Premium fascia Simply Fresh is to roll out city centre format stores that split their offer between food- service and convenience retail later this year.
Co-founder and managing director Kash Khera announced the move at this week’s Association of Convenience Stores conference, explaining the concept would be geared towards healthy eating and on-the-move custom.
“We are going to try to achieve 50% profit from the kitchen and 50% profit from the stores,” he said.
Although the store locations are yet to be revealed, Mr Khera suggested these would be smaller in format – under 700sq ft.
“We see a massive opportunity in the smaller, healthy eating, on-the-move format,” he said.
Mr Khera also confirmed the company’s second big focus over the year would be in hospitals, adding Simply Fresh was a perfect fit in terms of health.
He said: “Look at where the NHS is going as a business, particularly in Scotland – they found 70% of the nurses are overweight or obese.
"They had to look at what was being offered within the hospital for staff and patients. This will be a big focus for us.”