BETHLEHEM, PA, 2015-10-1 — /EPR Retail News/ — A pilot test for new dinner kit that allows time-starved customers to quickly prepare nourishing family meals in less than 30 minutes was launched today at a Square One Markets convenience store in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
The all-in-one kits provide healthy options to consumers and eliminate three significant downsides to many popular meal-delivery kits: cost, packaging waste and the need to plan a day or more in advance to order them.
Square One Markets is selling The Six O’Clock Scramble Fresh & Fast Family Dinner Kits™, developed by The Six O’Clock Scramble, a company dedicated to sharing fresh and fast family dinner solutions. The dinner kits provide all-in-one meal ingredients and recipe cards that contain everything time-stressed families need to prepare a fast, fresh meal. They sell for around $20 and are designed to feed a family of four. At $5 per person, the dinner kits are less than half the price of meal-delivery services — and without the packaging waste and carbon footprint from shipping. The kits also will feature some locally grown and produced ingredients from the Bethlehem area.
Square One Markets and The Six O’Clock Scramble worked with the Project on Nutrition & Wellness (PNW) and the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) to develop the family dinner kits.
The September 30 launch at the Square One Markets store on 1125 W. Broad St. in Bethlehem, features cooking demonstrations and recipe sampling from 12:00 pm to 6:30 pm featuring the creator of the dinner kits, renowned cookbook author, Today show contributor and The Six O’Clock Scramble CEO Aviva Goldfarb.
Square One Markets will offer the dinner meal solutions for the next 10 weeks as part of the pilot test. A new meal will be offered each week to customers and the groups will survey customers to determine which meals worked best — and why.
“Our customers are excited to be part of this pilot test and look forward to redefining convenience with these meal solutions,” said Square One Markets CEO Lisa Dell’Alba. “It makes so much sense to create this program for drivers already fueling up.”
“The evening hours are when families stress about dinner preparation plans. This evening rush is also the most popular time to buy gasoline. This is a great way to combine two trips into one,” said Jeff Lenard, vice president of strategic industry initiatives for the National Association of Convenience Stores. Convenience stores sell an estimated 80% of the gasoline purchased in the United States, an estimated 32 million fill-ups every day.
“Square One Markets, with nine convenience stores selling fuel in and around Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, is a perfect test for the national concept, especially with its full-service fueling and curbside delivery service at select stores,” added Julie Garel, director of the Project on Nutrition & Wellness.
Only 50% of families have dinner together at least five nights a week, and one in three American children is obese. The Six O’Clock Scramble Fresh & Fast Family Dinner Kit™ allows families to recapture family dinners and do it in a nutritious fashion. For the past 12 years, The Six O’Clock Scramble has sought to remove many of the barriers that prevent families from having a healthy, delicious dinner together, such as indecision, exhaustion and lack of time. Through a website and cookbooks, the company provides simple, healthy meal plans that can be prepared in less than 30 minutes.
“As more families have two working parents and busy schedules, it can be a challenge to plan for healthy meals, let alone make an extra stop to purchase the ingredients. The Six O’Clock Scramble Fresh & Fast Dinner Kits™ provide a convenient and affordable solution for busy families, and gets them on their way quickly to a healthy family meal,” said Aviva Goldfarb, CEO of The Six O’Clock Scramble.
Families that want to cook more meals together but can’t say that the main reasons are busy schedules (43%) and they are too tired after school or work (31%), according to a new NACS consumer study conducted by Penn Schoen Berland. This dinner kit addresses both obstacles.
Meanwhile, demand for meal kits is there. More than three in four consumers (77%) say that they would be interested in purchasing an all-in-one meal kit from a store. Convenience store customers are especially receptive: 85% of weekly convenience store customers would purchase a dinner meal kit, according to survey results.
Note to reporters: Please contact Jeff Lenard at NACS to arrange for interviews, obtain details about the event or acquire photos and images of the dinner kits (703/518-4272; cell 703/608-5922; jlenard@nacsonline.com).
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Founded in 1961 as the National Association of Convenience Stores, NACS (nacsonline.com) is the international association for convenience and fuel retailing. The U.S. convenience store industry, with more than 152,700 stores across the country, posted $696.1 billion in total sales in 2014, of which $482.6 billion were motor fuels sales. NACS has 2,100 retail and 1,600 supplier member companies, which do business in nearly 50 countries.