Maxol doubles down on non-fuel retail: coffee, foodservice and carwash

Maxol, the fourth-generation family-owned Irish business, is ramping up its non-fuel retail operations with an enhanced food offer, premium coffee proposition, meal delivery service and new car wash subscription programme.

The initiatives follow significant company investment – Maxol spent €70.5m during the 2023-2024 trading period followed by an additional €47.5m in Capex in 2025.

Now in the fourth year of its second five-year strategic plan, the business has made great strides, states chief executive Brian Donaldson.

“In the last 10 years we have transformed from being fuel centric to convenience and foodservice led,” he states.
As it moves into its 107th year, Maxol is still forging ahead with key breakthroughs.

The business has grown its company-owned estate by 14 stations in the last two and half years, bringing established, high quality sites and new independent retailers into the Maxol family.

Five sites were added last year – one in Galway, one in Spa Glen in Cork and three in Dublin. According to Donaldson, they are all significant businesses in their own right.

In tandem, Maxol has invested in significant redevelopments at flagship locations including its award-winning M3 Mulhuddart service station, as well as Long Mile Road service station in Dublin. M3’s food offering includes one of Ireland’s leading QSR restaurant chains, Supermac’s, which customers can order in the store or avail of the drive-thru if time poor. It also has Maxol’s first Papa John’s pizza offering, as well as global Mexican restaurant chain, Zambrero. Maxol Long Mile Road also boasts a quality food-to-go offer, which includes Maxol Deli, Zambrero, Dunnes Stores food and a Burger King, which customers can enjoy in a spacious seating area, or alternatively, they can use the drive-thru for added convenience.

Maxol’s Northern Ireland network has also been enhanced through the company’s dedicated developments programme. Sites like Maxol Belvoir and Ballyholme are recognised as offering the best in roadside convenience.

Coffee credentials

Food and beverage is a key area of focus for Maxol. The business has dialed up its own Rosa Coffee brand. Launched in 2018, the ROSA Coffee offer has since benefited from significant investment, including the installation of the latest Franke bean to cup machines in 2024 to offer consistent quality coffee and an evolved look and feel with digital menu boards, to enhance the shopper experience.

It’s proven to be Maxol’s metier with the business selling five million cups of coffee in the Republic of Ireland in 2025. But the brand is not resting on its laurels, asserts Donaldson. While the initial menu was dairy based, it’s rolled out oat milk, which now accounts for 10% of the sales mix and has just introduced iced coffee, appealing to millenniums and Gen Z.

“We continue to invest very heavily in the beverage offering – it’s seen as a premium brand and is a very important part of the business,” Donaldson says.

Foodservice and delivery

Foodservice also goes from strength to strength with Maxol’s continued support of local producers and suppliers; while the number of items that are freshly prepared on site continues to grow too.

More recently the business has been exploring how it can extend its sales in the Maxol Deli beyond the key breakfast to mid-afternoon trading window and has won inspiration in Denmark.

Last year the business took Maxol retailers to the NACS Convenience Summit Europe in Copenhagen and saw first-hand Q8’s partnership with the Danish food tech company Noahs. Noahs brings premium food, digital ordering and full convenience into one seamless experience, with groceries and dinner delivered to your door. According to Donaldson, Noahs understands the importance of quality ingredients and a high consistency of the product and is digitising fresh food to a high standard.

Maxol has launched with Noahs in three trial sites: Long Mile Road, County Dublin; Newbridge, County Kildare; and Ardbrae, Bray, Co Wicklow.

The offer includes a pizza range with handmade Italian dough, a protein-focused salad bowl range, Mexican burrito products and a chicken offering that Donaldson expects to be one of its most popular orders.  Maxol has teamed up with an aggregator to deliver these freshly prepared food items to people’s homes under the slogan, Maxol – Bags More Straight To Your Door.

At the same time, it has digitised its in-store grocery and fresh food offer, ranging from traditional groceries and wine to desserts and confectionery,  allowing these products to be delivered to customers’ homes in a single order.

