Engen York, Western Cape, South Africa
Engen York Convenience Centre, which opened earlier this year, is located in the scenic South African town of George, approximately 420 kilometres (260 miles) east of Cape Town.
Engen York caters to various shopper needs with a focus on convenience and efficiency. It serves “On the Move” customers with grab-and-go meals, beverages, and snacks throughout the day. Peak shopping times include early mornings, for breakfast and coffee, lunchtime for fresh lunch options, and evenings for dinner solutions and pantry top-ups.
Company and Brand Overview
Engen is a leading African energy company focused on the marketing of premium petroleum and convenience services. With a history dating back to 1881 and trading as Engen since 1993, we’ve expanded our business with the help of an incredible team to include manufacturing plants, distribution networks, and 1,680 retail service stations across Southern Africa. We are all about top-notch customer service and living up to our enduring promise: “With us you are Number One.”
The group has a presence in 28 African markets, with the Engen brand having a retail presence in the following 15 countries: South Africa, Botswana, DRC, Eswatini, Gabon, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Reunion, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, whilst also serving various commercial sectors, including: Agriculture, Automotive, Aviation, Chemicals, Coatings, Construction, Mining, and Marine as Engen across Southern Africa.
Voted South Africa’s “Coolest” petroleum brand* for 13 straight years. Engen is renowned for setting trends and its absolute focus on customers. We’re the ones who introduced Quickshop to South Africa in the early ‘90s – the country’s first-ever convenience store at a fuel station!
Now, we’ve got 700 Quickshops in our network. We were also the first to offer private label grocery products with Quickshop & Co. In another ground-breaking industry first, we teamed up with top food retailer, Woolworths in 2000 to offer Woolworths Foodstop on our forecourts, today available at 96 Engen service stations.
Café365, our in-house foodvenience brand serves up deliciously fresh baked goods and snacks, as well as our barista-served Brazmata coffee. You’ll find Café365 at around 350 sites, with our Brazmata coffee brewing in over 100 locations.
*As voted in the Sunday Times Generation Next surveys from 2011-2023
Store Photos
Store and Offer Overview
York Convenience Centre (York), which opened earlier this year, is located in the scenic South African town of George, approximately 420 kilometres east of Cape Town.
George offers world-class culinary and adventure experiences, as well as first-world infrastructure. Widely considered an up-and-coming destination, it is the business and events hub of the world-famous ‘Garden Route’ and is connected to South Africa through George Airport.
The main shopper missions for York are:
- On the Move Customer: Grab and Go convenient meals, beverages and snacks throughout the day.
- Local Top Up: A last-minute pop in to fill up your pantry with essential grocery items.
- Time Optimizers: Prioritizing location and time, “ Get-In and Get Out” requires efficient service above all else.
When do our customers like to shop:
- “On the way to work customers” stop between 06:30 and 09:00 as they refill for a grab-and-go breakfast and coffee treat.
- 75% of our On-the-Go range is shopped between 12:00 and 14:00 with customers looking for a fresh lunch solution.
- “On the Way Home” customers seeking a top-up or a quick dinner solution gravitate towards our prepared meals ensuring a healthy trade between 17:00 and 19:00.
York offers a wide range of ready-to-drink beverages, from trendy energy drinks and CSD’s to mineral waters and alternative health Kombuchas, amongst others. If you prefer a hot beverage, our trained Brazmata Baristas will happily make you an Oat milk Cappuccino or, on a sweltering summers day, a cold-blended ice coffee. Quickshop & Co is known for its a delicious selection of chocolates and treats and Cafe365 for its famous pepper steak pies and freshly-prepared pastries.
As the market leader in the forecourt environment, Engen attracts partners that are brand leaders in their own right and with whom we share a similar culture. Our strategic partner, Woolworths, provides our customers with premium fresh produce, tasty desserts and a prepared meals range that keeps our customers coming back daily.
Layout and Retail Environment
Total Shop Retail Area: 196m2
- Quickshop & Co area: 110m2
- Woolworths Foodstop area: 55m2
- Café 365 and Brazmata Coffee area: 31m2
The underlying principle of our layout is to move from a “house of brands” to a “branded house”. With subtle nuances designed to reflect our richly diverse customer base, patrons experience a consistent and appealing experience across all our offerings.
York’s Quickshop is designed to cater for mid to higher income residential customers going about their daily business as well as the number of schools in the immediate area. The look and feel is designed to create a premium shopping experience via the use of warmer building materials and colours that are not typically used as a key brand and experience differentiator in the SA forecourt convenience environment.
