Fresh prepared ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat food continues to drive success.

Alice May Brock said: “Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian, wine and tarragon make it French, sour cream makes it Russian, lemon and cinnamon make it Greek, soy sauce makes it Chinese, garlic makes it good.” I say: grocerant meal components bundled and portable make a family meal, a happy meal!

Regional retailers can build differentiation via quality fresh prepared ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat food leveraging regional flavor profiles, local ingredients, allowing for meal component bundling which in turn creates family individualization and personalization.

Enabling customers to select from Italian,” American”, French, Spanish or Greek meal component, then utilize the components at home any way they like is a success step for a profitable grocerant.  The new American meal can be a composite of any prepared food components that the individual may want and they can mix and pair them any way as well.  Our society is a composed for people from all over the world, with different cultures, traditions and flavor preferences.  The new American meal is a melting pot of flavor and choice.

Consumers have been exposed to a plethora of flavors and have not the time to master the skill of cooking each.  This growing trend is empowering the consumer to establish new customs and traditions in eating better, more flavorful food.  The Grocerant niche is about convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization.

Steven A. Johnson is Grocerant Guru at Tacoma, WA based foodservice consultancy Foodservice Solutions® and writes a blog at: http://www.grocerants.blogspot.com. He can be found on LinkedIn at: linkedin.com/grocerant, facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Twitter.com/grocerant