Popular Convenience Store Plans Major Rebranding At U.S. Stores

7-Eleven’s 13,000 stores in the United States and North America could soon offer healthier food options — including egg salad sandwiches celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain once called “pillows of love” — as the chain attempts to replicate its success in its home country of Japan, according to reports.

The chain’s food offerings — hot dogs, pizza, chicken wings and tenders, and other fast foods — are generally considered to be convenient but unhealthy, with high levels of salt, fat, and preservatives.

Changing that is one of the challenges of Stephen Dacus, a Japanese American and former Walmart executive who started three months ago as chief executive of Seven & i Holdings, the 7-Eleven parent company.

Dacus told The New York Times the chain will improve the quality of its fresh food offerings to include items that have become popular options among American visitors to Japan to U.S. menus.

“Whether it’s hot food or cold food or any kind of food, we have to lean into how we improve the quality and the experience,” Dacus told The Times. “That’s what Japan does extraordinarily well.”

The menu changes are part of his strategy to turn around the struggling company. Seven & i fended off a takeover attempt by a Canadian rival — Circle K parent Alimentation Couche-Tard. When the $47 billion bid was withdrawn, Seven & i’s stock collapsed, further pressuring Dacus and his team to deliver growth and returns.

With a highly competitive retail market, including a concentration of convenience stores known as konbinis in Japan, the company is looking to implement the strategy in its U.S. and other overseas markets.

The parent company plans to spend $13 billion over the next five years to expand its overseas operations, including by upgrading existing U.S. stores, adding more than 1,000 in-store restaurants, and building a network of suppliers for 7-Eleven brand prepared foods.

At the same time, 7-Eleven has quietly shuttered about 444 U.S. locations since last year and expects to close another 148 by the end of the year, The Street reported. Executives said in a recent earnings call that foot traffic is down by 7.3 percent since August and that declining cigarette sales, down 26 percent since 2019, are a key reason.

“We will close underperforming stores in accordance with the Fundamental Store Optimization Program,” Chief Financial Officer Yoshimichi Maruyama told investors during an earnings call.

In addition to the egg salad sandwiches, which Dacus said get “the heavenly pillow thing” from a combination of “milk bread” and Japanese mayonnaise, the chain’s flagship strawberries and cream sandwiches will also become a staple.

The company previously took a “low-risk, low-return” approach to operations outside of Japan.

“We could have been much more aggressive,” Dacus told The Times. “There’s that much opportunity out there for us as we shift our focus.”