“It opens up the evening economy, and we are very excited about that,” Donaldson says.

“People can order online, through the aggregator, through touch screen kiosks in-store, and through their phones. The quality of the food is exceptional – it’s top of the range and we are making sure the supply chain and ingredients are right. By entering this market, we are extending the opening hours of the Deli beyond 3pm to 10pm. Already sales have grown by 20% – even before home delivery launches – proving that extended opening hours has a real appeal and business case,” he reports.

Whether it’s coffee, fresh food or the in-store convenience range – where Maxol works with BWG Foods in ROI and the Henderson Group in NI – the business is moving with the times and investing in technology to stay relevant but without sacrificing the quality of the offer and consistency, Donaldson adds.

“There’s always work in progress,” he says. “There’s more in terms of fresh produce, more staple ambient lines, fresh food for now and ingredients to take home. There’s been a massive shift in what we are known for.”

There are now 40 full off-licences in the Republic of Ireland, for instance, and a large selection of wines, beers and cocktails are in chillers so that it’s purposely intended ‘for now’.

Dunnes Stores partnership

In a further move, Maxol has partnered with Dunnes Stores, Ireland’s largest family-owned retailer, to introduce a shop-in-shop concept featuring up to 400 lines in its neighbourhood stores.

The offer comprises ready meals, fresh meats, cheeses, fresh fruit pots, yoghurts and scratch cooking ingredients, premium wines and flowers, as well as freshly baked bread.

Donaldson describes Dunnes as ‘intelligent and way ahead of the competition with exceptional price messaging’, which extends choice to Maxol shoppers. There are currently five locations on trial and another in the pipeline. The range is tailored to the location with transient sites featuring more grab and go lines and food for now.

“It’s like anything – we are taking time to get it right but making good progress. Retailers are very supportive of it, and we have become known for making the Dunnes’ range available in-store at multiple convenient locations,” he says.

Car wash opportunity

On the forecourt, car wash is another significant opportunity and part of Maxol’s strategic plan to build the business of the future, Donaldson says.

The move acknowledges that even without electrification, fuel sales will reduce at the business over time. Coffee, food service and car wash can help to replace that lost income.

Operating 126 company-owned sites on the island of Ireland and supplying a further 124 dealers under the Maxol fuel brand, there’s great car wash potential.

Maxol already operates 70 roll over car washes, featuring leading German technology. The company has invested heavily in branding and choices with an upgraded chemicals range to ensure a top end finish, Donaldson says.

The latest machines feature multi-flex brushes, which adapt to the latest car designs and high-water pressure to remove more dirt and especially brake dust around the wheels. “When the car comes out the other side, it looks like a brand-new car, and the chemicals leave a fragrance, which improves the overall experience,” he says.

Now Maxol is moving into the US-styled tunnelled conveyor car wash space with five new locations in the planning – two in Northern Ireland and three in the Republic – rolling out under the Quantum brand. Measuring up to 30m in length, the tunnelled car washes will not only offer an increased car throughput, a superior quality of wash but also improve the offer with centralised vacuum services for in car cleaning.

A new car wash subscription offer will also launch in the coming weeks. Maxol is leveraging its partnership with Liquid Barcodes and its loyalty app to introduce the subscription service. The retailer continues to grow its subscribers in the Republic of Ireland, incentivising users with rewards on coffee and foodservice with gamification techniques. A car wash subscription will be added to the mix with three different types of offer: entry, mid and high. Once users are registered through the app, they simply drive up to the car wash, open the app to scan a QR code and proceed with the wash.

“If it’s successful we will roll it out across the estate. Growing a good car wash club keeps people loyal to Maxol,” Donaldson says.

EV learnings

While EV adoption has slowed in markets around the world in 2026, Maxol keeps its eye firmly on the ball.

“The worst thing you can do is put your head in the sand and say it won’t happen,” Donaldson asserts.

