Global convenience trends: the view through a UK lens

As IGD publishes its global perspective on the evolution of convenience retailing internationally, we take the opportunity to see how our five trends for 2025 are reflected in the UK.

Convenience is a strong and vibrant sector of UK retailing. It benefits from significant strategic focus from many of the market’s leading grocery retailers. While segments, such as forecourts, are a notable part of the sector, the primary focus of development is on neighbourhood and high street grocery convenience formats (mini supermarkets). These seek to blend bigger basket spends, based on food, with traditional smaller impulse spending.

1. Tech evolution

Amongst the technologies gaining presence in the UK convenience sector, some of the most conspicuous include digital media screens and self-checkouts, which are changing shopper interactions in-store. However, perhaps less obvious are the technologies being increasingly adopted to help retailers better manage the operational challenges facing UK convenience stores in 2025.

Electronic shelf edge labels (ESLs) are not a new technology, but UK retailers have been slow to identify the cost-benefit of introducing them, especially in larger stores. In contrast, they are now being adopted and/or trialled by a growing number of retailers in the convenience sector. Operators benefit from the fact that the number of lines (and therefore labels needed) is fewer, and the technology’s labour-saving benefits become more apparent as the costs to employ store staff continue rising.

ESL adoption has been most notable amongst smaller businesses, e.g., the various regional co-ops, such as Central and East of England, in 2024. 2025 has seen a growing number of the bigger national retailers also starting to install ESLs in their convenience stores, with these starting to appear in both Co-op and Tesco Express stores.

Meanwhile, another challenge for UK convenience retailers is being posed by the rapid growth of quick commerce, with a growing number of stores servicing delivery from multiple ordering platforms (typically a combination of some, or all, of Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats). To reduce this complexity, retailers are implementing technology to consolidate orders onto a single handset that integrates orders from the different sources.  For example, Tesco subsidiary One Stop operates a solution from provider Deliverect, while Co-op has adopted the Store Assist product from Walmart Commerce Technologies.

2. Food mission

With many traditional categories, such as tobacco, which make up significant parts of the UK convenience sales mix, under increasing pressure, retailers are prioritising other categories, especially food, to create sustainable future sales growth.

To drive the offer’s credibility, retailers focus on delivering mission-related ranges targeted to meet needs in food-for-now and food-for-later, respectively. Seeking to build increasing destination capability for these opportunities, retailers look to create solutions that offer easy selection, greater breadth of choice, and improved quality to offer competitive alternatives to other choices, such as the Away From Home and takeaway sectors.

As in other markets, some UK retailers have sought to elevate their food offer with in-store preparation and counter service, for example, Scotmid’s The Kitchen concept. However, most of the UK’s major national operators are focused on developing their offer around the self-service model. To bring new depth to its food-on-the-go ranges, rather than using service, Sainsbury’s created additional range architecture offering more premium products and salad bowls under the Kitchen Deli brand as well as wraps, sushi, and poke through partnerships with food-to-go brands such as Yo! and Coco di Mama.

In addition to lunchtime and evening solutions, the widespread adoption of in-store bakeries providing pastries and bakery treats creates a complementary offer to hot beverage vending, adding further day-part capability for breakfast, mid-morning, and afternoon.

3. Shifting space

As UK convenience retailers re-balance their sales mixes to drive sustainable future growth, space allocation is shifting through a focus on creating mission-led layouts. These help make stores quicker and easier to shop by creating adjacencies relevant to specific needs, especially food for now and food for later.

Stores seek to ensure that food for now is first-in-flow, providing swift access to the grab-and-go offer for snacking and lunchtime shoppers in a hurry. Stores are also creating zones for food for later with produce, protein, and other meal components all within easy reach of each other to offer shoppers a choice of easy solutions for evening meals.

Other shopper missions are increasingly influencing store layouts. These include evening and weekend sharing missions, where large format snacks and soft drinks are adjacent to alcohol ranges to ensure easy shopper navigation and help drive opportunities for upselling.

Meanwhile, amongst the UK’s independent retailers, there has been a notable trend to upweight the destination capability of chilled drinks. To take the alcohol offer to the next level, there is a growing trend for stores to be fitted with dedicated walk-in chill chambers (‘beer caves’) allowing a bigger chilled range, that is guaranteed cold and providing space for more and bigger multi-packs.

As sales of other categories, such as news and magazines, decline, new non-food ranges are appearing. In 2025, Tesco is launching a limited range of children’s toys from specialist retailer The Entertainer into 2,010 of its Express stores, building on a heritage of convenience stores as a destination for kids’ pocket-money spend.

4. Targeted value

As well as taking action to ensure pricing in small stores retains contact with the wider market through price-matching schemes, UK convenience retailing is highly conspicuous in adopting and developing convenience-relevant value mechanics, such as meal deals. These bundle deals offer a value proposition reinforcing the mission-based proposition of food-for-now and food-for-later by creating solutions that give shoppers easy selection and choice to meet their needs.

Lunchtime meal deals have been extended to bring a wider assortment, including more premium products, into this value proposition. Several retailers offer shoppers two or more pricing tiers to enable trade-up and create an enhanced capability for convenience stores to compete with quality-led specialist food-to-go operators, such as Pret a Manger.

Evening meal deals can combine complementary components to create a main and sides with ready meals or ingredients to make a stir fry, for example. Some deals also include a drink option, either alcoholic or soft.

Two major UK convenience retailers, Tesco and Co-op, also apply loyalty pricing to offer enhanced value to their loyalty scheme members. They use the loyalty programme as a gateway to better value in-store. As an immediate reward, loyalty pricing helps drive repeat visits and increased frequency of purchase.

5. Striving for better

Alongside Central Co-op’s extensive investment in renewable energy, UK convenience retailers focus on sustainability and ethical trading.

Amongst the UK’s larger convenience retailers, Co-op has an enduring heritage of maintaining a clear ethical position with a focus on delivering ‘social value’ as one of the pillars of its remit. Its long-term commitments include supporting British farmers by sourcing 100% of its fresh and frozen animal protein from the UK and supporting producers in developing countries by sourcing more Fairtrade products than any other national retailer. In addition to supporting several charities, Co-op is pursuing ambitious environmental goals and has reduced its CO2 emissions by 61% since 2016. 

With their focus on serving local neighbourhoods, UK convenience stores have a natural affinity with their local communities, and retailers aim to build on this by giving something back by funding local projects and causes.

Within the independent sector, wholesalers and symbol groups help coordinate fundraising, like with Nisa’s long-running Making a Difference Locally (MADL). Meanwhile, in 2025, SPAR (UK) launched its latest annual Community Cashback programme, inviting applications from local charities and organisations for a share of its £100,000 fund for donations.