Kwikspar Hillcrest, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Entry profile – ‘Best Foodvenience Store in the World’ 2026

Hillcrest Kwikspar is a 24 hour neighbourhood convenience store located in Hillcrest, approximately 30 kilometres west of Durban, South Africa, at the gateway to KwaZulu Natal’s Valley of a Thousand Hills. What sets us apart is our round the clock accessibility combined with an extensive fresh food and foodservice offering which gives our diverse community of families, professionals, commuters, students and late night customers quality and service of a much larger food destination, any hour of the day or night.

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Foodvenience

Our foodvenience journey started with a simple rejection of the idea that convenience food must mean a narrow shelf of packaged snacks and fast food. As the 24 hour store, Hillcrest Kwikspar sets out to be the Upper Highway community’s most dependable destination for quality, freshly prepared food, any hour of the day or night.

We serve a diverse community with very different needs across a 24 hour day, so we built foodservice into the heart of the store. The ambition is simple whether someone needs breakfast before work, lunch within a limited break, an afternoon snack, a family dinner solution or food late at night, the store should have a credible answer. Prepared meals, bakery, butchery, deli, fresh produce, specialty food and coffee sit alongside a full convenience grocery offer, creating a store where customers move naturally between grabbing something now and taking food home for later.

Our strategy is deliberately local, not formula based. We watch what our community buys, listen to feedback, test new products and refine our menu, production planning and merchandising by day shift staff, producing the right food in the right quantities at the right time, so freshness stays high and waste stays low.

Convenience doesn’t stop at our doors Uber Eats and Spar2U extend our reach beyond the store. Our dedicated Hillcrest Kwikspar app keeps customers connected to daily specials, part of our ongoing investment in making great food as accessible as possible.

The result a foodvenience model built around good food, backed by a true 24-hour convenient neighbourhood store.

Overview

Leigh’s Continental Market is our in store deli concept offering popular daily foods, rotating specials and imported goods not typically found in a standard convenience format. Our audience spans commuters, students, young families, shift workers, retirees, office workers and emergency service personnel, and our menu covers both immediate consumption and take home meals, serving customer’s needs whenever and however they choose to shop with us. Our offering combines our own prepared food production with bakery, butchery, deli, produce, specialty ranges and branded grocery, giving customers a genuine alternative to the usual convenience store shelf. We deliberately avoid copying a large supermarket or quick service restaurant. Instead our strategy is a hands on approach built on owner instinct, daily involvement and direct customer requests, allowing the range to shift quickly as tastes change. Local relevance, paired with genuine 24 hour access and a broad, carefully curated range, remains our clearest point of difference in the Upper Highway community.

Menu and signature products

Our menu, anchored by Leigh’s Continental Market, our in store deli label, is built around familiar, generous food with strong everyday appeal. Fresh bakery including our Portuguese style rolls, prepared meals, deli food and quality butchery set the foundation, while in house favourites like Bunny Chow, Loaded Spud, Loaded Russian Roll, Lamb Roll, Chicken & Taco Rice Bowl, Beef Nachos and Lamb Curry & Roti bring the menu to life, backed by rotisserie style hot food, specialty pizzas and grab and go choices. We focus on foods customers recognise, trust and return to frequently. Our doughnuts have become a firm favourite with kids and adults alike, with freshness and value doing the heavy lifting. Our signature isn’t one hero product it’s the ability to offer a dependable fresh food solution across several missions in one visit. Customers can use Hillcrest Kwikspar differently any day of the week, and our dinner carvery remains a firm favourite.

Daypart specific offers

Trading 24 hours makes Hillcrest Kwikspar’s daypart strategy fundamental. Mornings are about speed. Coffee, bakery and rotating breakfast specials such as jaffles, egg muffins and bacon and cheese croissants, geared to commuters and people starting work. Lunch becomes a high pressure convenience mission. Our dedicated 11:00 to 14:00 menu features dishes like Bunny Chow, Loaded Spud and Chicken & Taco Rice Bowl. Dishes change daily to keep regulars coming back to see what’s on offer. Afternoon shifts toward snacks, bakery and top up shopping, while dinner changes the mission again, with prepared meals and the butchery offering an alternative to cooking or takeaway. Late night is a genuine point of difference, as we remain open when most conventional food retailers are closed. Production and merchandising are adjusted by dayshift, so availability follows demand, reducing waste and giving customers a genuinely complete, freshly made food solution at any hour.

