they like bone-in or –out, strips, nuggets, even giblets and gizzards, which, by the way, sell extremely well,” Zaremba said. “A family is more likely to come in for a pack of chicken with sides and dessert for dinner than they would sub sandwiches. We now can offer a full menu with a true dinner option which they can eat in the store or take home.”
Customers are responding to such choices.
“It takes a while for momentum to build, to change people’s habits, but our customers seem to be embracing the concept extremely quickly,” Zaremba said. “Once they try it I know they’ll be back. This is no one-shot wonder.”
The store starts battering and cooking the chicken at 9 a.m.
“Battering in the stores was another thing that made me a little nervous about product consistency,” Zaremba said. “But we’ve had no problems and it really does make for a better product. It’s quality food, not just fried stuff.”
Zaremba offers the chicken two ways—hot from the deli case or cold from the grab-and-go case. Wings and strips do exceptionally well from the cold case.
Customers will buy the cold chicken to take to work for lunch at Zarco, so it’s important to have a good variety in the case in the morning. For lunch and dinner, bone-in chicken is a big seller. For snacking, a two strip deal is popular.
Zaremba backed the introduction of the chicken into his store with a direct mail campaign to residents of the surrounding area. Inside the stores, menu boards prominently showcase the Champs products.
Like FriendShip’s Bible, Zaremba feels that his chicken program can compete with any other in the business.
“Partnering with an established brand like Champs was definitely the way to go for me,” he said. “For quality, variety and consistency, I can’t think of anyone who does it better.”
