Valora, avec Horgen, Switzerland

Entry profile – ‘Best Foodvenience Store in the World’ 2025

The new avec store at BP Horgen offers a modern shopping experience in a compact 175 m² space with 90 m² storage.

Warm colors, wood and metal accents, and a focused lighting concept highlight fresh food and convenience products. A 50-seat restaurant and sunny terrace invite guests to enjoy freshly prepared dishes to enjoy in the restaurant or take away.

Customers are welcomed with fresh sandwiches, salads, fruit, Starbucks coffee, regional specialties, and a large selection of chilled drinks. Open daily 5:00–23:00, the store serves travelers on the A3, commuters, and locals with the promise: Best food on the go. Handmade with love.

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Foodvenience Overview

Freshness without compromise. That is the heart of our avec with the integrated THE KITCHEN module. Several times a day we prepare fresh sandwiches, salads and seasonal fruits. With our proprietary brand “The Kitchen by avec” we showcase Valora’s unique expertise in Convenience Retail and Food Service.

The Kitchen by avec is an open-kitchen concept seamlessly integrated into our convenience store – a unique proposition in Switzerland at this scale. It combines the speed of grab-and-go with the quality and experience of freshly prepared meals in a relaxed restaurant setting.

avec service station BP Horgen is located between highway and Zurich suburb. Overlooking Lake Zurich, we attract commuters, travelers, and workers seeking both efficiency and enjoyment.

The Kitchen by avec caters especially to lunchtime demand, offering a wide selection of freshly prepared hot dishes and daily specials. Customers can choose from pizzas, kebabs, burgers (including vegetarian options), paninis, hot dogs, chicken dishes, and plant-based alternatives.

Seasonal rice and pasta menus complement the range, while sandwiches prepared on site with Italian specialties provide a high-quality grab-and-go option.

What sets us apart is the integration of restaurant-quality food within a convenience format – delivering the best of both worlds: time efficiency and culinary quality.

Menu and signature products

Our menu combines variety, freshness, and quality, making our avec with the integrated open kitchen a destination for everyday meals. We offer a broad range of freshly prepared hot dishes, from pizzas in five varieties to kebabs, paninis, burgers (including vegetarian options), hot dogs, chicken specialties, and plant-based alternatives.

Daily changing rice and pasta dishes add seasonal variety, while freshly made sandwiches provide a premium grab-and-go option.

We are known for combining speed and convenience with restaurant-level taste.

Signature favorites such as our Italian-style sandwiches, Chicken Tikka Masala, Kalbsbratwurst (veal sausage), and steak with sides keep customers coming back. Our mix of classic comfort foods and globally inspired flavors appeals to commuters, travelers, and workers looking for quality and choice.

By offering consistently fresh meals with both indulgent and healthier options, we build loyalty and frequency—meeting customer needs for quick, satisfying, and flavorful food.

Daypart specific offers

Our daypart strategy is built around meeting customer needs from morning to evening. Breakfast is anchored by freshly brewed coffee, ranging from barista-style Starbucks to our own ok.– brand, paired with a wide selection of fresh baked goods at the best value for money.

Lunchtime is the strongest performer, driven by our hot meals, which offer freshly prepared dishes alongside salads and sandwiches made on site every three hours. These items remain popular throughout the day, ensuring constant relevance.

To drive frequency and value, we offer attractive meal deals, combining sandwiches with drinks or other items. Our most successful combo is Hot Dog & Cola, complemented by continuously refreshed offers and targeted app promotions.

By tailoring products and promotions to each time of day, we maximize convenience, variety, and customer loyalty across breakfast, lunch, and snacking occasions.

Speed, consistency and quality

Our menu and processes are designed to deliver speed without compromising quality. We ensure consistency through strict internal audits, which verify that operational standards are applied across all locations. Production lists with dates allow full product traceability, while regular temperature controls safeguard freshness and food safety.

