Growing Online Revenue with Prepared Foods

Convenience retailers win when they treat prepared foods like a core business. We’ve been reviewing recent prepared foods performance across our network to better support retailers with what actually works in the aisle and in the app. This post distills those findings into a simple playbook any c-store can run this week.

In our sample of data from 2025, the mix concentrates around a few core categories that are easy to execute and price inside a clear value band.

What’s Working

• Made-to-Order Sandwiches lead with 14.1% of prepared foods revenue. This is the highest-variety category with the best balance of volume and price, averaging $5.78 per unit.
• Fried Chicken is the margin engine, averaging $17.77 per unit with the best revenue per order at $20.36.
• Fried Foods deliver high unit velocity at an accessible $3.59 average price.
• The Top 4 categories together represent 35.1% of prepared foods revenue.

The Prepared Foods Strategy for C-Stores

• Own your dayparts
  • Breakfast: limited bakery plus breakfast sandwiches where applicable
  • Lunch: made-to-order sandwiches with a standard side
  • Dinner: pizza and fried chicken as anchors, with wings as a complement
  • Keep racks full at the peak and set ready-time promises you can beat.
• Engineer simple bundles that protect margin
  • Pair each entrée with one high-margin side and one beverage. Promote the bundle consistently in the app and at the counter. For Fried Chicken, script a default side to keep ticket times stable.
• Price to clear value bands
  • Keep most sandwiches $5–$6, fried foods around the $3.25–$3.75 sweet spot, pizza at $4.75–$5.50 per serving, and use a visible step-up for premium or larger portions. Test small $0.25–$0.50 moves and watch units.
• Standardize prep windows and batch sizes
  • Sandwiches: finish to order with ingredients prepped ahead of time
  • Fried items: small batches on timers to reduce variance
  • Pizza: predictable bake cycles with hold-time rules
  • Reliability in prep time protects promise accuracy and reduces cancels.

Category Playbooks

Made-to-Order Sandwiches

• Assortment: 6–10 core builds, plus 2 seasonal
• Ops: Pre-batch proteins and veg, finish to order; target median prep under 6 minutes
• Pricing: Average holds around $5.78; keep most items $5–$6
• Attach: Chips or side salad and a fountain beverage; prompt digitally after entrée add

Fried Chicken

• Assortment: 2 core formats plus 1 family pack
• Ops: Tight fry cycles, strict hold times, display freshness cues
• Pricing: Protect premium margin; anchor bundles to a family or 2-person meal
• Attach: Starch side and beverage; default the add-on to speed ordering

Fried Foods

• Assortment: 3–5 high-velocity SKUs that travel well
• Ops: Small, frequent batches; never let the case look picked over
• Pricing: Keep near $3.59 average; test value ladders with two-for pricing
• Attach: Dips and beverages; show prompts at the moment of add

Pizza

• Assortment: 2 staples plus 1 rotating specialty
• Ops: Predictable bake schedule; slice and whole options with clear hold-time rules
• Pricing: Single-slice around $5; step up for premium toppings or bundles
• Attach: Wings or a fried side, plus beverage; offer a slice-plus combo

Wings

• Assortment: 1 format plus one sauce rotation
• Ops: Batch near the dinner peak; prioritize speed to handoff
• Pricing: Keep value clear versus fried chicken bundles
• Attach: Sides and beverage; treat as a dinner add-on to pizza or chicken

Spotlight on Foodservice: Retailers to Watch

Wawa

Wawa’s Built-to-Order program is designed for all-day demand, and they explicitly lean into evening and late-night with pizza available at most 24-hour stores from 4 p.m. to 3 a.m., ordered in-app or at kiosks. It complements their all-day hoagie program and reinforces a consistent digital and in-store experience for off-peak missions. Lesson: if you can staff it, run a focused dinner anchor (pizza or another hold-friendly entrée) deep into the night and keep the ordering UX identical across channels.

Sheetz

Sheetz positions MTO explicitly as 24/7/365, which sets customer expectations for late-night availability and customization. That promise works because the menu is engineered for speed (fryers, flat-tops, warmers) and the digital flow mirrors the counter. Lesson: if you advertise 24/7, standardize prep windows, keep a pared-back overnight menu, and make the “add a side + drink” prompt just as aggressive at 2 a.m. as it is at noon.

Casey’s

Casey’s built a food identity around pizza and uses it to pull traffic for evening and late-night occasions; prepared foods strength has correlated with outperformance in inside sales and repeat, and even spillover into fuel trips. Lesson: pick one hot entrée as your halo (pizza, fried chicken, or sandwiches), optimize it for carryout/delivery, and bundle it with a high-margin side to keep late-night tickets strong.

What to do this week

• Lock a core menu for sandwiches, fried chicken or fried foods, and pizza
• Set batch schedules and promise windows for lunch and dinner peaks
• Launch one bundle per anchor entrée with a default side and beverage
• Reclassify “Other” into clear categories and remove low-velocity tail SKUs
• Add add-on prompts in your ordering flow for sides and beverages

How Lula helps

Lula turns these playbooks into action. We keep menus accurate, automate item availability by daypart, prompt smart add-ons, and surface prep-time drift before it becomes a cancellation. The outcome is fewer cancels, higher attach, and real incremental revenue from prepared foods.