Key to creating a premium shopping experience is ensuring the most desired categories are positioned in prime line of sight from the entrance. Furthermore, the use of textured bulkheads and warmer lighting supports interactivity, whilst ensuring basic and general categories are in a more ‘standard’ format, aligned to a less interactive style.
Appropriate zoning makes for easy identification, directing customers where they should head for freshly brewed coffee, out of the oven bakery lines, as well as typical lunchtime needs and dashboard dining offers. For those wanting their evening meals and top up shops, appropriate areas are easily identifiable – such as the Woolworths pod – where they can fill their baskets accordingly.
Following this flow leads customers past the basic pantry items and general merchandise zone towards pay-points. Pay points are thoughtfully designed to simultaneously present the high-risk pharma and healthcare items that are frequent forecourt purchases, in a visually appealing merchandising display unit.
Our Café 365 offering is designed to be immediately identifiable, ensuring customers find their caffeine fix easily.
Our warm zone principle is brought to life through natural wooden display elements, warmer lighting and afro-centric design elements. This creates a coziness in our barista space and allows customers the opportunity to engage with our beans and private label prepacked offerings such as muffins, croissant and biscuits.
- Creating a homely environment where customers are welcomed with a warm smile and a hot cup of coffee ensures that lasting and convivial connections are built between our baristas and food specialists. The Café 365 offering ensures that all customers, whether you arrive in high heels, slippers or a school uniform, are welcomed with warmth.
- Barista machines are strategically positioned to ensure customers experience the theatre of coffee. Front facing and recessed, it allows baristas direct engagement, ensuring customers are easily able to order their coffee as well as select one of our freshly prepared pastries or hot meals, all appetisingly positioned to complement the beverage offering.
Woolworths, our premium fresh food and prepared meals partner, is easily identifiable using clean and striking colours, lighting and distinctive bulkheads.
- The Woolworths zone has been designed to ensure our customers are able to identify their most loved products with ease. Customers are welcomed with fresh flowers, positively influencing the customer’s mood and confirming the freshness on offer throughout the area and leading you to fresh produce, a variety of fruit and conveniently prepared seasonal vegetables.
- Customers experience ultimate convenience with a curated range of prepared and ready to eat meals as well as diary, frozen, ambient vegetables, baked goods and, to complete your shop, long life items.
Sustainability is integral to our design principles and reflected in many of the materials and elements used. The generous use of timber creates not only a warm and inviting atmosphere but is also environmentally friendly with its low energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. The wall paint, Plascon Double Velvet, is entirely free of harmful APEO chemicals and actively improves indoor air quality by removing formaldehyde from the air. It is formulated with Silver Protect™, which inhibits the growth of bacteria, mould, and fungus.
- The Staron solid surface counters, an acrylic-based material made of natural minerals, is 100% waterproof, flame-resistant, and impact resistant. It is robust and durable, renewable and repairable, and being non-porous and seamless is ideal for areas where hygiene is critical. It’s also antimicrobial and chemical-resistant. The new Gerflor floor is made of 100% controlled recycled materials. Consisting of interlocking tiles, it is easy to install, has high traffic resistance and is low in maintenance. In addition, the heavy-duty Xtyre walk-off mats, made from recycled rubber base, contributes to environmental sustainability by repurposing materials that might otherwise end up in landfills.
- LED is standard for both shop and canopy lighting, reducing lighting energy consumption by 75%. Being toxin-free, it results in safer handling and disposal, which contributes to a cleaner planet. The main compound in the OWA vinyl faced gypsum ceiling tiles are mineral wool, manufactured with naturally occurring, sustainable and recycled materials.
South Africa, classified as semi-arid, ranks as one of the 30 driest countries in the world. Ensuring a commitment to sustainable water use, two 10 000 litre water tanks, linked to the irrigation system, were installed at York CC for rainwater harvesting. To make the most of George’s 2 551 average sunshine hours a year, both the forecourt canopy and the building roof were reinforced and sleeves installed to accommodate solar panels in excess of 200m2 each which are planned to be fitted during this year. Solar panels provide a limitless supply of clean energy, decreasing reliance on non-renewable resources like fossil fuels.
Sustainability is not only limited to our building and design practices. Our category management team aim to ensure that suppliers, manufactures and distributors practice ethical and sustainable sourcing in line with the UN’s SDG goals. In 2023, Engen converted our coffee cups into biodegradable PLA cups reducing cups destined for landfill by more than 5 million per year. Our aim is for all take-away packaging to be fully recyclable and biodegradable (paper bags, bamboo cutlery and PLA instead of plastic). In addition, manufacturers are tasked with ensuring their water sources are sustainable and where possible, their electricity is off the grid. Our private label distributors have introduced delivery trucks partially powered by solar panels and batteries. Additionally, diesel is blended with bio fuels to drive a more sustainable footprint in the upcoming years.
