GS25 opens 1,000th fresh-food-focused store five years after launch

GS25 announced Monday the opening of its 1,000th fresh-food-enhanced store, GS25 Cheonan Dujeong Golden.

The new store spans about 132 square meters in Dujeong-dong, Seobuk-gu, Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, and is designed to serve customers looking to do nearby grocery shopping centered on fresh produce.

GS25 introduced the fresh-food-enhanced store format in 2021. The model expands the range of fresh items — vegetables, fruit, eggs and meat — to allow one- and two-person households to handle their essential grocery needs at a convenience store.

The chain surpassed 1,000 locations in the format within five years of its launch. It opened 217 such stores last year and 226 in the first half of this year alone. The stores carry about 2,000 fresh items, including vegetables, fruit, refrigerated meat and seasonal seafood.

GS25 built its fresh-food supply system by drawing on the sourcing capabilities, farm-direct networks and product management expertise of its affiliate GS The Fresh. The company established a dedicated "convenience store fresh hub" spanning about 1,980 square meters at its Hwaseong center in Gyeonggi Province, cutting the time from store order to product delivery from two days to one.

Sales figures reflect the format's success. In the first half of this year, fresh-food sales at fresh-food-enhanced stores ran about 12 times higher than at standard stores. Meat products such as samgyeopsal posted sales 51 times higher — a 5,170 percent premium — over standard locations. Eggs and tofu also sold strongly, at 661 percent and 640 percent above standard store levels, respectively. Customer traffic and average spending per visit were 36 percent and 15 percent higher, respectively, than at regular stores.

"The fresh-food-enhanced store is a case where GS Retail's franchise business capabilities and fresh-food sourcing strengths have created synergy, successfully expanding the role of the convenience store to match changing consumption patterns and trends," said Hong Ki-young, head of GS25's fresh-food support team. "We will nurture it as a core strategy driving qualitative growth in the convenience store business, contributing to customer satisfaction and higher profits for store owners."