If you attended the NACS State of the Industry Summit in April, then you were among the first to hear great news about inside sales.
“We’re a resilient industry … total inside sales grew 2.4% to continue our streak, which is now 22 years,” said Varish Goyal, CEO of Loop Neighborhood Markets, while revealing the industry’s 2024 operational and financial performance metrics.
That’s 22 consecutive years of total inside sales growth for U.S. convenience stores. I don’t know about you, but we’re feeling 22 (Swifties, anyone?)—as in feeling pretty good that after a slow start to 2024, the industry finished strong.
We also know there is a crazy amount of choice and influence over when, where and how customers choose a location to meet their snacking needs—salty, sweet, sour, spicy, tangy, pickle-y or all of the above. Convenience, dollar, drug, grocery, specialty websites, social commerce … if they want it, they’ll find it.
Two key center store categories, candy and salty snacks, are not just high impulse, full of flavor and innovative—they’re also fun. Convenience customers know they can find something unique and/or steadfast to satisfy a craving or lifestyle choice at their favorite c-store.
“The key thing that the center of the store does for us is create impulse. This is the best area of the store to add excitement, to show customers what’s new and help build their basket,” Andrew Baill, senior manager of customer insights and strategy at Wawa, said at the NACS State of the Industry Summit.
At The Goods Mart in New York City, most of the store’s selling space is dedicated to center store merch—but with a caveat. Unlike a traditional convenience store, product is curated by its founder, Rachel Krupa, to feature better-for-you versions of classic snacks alongside emerging brands.
During a recent Convenience Matters podcast, Krupa and Dana Kim, founder and CEO of Highlight, shared insights from a trend report, “The Future of Snacking,” that they collaborated on to find out what’s next in snacking and why it matters to consumers.
They gave more than 150 panelists seven emerging snack brands and asked some questions: what was resonating, what was missing, and where is snacking heading.
“There's plenty of trend reports out there that are very high level. We wanted to take it one step further and actually send products to consumers and get a really tactical view of what's working and not for snackers nationwide,” said Krupa.
The biggest takeaway from the feedback, noted Krupa, was the future is actually basic—in a good way—with simplicity and ingredient transparency cited as top snacking attributes.
Other key trends emerged from the consumer feedback, including snacks with more protein, less sugar, crunchy and chewy textures, and more adventurous flavors.
“The highlights [of the report] were protein. Everyone wants more protein, but protein that comes from more of a clean source,” said Krupa. “Another big finding that we saw was people wanted less sugar, but they wanted more real sugar—whether that was date sugar, coconut sugar or honey, and less sugar alcohols,” she added.
Consumers also gave props to crunch, noted Krupa. “People love the crunchy texture of a product. I think that our taste buds dance when we have something that gives them movement,” she said.
Packaging also matters, according to taste-tester feedback, with elements like visual appeal, accurate representation of the product inside and sustainable packaging options leading the way.
Combined, there were more than 400 new candy and salty snacks items launched in the c-store channel in 2024, according to NIQ. To make a lasting impact on the center store offer, innovation and excitement matter for these two categories.
You can find more industry insights and benchmarks on c-store merchandise in the newly released NACS State of the Industry Report® of 2024 Data.
And if finding new products that drive excitement to your stores is on your wish list, make a point to attend the 2025 NACS Show in Chicago, October 14-17. Here you’ll have an opportunity to see hundreds of new products for your category sets for 2026.