Indeed, in 2022, Maxol launched the island of Ireland’s first Ultra-Rapid EV charging hub at Kinnegar Service Station in Holywood, County Down. Operated under Maxol’s Re-Charge brand it is built under a  dedicated canopy and has four high-powered rapid and ultra-rapid chargers ranging from 50kw to 200kw, which are powered by renewable electricity.

The aim was to understand and meet the needs of consumers and early adopters, Donaldson reports. “Consumers want rapid charging – time is still precious and they want to use ultra-fast chargers to charge up to 80% and then move on. They want facilities where they feel safe and secure, and services such as convenience grocery and coffee, along with spaces where they can come out of the car and relax. While a percentage may stay in the car, it’s loud and clear that it needs to be a full facility offer. A bank of chargers in the middle of nowhere is not going to be used. As research in Norway and other Scandinavian countries shows, it comes back to location, location, location,” he says.

Consumer sentiment

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While Maxol is offering more reasons to visit its sites, consumers remain cautious and sentiment is most likely to dampen due to the war in the Middle East, Donaldson opines.

Consumers in the North and South like to get value for money, he says. “They are promiscuous in their shopping habits and they know where the best deal is so are very selective in terms of what goods they buy in.” However, while they are much more fickle, they are not prepared to sacrifice quality, he adds.

This has fuelled strong growth in private label and Maxol is no exception to the rule, now offering private label in sandwiches, soft drinks, bagged sweets, milk, water, bakery etc. – providing extra value on core lines.

Similarly, the Dunnes Stores’ range is very competitively priced and aims to offer good value.

Maxol will continue to play to its strengths – leveraging its high-quality independent retailers, local people who recruit from the local area, serving the local community.

“That keeps us relevant and builds solidarity in the business,” Donaldson says. “We’ve never lost the values that started the business back in 1920 – it’s important to stay close to those values and thank customers for their support as they are very easy to lose and difficult to recruit,” he says.

Maxol faces the same challenges as other operators – a rise in retail crime, which is “probably at its highest” and “across the board” and rising business costs in NI and ROI. “The cost of employing people has increased, and we are disproportionally impacted as we employ a significant number of people at the lower end of the pay scale,” Donaldson says.

In a tight labour market, employing skilled people is challenging, while energy costs are rising too. “We are trying to reduce energy consumption with initiatives such as closed door refrigeration, solar power to generate our own electricity and heat pumps. But this can only go so far and is expensive on an upfront capital basis,” Donaldson says. Increasing water rates are also impacting business, especially one focused on foodservice and car wash.

As a result, Maxol is steering a difficult course – managing increased operating costs while still driving profitability and delivering to the customer in terms of value.

But it has an informed leader at the helm to help chart those choppy waters. Donaldson was appointed Chair of the CBI Northern Ireland in January 2025 and also sits on the Retail Ireland (Ibec) Board.

Both positions help him play an important role in keeping government departments informed in terms of what’s happening on the ground, as well as exploring wider opportunities.

When we spoke, Donaldson was heading out to Washington for a St Patrick’s Day event designed to increase collaboration between the USA and Ireland in both business and academia.

He was also participating in a NACS meeting having been invited to join the Board a year ago.

Donaldson places great value on his NACS membership, which has enabled him to travel all over the world, meet the right people and see firsthand how their business models are changing and potentially regionalise those developments to its own marketplaces.

Most recently he’s attended the NACS Summit in Japan, visiting Lawsons, Family Mart and 7-Eleven, winning great learnings from highly clustered stores that deliver freshly prepared food three times a day despite no on-site catering or deli. The Noahs partnership came out of the Copenhagen visit, while he’s also spent time with Repsol in Madrid and Dan Munford and the Insight team in London where Farmer J was a standout concept. “I’ve made a fantastic group of friends all over the world – everyone is very open to sharing,” he says.

It clearly keeps Donaldson buoyed and brings vitality to the Maxol business too.

“We are in the second of our five year strategic plans and will be working on the next five year strategic plan next year. “I feel energised and, like our Directors, Max, Noel, Thomas, Barry; our dedicated head office team and the majority of our retailers, we are all aligned and equally passionate about the business,” he says.