Centra Convenience Supermarkets, Store Design & Branding

CampbellRigg partnered with Centra, a leading convenience store retailer in Ireland, to reimagine the retail environment across urban city outlets. Our strategic approach combined store layout design, sub-brand identity development, and shopper experience optimization to create a cohesive and commercially effective retail destination.

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.

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. 

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.

Client Challenge - Redefining the Convenience Experience.
Centra sought to refresh its store formats to:
1. Improve visual clarity and customer flow
2. Enhance the in-store experience for everyday shoppers
3. Strengthen brand presence across diverse outlet types
4. Support franchise scalability with efficient design systems
The key driver was to adapt convenience retailing to evolving shopper expectations, making every visit easier, faster, and more engaging.

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 a purpose-built mobile bakery display stand to present fresh bread and pastries in retail environments. This freestanding floor unit incorporates multi-level, angled shelving to maximise product visibility while ensuring easy customer access.

Crafted from materials such as timber shelves, wire basket inserts and a branded header panel, the stand delivers a practical yet visually compelling merchandising solution that enhances both presentation and sales performance.

Execution & Rollout:
The new design system was created for fast, scalable rollout across Centra’s network.
Clear visual hierarchies and efficient material choices ensured consistency while allowing flexibility for different store sizes and locations.

“The Fresh Market" initiative - Freshly baked today concept: 
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.

Results & Business Impact. As a result of the redesign and branding strategy:
1. Centra achieved a unified and modern retail identity
2. Store navigation became intuitive and shopper flow improved
3. Merchandising across categories was clearer and more impactful
4. A consistent rollout strengthened brand visibility and operational efficiency

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.

Our Proven Process:
1. Consultation - Free strategic call to assess goals
2. Bespoke Briefing - Co-create a tailored plan
3. Fast Execution - Deliver creative work efficiently
4. Commercial Growth - See uplift in sales, loyalty, and brand performance

Partner with CampbellRigg to Transform Your Store.

Book a complimentary consultation with CampbellRigg’s retail branding and design specialists and unlock more value from every square metre.

Smart Value, Outstanding Quality:
Our fees are structured to be competitive while delivering exceptional impact, creativity and design excellence.

Fast, Focused Delivery:
From strategy through rollout, our agile team works efficiently to deliver high-quality outcomes on schedule.

Cross-Disciplinary Expertise:
Brand strategists, architects, interior designers and graphic designers collaborate seamlessly to shape cohesive, end-to-end retail brand environments.

International Perspective, Local Relevance:
We combine global project experience across Europe, the Middle East and Asia with deep sensitivity to local market dynamics.

Flexible, Scalable Implementation:
From flagship urban supermarkets and convenience formats, we deliver projects of every scale with precision and efficiency.

Results That Speak:
We transform store networks from transactional spaces into engaging brand destinations that strengthen relationships, enrich experiences and drive measurable commercial growth.

Integrated Creative Partnership:
From brand repositioning and campaigns to spatial design and rollout, we offer a fully integrated service aligned to your commercial ambitions.