O’ where, O’ where can I get dinner?

The average food shopper is in discovery mode.  Whatever happened to the brand loyal weekly grocery shopper?  According to Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru™ “they went the way of cooking from scratch.  Once cooking from scratch was family affair, mothers and father’s passing on family recipes to their children and discussing the day’s events over a family dinner.  Today, cooking from scratch is time consuming inconvenience, distracting from family activities and social interaction.”

The proliferation of the availability of fresh prepared Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat food combined the insatiable desire for multi-cultural full flavor food make cooking from scratch at home and satisfying every family member each meal a near impossible feat.

Today, a family meal is according to the Grocerant Guru™ is become an meal assembled from Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared meal components. The components are coming from restaurants, grocery stores, C-store, and chain drug stores more and more to name but a few places.

In fact Susan Viamari, editor, Thought Leadership, at IRI stated “At this point, there are something like 2,500 potential paths to purchase, and any number of steps people can take to research their food purchases,” In an Omni-channel retail world consumers are migrating to new channels, looking for new products.

Viamari continued “In the past year, trip frequency and basket size has been flat to declining at both grocery and drug stores. Trips to dollar stores were also flat, but the average basket size increased 3%. And while trips to club stores fell a bit, spending in that channel also grew slightly. Grocery stores have lost share in core departments, while mass discounters and supercenters have given up ground in home care and general merchandise.”

Food industry trade magazine Marketing Daily” sums it up simply: Shopping preferences are “changing so quickly that [retailers] can’t afford to get caught up in the status quo. Consumers are more open than ever to buying products in unexpected channels.”

So, O’ where, O’ where can you get dinner?  Almost anywhere!  Regular readers of this blog know the Grocerant Niche is booming! Consumers are on the move, looking for mix and match meal components to pick-up and take home to make every meal a ‘happy meal’.

Are you trapped doing what you have always done and doing it the same way?  Interested in learning how Foodservice Solutions 5P’s of Food Marketing can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information