Indulging Consumers With Upscale Foodservice

Convenience Store Decisions:

In a Minnesota town surveyed by the pioneer son of Daniel Boone, there’s a foodservice offering coming from the pioneering spirit of a travel center owner and a national ice cream chain.

Rocky Trail knows a traditional foodservice offering anchors his sprawling Minnesota travel center. But when he wanted to expand the program, he turned to a nontraditional c-store brand.

Above all else, it was the national recognition of Cold Stone Creamery’s name that prompted Trail, president of Trail’s Travel Center of America in Albert Lea, Minn., to add the upscale ice cream eatery to his foodservice offering.

‘That’s pretty much what tipped the scales,’ Trail said, borrowing a line from one of the 600,000 or so truckers who every year swing their 16-wheelers into his travel center at the Interstate 90 and 35 juncture. ‘That’s what brought us to Cold Stone. People know what it is.’