Centra Convenience Supermarkets, Store Design & Branding

Centra’s “Good to Go” sub-brand is designed to position the retailer as a premium, on-the-go convenience destination. The strategy focuses on fresh, ready-to-eat food, high-quality coffee, and everyday essentials, catering to time-pressured urban and travel shoppers. Visually, the sub-brand uses consistent, engaging branding and merchandising, including dedicated chilled displays, hot food counters, and clearly signposted areas, to create a recognizable, attractive retail experience.

From a marketing perspective, “Good to Go” drives brand differentiation and loyalty by emphasizing speed, freshness, and convenience, supported by pre-ordering capabilities, app-based promotions, and social media engagement. The sub-brand integrates seamlessly into Centra’s wider network, reinforcing the overall brand while creating a distinct proposition that converts footfall into repeat visits and increased basket size.

In essence, “Good to Go” functions as both a product-focused offer and a strategic marketing tool, positioning Centra as a leader in modern convenience retail and driving measurable commercial performance.

Embellish the moment.

Centra, the convenience format franchised by the Musgrave Group (Ireland’s largest grocery distributor), is Ireland’s leading convenience retail group, with bright, accessible stores in over 486 locations throughout the country. They introduced their ‘Good to Go’ concept with a clearly focused range of fresh produce and hot/cold food offers to meet the growing convenience market in Ireland.

Working with the Musgrave’s Store Development and Marketing team, CampbellRigg developed a communication strategy and environment for Centra to address the demand of home meal replacement and top-up shopping requirements of Ireland’s busy convenience customers. 

Within the concept, a new logo ‘Good to Go’, vibrant in-store communication, food packaging and merchandising systems were developed. The shop format accommodates the fluctuating levels of business that Centra experienced each day and the varied day-part food requirements.

CampbellRigg created a ‘serve-over’ concept, staffed by up to eight employees to meet the busy lunchtime trade and worked with Musgrave to introduce new impulse and chilled food lines, as well as fresh coffee and hot food, such as ready to go hot pizza. The self-service area offers busy customers pre-prepared sandwiches to go.

The non-food zone is located towards the rear of the store and helps to increase customer dwell time, and facilitates food only customers to be served without delay.

Centra management wanted to address the demand for home meal replacement and top-up shopping requirements of Ireland’s busy convenience food market. Working with Musgrave’s store development and marketing team. We created a communication strategy for the "good to go" sub-brand and the interior store design.

The format and product offering has exceeded all sales targets, resulting in significant sales uplifts and the award-winning format, “Convenience Store of the Year”, was rolled out across the shop network in the Republic of Ireland.

Freshly baked today concept: The store layout has been designed to be part of Centra's “The Fresh Market" initiative, which emphasizes fresh food sections.  

Centra’s fresh selection strategy delivers high-quality, on-the-go meals, perfectly merchandised for convenience. Displayed in accessible wire baskets, products are positioned to maximize visibility, encourage impulse purchase, and streamline shopper flow, reinforcing Centra’s commitment to freshness, speed, and an engaging, performance-driven convenience shopping experience.

For Musgrave’s Centra brand, our marketing team developed a distinctive voice and copywriting style designed to resonate with convenience shoppers. We crafted memorable slogans such as “Hmmm…Tasty,” “Treat Yourself,” and “Freshly Baked,” reinforcing freshness, quality, and indulgence. This tone of voice was applied consistently across in-store signage, promotional materials, digital campaigns, and packaging, creating a cohesive brand experience that strengthens customer engagement, recall, and loyalty while driving footfall and sales in Centra stores.

Centra “Good to Go” offers freshly ground coffee sourced from Bewley’s, delivering exceptional quality with a fast, 35-second brew. This convenient, premium coffee experience enhances on-the-go shopping, reinforcing Centra’s commitment to freshness, speed, and customer satisfaction.

Below: The creation of a typographic design format and the purposes of copywriting.

Designing Centra’s mobile bakery display stand, purpose-built to showcase fresh bread and pastries in retail environments. This floor-standing unit features multi-tiered, angled shelving for maximum product visibility and easy customer access. Materials can include wooden shelves, wire mesh baskets, and a branded header, creating a functional and visually engaging merchandising solution.

Freshly baked today concept: The store layout has been designed to be part of Centra's “The Fresh Market" initiative, which emphasizes fresh food sections.

Our layout concept strategically zones the retail space to optimise shopper flow and maximise sales. Key areas include Coffee Shop, Chilled Convenience, Ready to Eat, Hot Food, Produce, Grocery, Fresh Meat, and Till Points, arranged to guide customers through high-demand categories efficiently. By integrating dedicated experience zones with clear sightlines and accessible product placement, the layout enhances convenience, encourages impulse purchase, and reinforces Centra’s brand promise of fresh, on-the-go solutions for modern shoppers.

Centra enhances the on-the-go experience with its dedicated app and online ordering platform, allowing customers to pre-order meals and skip the queue with the “Beat the Queue” service. Selected stores also offer delivery through Uber Eats, Deliveroo, and Just Eat, making fresh salads and ready-to-eat options effortlessly accessible anytime, anywhere.