Speed, consistency and quality

Speed starts with how the offer is designed. Pre portioned, batch cooked meals and self service, ready to go home meal replacements sit alongside the wider shopping journey. Self service checkouts absorb sudden lunchtime and late evening peaks while customer service liaisons remain on hand to assist shoppers. Consistency is protected through standard recipes, clear production procedures, food safety controls and disciplined replenishment. Every shift delivers the same quality regardless of who is on duty. Quality is anchored in our fresh departments, bakery, butchery, deli, produce and prepared meals, rather than relying only on pre packed food. Stock is rotated at midnight to keep offerings fresh. Production is matched to demand by helping, control waste. The operating principle is simple, “convenience should remove waiting, but not quality.”

Variety and innovation

Innovation at Hillcrest Kwikspar is driven by usefulness. We watch changing food habits, customer requests, social media trends and sales patterns. We Use trends as signals rather than chasing. We translate what fits into products our team can execute consistently in a high volume convenience environment. We are constantly broadening what convenience means such as healthier grab and go choices, vegetarian, vegan and gluten free options, new bakery ideas, and limited time offers, alongside rhythm based touches like our daily changing lunch menu, weekly breakfast specials and fresh soups on cold days.

Seasonal events and community activations give us room to test new products and tell a stronger food story. Our owner led structure lets us move quickly from idea to trial, adapting fast around real customer psychology whether that’s a full carvery for Sunday lunch or a bacon and egg roll with coffee at 2am.

Coffee and beverage program

Our coffee is offered under Leigh’s Continental, our in house label. It is treated as an everyday convenience product, not a theatre performance. Fresh bean coffee is available 24 hours a day, designed around a consistently good cup served quickly. We focus on dependable equipment, maintenance and product consistency, so the experience is repeatable at 06:00, 14:00 or after midnight. Our beverage range extends beyond coffee to slushies, a variety of cold drinks, flavoured waters and energy drinks, giving customers a reason for repeat visits throughout the day and night. The programme has a community dimension too. We recognise emergency service personnel who serve the area with free coffee, as a simple way of thanking them for all they do. Our experience is that the best convenience beverage proposition is uncomplicated good product, reliable equipment and availability whenever the customer needs it.

Technology & Operational Excelllence

Loyalty

Our approach to loyalty goes beyond discounting, it’s about building useful, direct relationships with customers. We do this through our own Hillcrest Kwikspar app, using digital communication and store specific promotions to keep engagement local and relevant. It delivers personalised daily specials, deals and discounts, with push notifications alerting customers the moment new offers go live. Foodservice gives us constant reasons to connect daily meal ideas, coffee, limited time offers, new launches and store events, all designed to turn digital reach into real store visits through timely, practical ordering rather than generic offers. Spar2U and Uber Eats extend this accessibility further, meeting customers wherever they choose to shop, as we build toward a connected digital ecosystem where loyalty, ordering and communication work as one. Loyalty is earned through relevance, understanding what customers need, and delivering that same dependable experience every time.

Online Ordering and Delivery

Hillcrest Kwikspar extends its convenience proposition beyond the physical store through online ordering and delivery. Customers can reach us through third party channels including Uber Eats and SPAR2U, and our own Hillcrest Kwikspar app, giving them a flexible way to shop. The goal isn’t to build a separate online business, it’s to give our community another way to shop at Hillcrest Kwikspar. Online ranges are curated around missions that work well digitally, from grocery top ups to full food solutions, supporting demands across the day rather than a single meal period. Our app links online ordering to in store activity, using personalised specials, discounts and push notifications to move customers from inspiration straight into placing a delivery order. We see delivery as an extension of the same community store online ordering runs until 11pm, while our doors stay open right through the night for everyone who needs us after that.

Operational Excellence

Operational excellence begins with treating foodservice as a production business inside a convenience store. Bakery, butchery, deli, prepared food and fresh departments are managed as connected parts of one offer. Clear procedures, production planning and accountability are enforced. Technology underpins this at every level. Our own staff app (Tribe) manages daily tasks and orders, giving digital access to SOPs and reporting so standards are easy to follow across every shift. A built in digital alarm system monitors hygiene and safety in real time, while store wide CCTV covers the premises 24/7 adding further oversight and accountability. Self service checkout, automated cash handling and digital receiving support remote operational visibility. Staff are cross trained where practical, responding to shifting demand rather than working in rigid silos. Production is planned around dayparts, with disciplined hygiene routines protecting quality letting us scale convenience without losing control of standards.

