Olive Garden Draws on the Grocerant Niche for Customers.

When the customer moves, retailers must move with them.  Darden’s Olive Garden sales have been down or trending down for several years. Full service / sit down restaurants demand so much time that time starved consumers have simply found other options.

The option most common according to Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru™ is “restaurant quality Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food”. Most important non-traditional fresh food retailers are offering meal component options that can be bundled into Mix and Match customized personal or family meals.  Those non-traditional retailers are doing or less than restaurants can or do.

Jonathan Maze of the Restaurant Finance Monitor recently pointed out that “Over the last year, the number of full-service restaurants has declined by a full 1 percent, or 2,156 locations, to 297,827 units. By contrast, the number of quick-service restaurants, including fast-casual concepts, grew by 2 percent to 337,667 establishments. Overall, 53 percent of restaurants now don't employ wait staff.”

Olive Garden’s Buy One, Take One promotion directly centered in the middle of the grocerant niche works this way.  Olive Garden’s customers buy an entree at the restaurant and get a second entree to enjoy at home.  This time Olive Garden ratcheted up the promotion by adding a Redbox movie rental with the Buy One, Take One.

Clearly Olive Garden has been paying attention to Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru’s theory The 65 Inch HDTV Syndrome.   At the conclusion of proprietary research Foodservice Solution’s found consumer love their new 65 inch HDTV’s and want to watch sports, movies, the evening news, and eat in front of them as well.

Jay Spenchian, Olive Garden's executive vice president of marketing said “Olive Garden’s One, Take One promotion is “all about creating special moments for our guests, and this 'Dinner and a Movie' offer gives our guests the opportunity to enjoy a second Olive Garden experience together -- at home with a Redbox movie."

This promotion adds valuable consumer relevance edifying the Olive Garden brand and Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru believes will help Olive Garden slow, stop or mitigate customer migration.

Visit: www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  if you are interested in learning how the 5P’s of Food Marketing can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization contact us via Email: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us  or call: 1-253-759-7869