Technomic edifies the Grocerant niche success and expansion.



Foodservice Solutions® Steven Johnson identified, quantified and qualified the Grocerant niche. The grocerant niche is the direct result of a confluence of change in consumer food meal consumption habits, food purchasing patterns and family meal preparation evolution.

Recently Technomic concluded a Retailer Meal Solutions Consumer Trend Report. In the press release about the report Technomic stated: “ Consumers taking part in a recent survey conducted by Technomic say they are sourcing prepared meals from a wider range of retail foodservice operations than they were two years ago, many times at the expense of restaurants. Traditional supermarkets, convenience stores and mass merchandisers have been able to grow their share of the food-away-from-home market as they expand their foodservice platforms and build upon consumer desire for convenience, quality and variety of offerings in retail locations.

“Retailers benefit from the fact that consumers are already visiting them for other purchases.” says Darren Tristano, EVP of Technomic. “If retailers can offer a foodservice option that rivals that of restaurants in terms of quality, freshness and variety, they can build on the advantage they inherently enjoy when it comes to convenience.”

Interesting findings include:

• Health is an important factor in the RMS purchasing decision, and seems to be of greater importance for RMS occasions than for restaurant meals. About two in five consumers say that they usually consider nutrition when purchasing prepared foods, compared to only about a quarter who say they consider nutrition when ordering food at restaurants.

• Kid appeal stands out as the primary concept attribute that consumers think RMS programs are lacking. The attribute related to RMS’ appeal to children ranked among the bottom three for each type of retailer as compared to both limited- and full-service restaurants.

• Forty percent of consumers who visit mass merchandisers and convenience stores for RMS purchases, do so at least once a week from those locations.

Foodservice Solutions® has documented THE RISE OF THE GROCERANT. I think that it is a great too have others now documenting the plethora of new points of distribution within the grocerant Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared and prepared food niche. This niche is booming, come on in.

Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. For product or brand positioning assistance contact Steven A. Johnson and Foodservice Solutions® or visit http://www.linkedin.com/in/grocerant or on Facebook at Steven Johnson, GOOGLE: Steven Johnson Grocerants or twitter.com/grocerant