7-Eleven trying to bring Japanese food items to US

[Brian Lutz]

https://www.today.com/food/news/japanes ... rcna163282

https://www.foodandwine.com/japanese-7- ... ca-8681243

In an effort to increase food sales, Seven and I seems to be making a push to try to make their US 7-Eleven stores more like the ones found in Japan, which includes bringing over some of the items popular in their Japanese stores like Onigiri, egg sandwiches and other similar items. These items will likely show up in Southern California first before rolling out across the country.

Currently food accounts for about 24% of their revenue (with the vast majority coming from gasoline and tobacco,) and with these initiatives they hope to improve this to 33% to offset other categories likely to decline. All I can say is that they have a lot of work to do (mostly cracking down on poorly run franchises) if they want to compete with the QuikTrip, Wawa and Maverik stores that typically aren't the perpetual disaster area that is the typical 7-Eleven.

[jamcool]

Weird Japanese food won’t sell in Hispanic areas or other areas. You can’t transplant the ideas that work in Japan and expect them to be successful here, especially with the franchisee cabal that runs most 7-11s. Also 7-11 really hasn’t made up its mind what to do with Speedway—leave them as is or convert them to 7-11.

[storewanderer]

All I can say is I hope they enjoy the shrink. Their customers will not buy this.

They have no clue what type of customer base they cater to in the US.

There is a REMOTE possibility this MAY work in some of the big city locations; San Francisco, Chicago, etc. Very REMOTE.

[BillyGr]

Weird Japanese food won’t sell in Hispanic areas or other areas. You can’t transplant the ideas that work in Japan and expect them to be successful here, especially with the franchisee cabal that runs most 7-11s. Also 7-11 really hasn’t made up its mind what to do with Speedway—leave them as is or convert them to 7-11.

At least in that one article linked, it showed:
Ramen in a bowl
Egg sandwich on a bagel
Chicken Wings
and the Rice Balls

Aside from the last one, all those items already exist in food serving places all over the US. Possibly some different flavorings, but not really anything that unusual. And at least the egg sandwiches and wings are already found in similar convenience stores, ramen may not be.

[veteran+]

Food and 7-11?



I would not buy Wolfgang Puck at 7-11.

Geesh!

I can't find one 7-11 that does not make me feel dirty. Sadly, my credit union chose this crap company for extended ATM locations.

[Alpha8472]

7-Eleven used to have the most amazing Vcom ATMS. They would scan my checks and deposit them to my credit union envelope free. That was when people had to put checks in envelopes to deposit them and wait days for people to collect them. You could do money orders too.

Then they all disappeared.

I have seen YouTube videos of 7-Eleven stores in Japan. Those stores have an amazing selection of food. That concept would work if you advertised them under a totally different name such as a Japanese convenience store/restaurant.