At the Intersection of Fresh Prepared Food and Baby Boomers is Success.

When food retailers are looking for avenues of opportunity to grow sales they can leverage ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat fresh prepared grocerant niche options to find success.  Jim Hertal, managing partner with Willard Bishop said “there is much turmoil caused by consumer shifts. Baby boomers, with incomes falling, are fading in importance and convenience-oriented millennial consumers are on the rise,…. “fresh” format sales increases significantly led all formats. (numbers below)

“The optimistic note for today is that real growth and not just inflation is available today for food retailers and manufacturers who know that to look for and embrace the future,” he said. “Amazon is not the only e-commerce format that is likely to succeed going forward,” he said. E-commerce food sales are expected to grow `12.1% yearly.”  Which are nice numbers albeit from a very low base.

On the other hand take a look at the numbers provided by Willard Bishop.  They found that “Traditional supermarket dollars increased 3.4% in 2012, but the market share of those stores remained steady at 46.5%. Hertel said “fresh” format sales increases significantly led all formats, he said. Fresh format sales rose 22.5% to $12.7 billion in 2012. Whole Foods enjoyed a same-store sales increase of 8.7%, followed by The Fresh Market with a 5.7% gain in 2012.

$12.7 billion is a very good base to build from.  While many grocery stores and restaurants continue to scoff at ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat fresh prepared food niche that $12.7 billion is in grocery alone not that within restaurants, drug stores, dollar stores etc.  Growing at 22.5% a year in grocery is a very good number. If  success does leave clues a high growth rate is one of them.

Outside eyes can deliver top line sales and bottom line profits.  Invite Foodservice Solutions® to provide brand and product positioning assistance or a grocerant program assessment. Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche for more on Steven Johnson and Foodservice Solutions® visit http://www.linkedin.com/in/grocerant or twitter.com/grocerant