Shining a Light on 3 Retail Opportunities

By Steve Holtz

The NACS Show floor leaves impressions in mysterious ways. Sometimes it’s the carefully developed retail business plan that comes together through a serendipitous meeting with just the right vendor, and others, it’s an unexpected revelation found while wandering the floor, hoping to get lost in a good way.

Here are three insights that may have caught attendees’ attention this year.

Forecourt Foresight

The forecourt is your invitation to consumers to come visit, to shop. And if it rubs even one person in a group the wrong way, you can probably kiss that shopping trip goodbye, according to Sean Piper, director of new business for CAF Outdoor Cleaning.

“We believe the first impression is the only impression you’re going to get,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what kind of coffee you have or what kind of food you have. If, when they come to the location, and it looks sketchy, dirty, ugly, they’re going to drive on to the next spot. … We believe that the initial handshake happens when they are outside in the forecourt.” 

That’s why CAF provides the tools and chemicals necessary to “make sure that experience is the best it can be.”

“We don’t want your customers to come in and have to touch dirty diesel handles or to see vandalism or graffiti on the pumps. If we can eradicate some of those issues and help create awareness around some of those issues on the forecourt, it will help you bring in more customers.”

Similarly, LSI Corp. has always cared about what a retailer’s lot looked like. The lighting company took on numerous projects in its early years, lighting the fuel island just as self-service at the pump and 24-hour business hours were becoming commonplace. Fifty years later, the company has expanded through multiple acquisitions. It now includes interests in forecourt functionality, store design and, most recently, in-store fixtures and store layout with its purchase of Royston Group earlier this year.

This expansion of priorities has given LSI a true appreciation for all aspects of convenience retail, said Michael Prachar, chief marketing officer, beginning with those elements that attract a motorist to a store.

“As we bring Royston into the fold, … now we have capabilities to help with the whole canopy,  the lighting, the path to walk into the store. We have [interests in] what it looks like on the outside, on the inside, the racks where the food is held, the grab-and-go [units], the doors, the counter, where you’re checking out, and we do the lighting about all of it, inside and out.”

Prachar said this growth at LSI has been part of a mission to provide consistency in planning a new store of remodel.

“Having a single vendor for all of those elements provides consistency,” he said. “A c-store doesn’t make any money unless somebody pulls onto the lot. You need a brand that’s bright, that’s clear, under the canopy needs to be safe, that means bright lights. It drives business.”

For a retailer that has already built a consistent story and branding and is keeping the forecourt clean, Jeff Dyson wants to give customers another reason to pull into a store lot. The vice president of sales at Kooler Ice Inc. markets a self-service, automated ice vending machine that he said puts a retailer in the fresh ice and water business with high margins.

“This machine automatically bags ice,” he said of the 5-by-6-foot vending machine he parked on the NACS Show floor. “You walk up with your credit card. Push the button. You get a 10-pound bag of ice in about 10 to 12 seconds.

“This machine here does about 100 bags a day. It does the bagging inside the machine. It also has another profit center with the water station. It fills 1- or 5-gallon water bottles of reverse-osmosis purified water.”

Installation requires the forecourt space, water and electric lines, and a drain line “and you’re in the ice business 24 hours a day.”

Pickle Pride

Pickles are having a moment, agreed vendors with the word “pickle” in their name. And the way they’re tapping into that trendiness varies widely.

“Pickles are very trendy because they have health benefits,” said Patty Amato, sales director of retail at Patriot Pickle. “They’re low calorie, low fat. You can use them for snacking. You can use them as an ingredient. You can put them on charcuterie boards. You can fry them. You can stuff them in a sandwich …”

Pickle Patriot brings that to market with flavored pickles in whole, sliced and snackable formats available to retail across channels.

Van Holten’s Pickles is expanding on its traditional Pickle-in-a-Pouch format to tap the pickle trend even further. This year, it began testing a frozen pickle lemonade that it hopes will add bright green to the colors swirling round FCB dispensers in c-stores across the country.

“We partnered with Hudson-Leramo Beverage Group to make a pickle slushie,” said Ean Mangum, business development coordinator at Van Holten's. “It’s built on a lemonade base,  and we aimed for refreshing.” 

To that end of not targeting the healthful hydration benefits of pickles, Mangum admits the frozen beverage is not made with real pickles.

Neither, surprisingly, is Pickle Juice. Packaged as a 2.5-ounce shot, Pickle Juice is marketed for stopping muscle cramps.

“It’s a functional beverage intended to solve muscle cramps in the instance,” said Blake Boulton, vice president, strategic accounts and emerging channels. “We don’t use pickle brine. Pickle Juice is made with all-natural ingredients: salt, vinegar, water and dill oil. It’s clinically proven to solve muscle cramps in 60 seconds.”

It does, however, taste like pickle—thus the name. “But no actual pickles were harmed in the making of it,” Boulton joked.

Milking It

Then there’s milk. With GLP-1s and interest in more better-for-you products trending, interest in this natural source of protein has been seeing a rebirth.

“Conventional milk is not seeing much growth,” said Jackie Doyle, vice president of commercial for Fairlife, a Coca-Cola Co. brand. “But fluid milk, especially that which is being processed as high-protein milk, is growing. That is one of the fastest-growing categories, if not THE fastest growing in convenience retail.”

Fairlife is adding three new SKUs in the next year, including the return of a favorite from several years ago: banana. “We’re bringing that in both the 26-gram and the 42-gram [protein formulations].” The other new addition is a 26-gram strawberry flavored milk.

“Our target consumer is the workout-recover,” Doyle said. “So those who sweat, workout enthusiasts, they’re drinking Fairlife post workout because of its protein. They also eat banana post-workout to get that potassium, so this really leans into that occasion. And fortunately, it’s also trending.”

Fairlife is not alone there. Barebells, known for its high-protein, low-sugar protein bars that feature a candy bar-like taste, has been moving into the high-protein beverage business. At the start of 2026, it launched a new product, Milk Drink.

“The milk is 24 grams of protein from ultra-filtered milk, plus 2 grams of sugar,” said David Luks

EVP of sales. “The milk is filtered to remove the lactose, which boosts the protein content per serving.” It comes in vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and a new cookies-and-cream flavor.

Luks sees Barebells milk drinks as a morning or afternoon treat for consumers concerned with flavor and healthful benefits.

“We’ve been in the protein bar business for some time now, and we saw that the consumer is interested in protein from other products, as well,” he said. “And beverages is a natural adjacency for us.”

Meanwhile, MetRx is seeing growth in its shelf-stable shakes that offer 44 grams of protein on milk base.

“MetRx provides a high protein, milk-based beverage that provides stackable benefits,” said Kyle Huntington, sales manager. In the current line, that means 2,300 milligrams of electrolytes, 6 grams of fiber, plus additional vitamins and minerals.

“We’re creating that meal-replacement protein shake that adds a number of other healthy benefits at an affordable price,” he said.

Huntington sums up the conversation: “Milk, it will always be a staple. It’s easy for on-the-go, and you can pack so much into it.”

Consumer Insights