Freshie rebuilds its stores around food as Mashgin pushes barcode-free self-checkout

Freshie rebuilt its store layout around food. The retailer worked with design firm Paragon Solutions on the new format, reworking the branding and product mix down to where the cashier stands, so a customer sees the food offering first on the way in.

The Freshie redesign

Paragon did more than repaint. They moved the cashier and rebuilt the floor to show how much Freshie sells beyond fuel. The aim is foodservice. Fuel margins are thin and swing week to week, while prepared food keeps a customer inside the store and pushes the basket above a single fill-up.

Designing for food changes the building. You need sightlines to the grab-and-go case and room to queue without blocking the fuel-only buyers who just want a pack of gum and out. Where the cashier stands matters. Put it in the wrong spot and the lunch line backs into the cold vault.

Mashgin and self-checkout

Jack Hogan, SVP of sales and partnerships at Mashgin, told C-Store Dive that retailers are reworking how they take payment and leaning harder into self-checkout. Mashgin sells a computer-vision kiosk that rings up a whole tray at once with no barcodes. That fits a store selling more roller-grill and fresh food, the kind of stuff that never carried a UPC.

Build the store around food and you give yourself a checkout problem at noon. Self-checkout is one answer, as long as it moves the line and does not stall on an error screen and pull an employee over anyway. Hogan kept the conversation on what is working, though he allowed that a lot of self-checkout pilots added labor to the store instead of cutting it.

Both moves run on the same idea. Convenience retail wants to sell food and lean on fuel as the draw, and the redesign and the kiosk are two ways to make that pay at the register.

What to watch

The question is whether food-first formats like Freshie's hold the basket up once the new-store shine wears off and the novelty customers stop coming. It is worth watching how many chains pair a food remodel with a checkout change from the start, instead of bolting kiosks on a year later when the lines get ugly. Mashgin's claim that self-checkout is working has to be weighed against the older record, where the tech often just moved labor around the store. The operators who get both the food and the throughput moving at once could be the ones who see the margin show up.