Kwik Trip, SunStop Share How Food Marketing Drives C-Store Traffic

A renamed chicken dish became one of SunStop's top three limited-time offers in five years — after the original name, General Tso's chicken, flopped because shoppers simply didn't know the dish. That anecdote, shared at the 2026 NACS Show, captures the session's core argument: convenience food marketing works only when it respects what customers actually know, want and expect.

David Jackson, director of marketing and loyalty for Kwik Trip, and Michelle Weckstein, director of food and beverage brands for Southwest Georgia Oil, which does business as SunStop Stores, laid out how they build marketing engines that sell the food program. Their first point was blunt. Retailers, Jackson said, too often look to marketing to paper over the flaws in a food program.

"I don't think that's quite the right way to approach marketing of a food service program," he said.

Weckstein added that operators must set clear expectations for customers on how food should look and how long items can sit in the warmer. "My definition of fresh and [that of] the employees that work for us at our front line may not be the same," she said.

What does a brand promise look like in practice?

Marketing, Weckstein said, has to communicate a chain's brand promise. SunStop positions its Gulf Coast stores as stops for beach trips, while its Tallahassee, Florida locations lean on their connection to Florida State University.

"We find out exactly what is important for each individual community, and that is what we target," she said.

Kwik Trip's No Ordinary Chicken campaign took a Midwestern angle: fried chicken paired with milk, plus giveaways and a chicken mascot named Red.

Well-built LTOs build excitement and drive visits, Weckstein said — provided they're relevant and enticing. SunStop's General Tso's failure became a winner once the retailer renamed it sweet and spicy chicken, which spelled out the flavors for shoppers.

Why sourcing stories and influencers matter

Younger generations' buying power is growing, and their desire to eat healthier and more conscientiously gives retailers another marketing angle. Weigel's officials told the story, across multiple NACS sessions, of taste-test participants who declined the company's chicken strips because they didn't know how the chicken was raised and processed. That pushed Weigel's to disclose its sourcing.

"We sourced a humanely raised and sourced chicken product," said Doug Yawberry, president and CEO of Weigel's. "And when we explain that, they eat the chicken."

Jackson pointed to online influencers as some of the best-performing media dollars Kwik Trip spends. The No Ordinary Chicken campaign used comedy skits by TJ Therrien — siblings squabbling over a food order — and a video from zach.eatss trying items in his car.

"If you haven't mixed this into your marketing program, start looking at influencers because it's some of the best dollars that we spend within our media spend," Jackson said. "It's a paid influencer, but it doesn't come off as an ad to the user that is actually seeing this, and these videos get millions of views."

Which metrics actually matter?

After every campaign, c-stores need a hard look at the numbers.

"There are folks in our industry that just kind of wing it," Weckstein said. "They listen to what the vendor tells them, and they think it's on trend, and they think it's new, and they're not measuring that."

SunStop builds a spreadsheet of the KPIs that matter for each campaign, establishing common metrics and accountability. "Otherwise, you're just spinning the wheels, and you're really not bringing the dollars to the bottom line, which is what your company wants," she said.

The KPIs don't have to be identical across programs. When Kwik Trip partnered with PepsiCo on Mountain Dew Glazers donuts, a big sales boost wasn't the goal. "The goals there were really to drive people to our stores and drive people to the category, and that's exactly what that did," Jackson said.

Kwik Trip tracks results in four key areas: campaign reach, customer interactions, unit sales lift, and long-term impact. That discipline, Jackson said, moves retailers beyond vibes and shows whether marketing has a measurable business impact — after which the loyalty program can reinforce the behaviors the company wants to see.