The Woolworths Farming for the Future initiative is based on science. It’s really all about making informed decisions and choosing the best option for soil and plant health and to reduce water consumption. Our farmers work in harmony with nature – they use water, fertilisers and pesticides responsibly.
Customer Experience
On all Voice of Customer (VOC) platforms, customers consistently compliment the service excellence of York, as well as the quality and range of offerings in its convenience store. Since opening, York has received the maximum NPS rating of 100 for both forecourt and convenience store. Additionally, it maintains a 5-star rating on Google reviews with customers sharing their unprompted feedback:
“ The best Engen garage ever! Everywhere I go on site the people are so friendly”
“ Very convenient location and the staff is so friendly and well trained”
“They have such a wide range of products and they are so clean! The staff are also so friendly and helpful”
To ensure that customer experience remains top of mind, Engen also utilises the Mystery Shopper programme which highlights customer experience successes and development opportunities at site level on an on-going basis.
- York’s bright lights are visible from a distance, offering relief to busy mothers, exhausted travellers, ravenous school kids and thirsty commuters alike.
- Combining top quality value for money products with outstanding service from friendly staff, the site’s secret is that it provides you with what you didn’t know you needed.
Engen has the only South African forecourt collaboration creating a 24-hour destination for premium one stop shopping; convenient prepared meals, fresh goods, pantry basics and essential pharmacare all complemented by a barista coffee offering and hot foods to go. The Engen 1app, allowing for seamless payments, adds to the customer convenience experience.
Engen’s brand promise, “With us you are Number One” remains central to everything we do. Our proud track record of innovation is on show with the Sunday Times newspaper recognising Engen as South Africa’s “Coolest Petroleum Brand” for the last 13 years.
Operational Excellence
The intentional use of our design elements and shopper zones delivers a relaxed ambience creating an easy and seamless shopping experience for our customers. The layout guides our customers; effortlessly matching their needs to our tailored product ranges on offer.
“One-Way”
- To ensure we remain the number one Foodvenience Brand, Engen has created “One-Way”, an on-site staff training programme designed to deliver a superior customer experience.
- One-Way focuses on developing tools and systems for staff and operators to ensure a consistent brand experience across all Foodvenience sites.
Site employee training is conducted both on-site and remotely via digital units located within our Foodvenience sites. This e-learn platform offers specific learning pathways allocated to roles and responsibilities within Foodvenience areas for continuous upskilling and focus.
Various life skill modules are also included in the training, which assists site employees to stay safe and informed, thus helping Engen to achieve its zero incident goals.
Along with e-learning, additional training is provided to operators by means of external subject matter experts. For example, food compliance training enables the operator to run an effective and safe business within the Food Safety legislation requirements.
Our operational excellence is the result of a unified approach (One Way) delivering world class standards across all service stations supported by the Engen frontline teams.
Our secret magic lies in our careful selection of the right-minded operators who represents the Engen brand across all the offerings. They are responsible for creating an environment in which staff feel valued and motivated to deliver a consistent enhanced customer experience.
Overall Performance
York has been trading as an Engen-branded service station for less than 6 months as it was a competitor take-over. Post the knock-down rebuild, the shop turnover has since doubled.
In order for us to gauge performance, we are using the following metrics: Number of daily site transactions, how many of those transactions are in-store and do we see a correlation between superior convenience offerings and a higher customer spend.
- On average, York has 1 414 daily customer transactions across the combined forecourt and shop. 68% or 966 transactions take place in the shop.
Of the main business units:
- Served food offerings such Café 365 (bakery) and Brazmata (coffee) contribute 14% of the shop transactions.
- The remainder of the shop, including fresh produce, prepared meals, frozen and long-life items contributes 76%.
On average, store customers spend more than 30% of their fuel bill on food services.
In 2000, the fuel volume to convenience Rand sales ratio within Engen sites was 1 litre:ZAR 1. Today, York boasts a fuel to convenience ratio of 1 litre:ZAR 7.5 illustrating how customers’ fuel purchase decisions are now driven by tailor-made foodvenience offerings.
York’s convenience sales has shown significant growth in comparison to its competitors operating within the 5km York Street stretch.
In addition, our foodvenience sales have surpassed our ROI target by more than 50%, making York a great investment as well as contributing significantly to the surrounding communities.
‘The Best Foodvenience Store in the World’ 2024