Beverage Buffet: Circle K Offering Drink Subscriptions For Under $6 A Month

Convenience store chain Circle K is looking to capitalize on the fast-food boom by drawing customers in with an offer that will have them filling up their cups with beverages month after month.

The company is planning on introducing a beverage subscription program called Sip & Save, which will cost customers $5.99 per month for one tea, coffee, Froster slushy, or Polar Pop fountain drink of their choice every day, CNBC reported.

The Sip & Save program, which was initially planned to be rolled out in 2020, was paused as the COVID pandemic hit and consumers were placed on lockdown orders across the country, CNBC said.

But now, with vaccinations increasing daily and state restrictions easing as well, Circle K sees it as an ideal time to launch the program and expects it to build that important customer loyalty base while helping it to draw in customers after foot traffic waned during the height of the pandemic.

“We really see this as an opportunity to drive traffic at a time that people are just starting to come out of the understandable cocoons that they’ve been in for the last 12-plus months,” Kevin Lewis, chief marketing officer of Alimentation Couche-Tard (ATD-B.TO), Circle K’s Canadian-based parent company, told CNBC.

Lewis continued by saying that Circle K has been testing the Sip & Save program for the last 90 days in over 100 stores near Augusta, Georgia, and Columbia, South Carolina, where it has seen customers visiting more frequently, up from what the company expected at this time.

Lewis also said that the subscription program will run for 90 days nationally and based on the feedback the company will determine if it will continue, but he told CNBC that Circle K will “be hard-pressed to say stop.”

Circle K is not the only company that looked to cash in on a beverage subscription program recently.

In February 2020, Panera announced that it was offering a coffee subscription, where customers could get free unlimited tea and iced and hot coffee for $8.99 per month.

Burger King also launched a beverage subscription program in March 2019, offering a $5 per month coffee membership, which it ended after only a few months.

Alimentation Couche-Tard, which also operates the brands On the Run and Holiday, has over 7,200 convenience stores in the U.S. In 2020, the company had revenues of $37.8 billion.

Shares of Alimentation Couche-Tard were trading at $41.74 as of 11:13 a.m. ET on Wednesday, up 57 cents, or 1.38%.