The 2026 City St George’s Food Policy Symposium

Anyone who wishes to attend the event should email foodpolicy@citystgeorges.ac.uk

Healthy, sustainable and profitable retailing – identifying food policy and market opportunities for the convenience store sector

Programme

Speaker bios

Across the UK, almost 50,000 convenience stores act as an essential source of food for their local communities and contribute 405,000 jobs and £45.2 billion each year to the British economy. Convenience stores provide essential food access for populations at risk of poor diet, including low-income families, older adults and young people. Stores are typically located in accessible areas and designed for quick, convenient shopping. Convenience store customers frequently visit their stores multiples times a week, even daily, to pick up everyday items and benefit from valuable social interactions.

But the nutritional value of products in many UK convenience stores is limited, with the affordability of healthy foods prohibitive and the quality often poor. Working to tight profit margins and increasing dependency on evermore consolidated supply chains drives convenience store owners to stock unhealthy products that they perceive will sell, are promoted by suppliers and will not result in product wastage or financial loss. Government policy efforts to reshape retail food settings to be healthier also focus on large retailers, which some worry may incentivise the supply of High Fat Salt Sugar (HFSS) products through the convenience sector.

The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the important role of convenience stores in local communities. Many families became more reliant on their local convenience store and the sector used its agility in sourcing to respond to communities’ needs. This illustrates how more varied supply chains can operate. Having largely reverted to mainstream supply chains under pressure of the cost-of-living crisis, there is a need to identify policy and market opportunities for a healthy, sustainable and profitable convenience store sector.

The City St George’s Food Symposium 2026 responds to this need by inviting illustration and collective discussion about how policy and market drivers can redefine convenience store provision to achieve economic, health and environmental co-benefits. Drawing upon practical and policy insights from key actors across the convenience store sector, the symposium aims to position convenience stores not only as cornerstones of thriving communities but as key players in necessary food systems transformation.

During the event we will:

• Gain insight into convenience store owner perspectives on the opportunities and challenges of increasing the healthiness of their product ranges
• Examine convenience store sector supply chains and key drivers of unhealthy and unsustainable product ranges
• Consider commercially viable policy interventions to increase the supply of healthy, sustainable items in the convenience store sector
• Explore opportunities to connect local, sustainably produced food to convenience stores across the UK
• Understand the needs, expectations and experiences of shoppers at British convenience stores