Social Media Engagement and Influence

Social Media Presence

Social media is an extension of the store, not simply an advertising board. Hillcrest Kwikspar uses it to show customers what’s happening now fresh-food ideas, meal inspiration, new products, seasonal ranges, promotions, community activity and the people behind the store. On Instagram (@hillcrestkwikspar), our content plan has deliberately shifted away from static product only posts toward more video, useful food content and stories that give customers a reason to engage, supported by a high posting frequency, because a 24 hour business has multiple audiences and dayparts to speak to. Family meal inspiration, health and specialty products, bakery and fresh food launches all give us different entry points into the customer’s day. On Facebook, “Friends of Hillcrest Kwikspar” carries this same energy, while “The Icarus Files, The Story of a Retail Family” goes deeper, sharing the personal story behind the business. Community events are especially powerful here, moving the relationship beyond transactions and creating content customers want to share. We also use social channels to listen comments, questions and local conversations help us understand what’s gaining attention and where customers want more. Success isn’t measured in vanity metrics alone, we want digital activity to translate into awareness, store traffic, food trials, repeat visits and online orders. Our strongest content feels like Hillcrest local, energetic, useful and connected to the community we serve.

Instagram: instagram.com/hillcrestkwikspar
Facebook: facebook.com/hillcrestkwiksparhillcrest
Facebook: facebook.com/TheIcarusFiles

Online Trends and Influencers

We’re seeing a clear shift in customer behaviour it’s becoming more visual, immediate and digitally influenced. A food idea can move from a short video to a purchase decision within minutes, so our team watches trends closely but applies a local filter before acting. We ask three questions Is it relevant to our community? Can we execute it consistently? Will it improve the customer’s choice rather than simply create noise?

That approach lets us respond to trends across healthier eating, specialty diets, grab and go food, indulgent bakery, value meals and seasonal products without losing our identity. When a trend gains traction, our in house team recreates it for the Hillcrest Kwikspar offer translating what’s viral into something customers can walk in and buy the same day, made fresh while the trend is still capturing attention.

We rely on short form video and owner and staff led content, because real people inside the store create more credibility than polished advertising alone. All content stays in house, keeping it fast, authentic and consistent with our voice across channels local, energetic and connected to what’s actually happening in the store. We also use community pages and local networks to extend reach beyond our own followers.

Our goal is to turn online relevance into physical action visit, try, share, return or order digitally when that’s more convenient.

Performance

Hillcrest Kwikspar operates in a fiercely contested trading environment, competing against more than 12 big box supermarkets and a host of specialist food operators in the surrounding area. Yet within this crowded landscape, the numbers tell a compelling story. Fresh Foods contributing a substantial 41.76% ratio of total turnover and Food Convenience 12.27% ratio. It’s the Food Convenience category that’s turning heads, posting like for like annual growth that comfortably outpacing overall store growth and signalling just how much traction our foodvenience strategy has gained with customers. Perhaps the most striking figure is productivity. Hillcrest Kwikspar achieves trading density of R9,830 per square metre, roughly double the average of our peer group. In an industry where space is one of the most valuable and scarce resources a retailer has, this level of output per square metre is a powerful indicator of how effectively the store’s format, layout and food offer are working together.

Taken together, these figures make one thing clear convenience at Hillcrest Kwikspar isn’t a side offering bolted onto a traditional grocery model. It is a genuine growth engine, driving productivity, turnover and overall store performance in ways that outstrip conventional retail benchmarks. This performance hasn’t gone unnoticed, Hillcrest Kwikspar has won Readers Choice awards and is a past recipient of Store of the Year.
We serve on average 1847 customers per day.

Company Overview

The Egling Retail Group is a family owned and owner-managed retail business proudly led by Michael and Leigh-Anne Egling. Our hands on leadership and personal passion for retail are evident across every store in their portfolio.

Since its founding in May 2016, the Egling Retail Group has grown from its first store into a seven store portfolio across the Western Cape and KwaZulu Natal. The Egling Retail journey is built on community based convenience, strong owner involvement, and a willingness to test new ideas, continuously adapting to changing customer needs and local opportunities to create shopping experiences that are both meaningful and future focused.

The portfolio operates seven SPAR format grocery and liquor stores.

In the Western Cape, Kloof Street Kwikspar, Kloof Street Tops, Glencairn Kwikspar, and Glencairn Tops. In KwaZulu Natal, Hillcrest Tops, Lillies Quarter Tops, and Hillcrest Kwikspar, the group’s 24 hour flagship store, serving the Upper Highway community around the clock with groceries, fresh food, and prepared meals.

At the heart of the business is a commitment to developing stores that grow alongside the communities we serve.