Efficiency comes from a modular menu design, where core ingredients are used across multiple dishes. This not only speeds up preparation but also reduces waste and ensures availability of customer favorites. Components can be quickly rotated to create variety while keeping processes lean.

The result is a system that balances the fast service expected in a convenience environment with the quality and reliability of freshly prepared meals, ensuring customers can count on both speed and taste at every visit.

Variety and innovation

We evolve our menu by combining data-driven insights with trend awareness and customer feedback. Sales performance is continuously analyzed—strong sellers are retained, while slower-moving items are replaced by new products that better meet customer expectations.

Innovation is guided by food trends, customer requests, and centralized input, ensuring we remain relevant and aligned with the spirit of the times.

With our broad background from the Food Service business we draw inspiration from industry collaborations, trade fairs, and international benchmarks, while also gathering feedback through customer surveys and tastings at the point of sale. This approach ensures that new ideas are tested and refined with real customer input.

We tailor our offer to time of day (breakfast vs. lunch) and local demographics. For example, we focus on vegetarian options in student-heavy areas like avec Freiestrasse Zurich, while offering heartier meals such as bratwurst and steak in commuter hubs like avec Horgen.

Coffee and beverage program

Our coffee and beverage program combines strong global brands with our popular proprietary brand: we offer Starbucks self-service coffee as a premium choice alongside our own brand ok.– coffee, positioned as the best value-for-money alternative. In Horgen, due to its success, we have expanded to multiple ok.– machines, ensuring availability and convenience.

In other beverages as well—in our beverage wall, which contains around 200 cold drinks—our ok.– brand plays a central role as a price-friendly alternative to major labels. A recent highlight is ok.– Mate, a trend drink in Switzerland. With three varieties—including the first zero-sugar Mate—we have quickly established it as a customer favorite.

We also integrate regional products to differentiate our offer and support local suppliers. These include Einsiedler beer, Lake Zurich wines, and fresh milk from Milchmanufaktur (dairy production) Einsiedeln.

This mix ensures broad appeal, affordability, and local relevance.

Digital presence

Loyalty

Our digital loyalty program, integrated into the avec app, is designed to reward everyday purchases and keep customers coming back. Shoppers can collect loyalty cards for categories such as coffee, sandwiches, energy drinks, water, and even non-food items—earning free products after repeat purchases.

To keep engagement high, we offer Hurry Deals, featuring heavily discounted or even free items for a limited time, as well as regular digital coupons across all categories. Gamification adds extra excitement, with app-based games giving customers the chance to win free products.

For foodservice specifically, customers can use the avec gift card for The Kitchen menus, adding flexibility and encouraging repeat visits.

By combining practical rewards, surprise offers, and interactive elements, our loyalty program drives frequency, attention, and engagement, turning routine purchases into a rewarding experience.

Online Ordering and Delivery

At avec Horgen we do not offer online ordering or home delivery. Based on our experience and customer feedback, visitors strongly prefer coming to the store in person. Our location is well-established and serves as a local magnet, thanks to the unique combination of fuel services and a restaurant.

Social Media Engagement

We actively use Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to connect with customers and bring our avec brand—especially our The Kitchen by avec concept—to life in the digital space.

Our channels showcase more than products: we share new food-to-go offerings, store openings, and current promotions, creating transparency and excitement around our foodservice program.

Engagement is driven through interactive formats, from competitions and giveaways to creative collaborations with partner brands and suppliers. This not only rewards our community but also strengthens relationships and boosts reach.

By combining informative updates with engaging content, we highlight the freshness, convenience, and innovation behind our foodservice offer. The result is a dynamic online presence that builds loyalty, attracts new customers, and positions avec as a modern, customer-centric convenience brand in Switzerland’s digital landscape.

