SeQuential Biofuels' Retail Concept Seen Elsewhere

My friends over at SeQuential Biofuels look to be leading a national trend. Leading earlier this year with a concept refueling station dedicated to serving a lower-carbon sustainably minded consumer demographic SeQuential launched their first station in Eugene, Oregon.

This month Convenience Store News has a plethora of stories covering the emerging trend towards higher value offerings in a traditional convenience store.

First in a story called "Reverse Migration" they cover a new trend towards brands seeking a greater urban presence for gas stations and c-stores. In an opinion piece they also mention the "Future of Convenience" being healthy fresh food. Higher value food product offerings setting up convenience stores to compete against traditional fast food with a healthier, faster, product. In another snippet they also cover the bet being made by Whole Foods to pursue an urban convenience store model (which just begs for gas/ethanol/diesel/biodiesel pumps).

Way to lead the pack SeQuential. From the first time I ever met Ian Hill at SeQuential he mentioned a vision a refueling station concept dedicated to sustainable products and true substitutes to petroleum fuel. At the time my thoughts were "Who would be dumb enough to voluntarily go into retail fueling as a business?" Today I gladly eat my words as they have done an amazing job at developing B99 markets and their first station is performing beyond traditional car-count expectations both at the island and in their convenience store.

Glad to see that the trend spotted by Ian back in 2002 was something shared by those with much more capital and far more research. He felt it in his gut, acted on it, and today I expect great things from this model of differentiated triple bottom line motor-fuel.

For another similar story. British grocery stores push the envelope on who can be the "greenest" (their words not mine). The big story are biodigesters. A technology well known here in the Northwest as its common with paper plants to reclaim a little additional energy off of their waste product.

NOTE: The Whole Foods mention in the Convenience Store News was not available on line. If anyone wants to see it feel free to leave your name, fax number, or email address in the comments and I will forward you a copy of it. I will also erase your personal info after sending it (in the interest of avoiding anymore spam I keep my email off this blog).