Operational Excellence

Our foodservice program is designed to deliver both efficiency and uncompromising quality. At the heart of operations is a streamlined kitchen layout supported by high-performance equipment that allows us to produce large volumes quickly while maintaining consistency. Products are sourced with both quality and convenience in mind—ingredients can be refined or regenerated in just a few steps, ensuring speed without sacrificing taste.

To safeguard standards, we conduct on-site quality testing through internal audits as well as independent laboratories and inspectors. These checks cover microbiological safety, recipe compliance, and correct product declarations, ensuring customers can trust every meal served.

Employee training is central to operational success. Detailed manuals with step-by-step workflows, QA specifications, and recipes guide staff, while new product launches are supported by hands-on training and on-site coaching. This ensures new offers are seamlessly integrated into daily routines.

We foster a strong foodservice culture by embedding quality, hygiene, and customer satisfaction into every process. Clear responsibilities, consistent communication, and ongoing support empower employees to take pride in delivering excellence.

Furthermore, we actively cultivate our “foodvenience” expertise and culture through a range of internal initiatives that engage and inspire our teams.  We celebrate shop openings with dedicated employee events and townhalls led by our CEO highlight the strategic role of foodvenience in our business. We host recurring best practice exchanges with our agency partners, fostering collaboration and continuous improvement.

The result is a system where front-of-house speed and customer experience are matched by back-of-house precision and efficiency—a balance that enables us to serve fresh, high-quality meals reliably and at scale within the convenience environment.

Performance

Consumer demand for fresh, high-quality food on the go has never been stronger. In response, avec launched the first integrated The Kitchen concept in a service station at BP Horgen, Switzerland—combining freshly prepared meals with a modern convenience offer.

Our flagship store—opened in August 2024 after a CHF 1.2 million revamp—sets new standards in convenience retailing. Its open kitchen serves popular hot dishes from Monday to Saturday, seamlessly integrated into the store experience.

• Performance since our takeover has been strong: daily customers increased from under 1,000 to around 1,300 within a year, with average tickets up nearly 10%.
• On average, we sell 140 freshly prepared menus during lunchtime hours (11:00–14:00), highlighting the appeal of The Kitchen concept.

Food & Beverages are the backbone of our business –

• contributing 63% of net revenue at avec BP Horgen.
• within this, 45% comes from The Kitchen, convenience food, bakery, and coffee,
• while 27% comes from cold beverages (alcoholic and non-alcoholic).

In addition, since Valora took over the gas station shop with its avec store, BP in Horgen has achieved a 10.2% increase in fuel sales.

These results demonstrate the strength of our foodservice-led model. By elevating both the in-store experience and culinary quality, we have created a blueprint for convenience expansion at service stations that drives traffic, sales, and loyalty.

Company Overview

About Valora

Every day, around 15,000 employees at Valora work to brighten up our customers’ journeys with fresh, convenient foodvenience. With about 2,800 outlets across Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, Valora operates brands like avec, k kiosk, Press & Books, Brezelkönig, BackWerk, Ditsch, Caffè Spettacolo, Frittenwerk and ok.–. Valora, headquartered in Muttenz, Switzerland, is also a global leader in pretzel production and part of the Mexican group FEMSA.

About avec

Step into an avec store and experience modern convenience—where fresh, handmade food meets smart design, state-of-the-art technology and regional flavor. Whether catching a train, refueling, or on the move in the city, avec is the go-to place for speed, quality, and something fresh to go.

At its core is the philosophy Handmade with Love: fresh sandwiches, crisp salads, fruit cups, pastries, and baked goods are prepared daily by hand. Stores feature inviting atmospheres, intuitive layouts, digital checkouts, and mobile payment for seamless shopping.

Open early until late—and 24/7 in select spots—avec also highlights regional specialties under “Von hier. Regional für Dich.,” supporting local producers while delivering authentic flavor.

Open early until late—and 24/7 in select spots—avec also highlights regional specialties
under “Von hier. Regional für Dich.,” supporting local producers while delivering authentic
flavor.