What Ever Happened to Dinner Time?

When Harris Interactive lasted polled consumers they found that “only 26 percent of U.S. households with children sit down to a family dinner every night.  Talk about Soccer Moms and Dads with hectic schedules, balancing family and work with demands of time, but no family dinner for 74%.

Time starved parents are finding new ways to feed the family, fill the dinner gap.  They are turning to Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared grocerant niche meals.  The food retail landscape is evolving and all retailers must adjust or risk losing market share. 

Is lunch time at risk as well? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, American adults between the ages of 25 and 54 spent about 8.7 hours of the average workday.  With so many of office workers no longer taking the traditional one-hour lunch is it any wonder snacking has grown? 

In a survey by the ManpowerGroup found that a third of U.S. employees take no lunch break at all, and another third eat at their desks each day.  Is it any wonder that fresh fast food delivery is growing in popularity? 

It’s no wonder that Millennials  who have been exposed to expanding  favors, varied tastes and textures of food, and who know their way around the global menuboard while in-line or on-line are helping to drive the success of new avenues of fresh food distribution adoption. 

Many legacy food companies have been surprisingly slow to embrace or innovate around grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food offerings creating an opportunity for new non-traditional lunch and dinner retailers to emerge. 

Dinner is not dead, but if you operate a restaurant don’t be standing at the front door waiting for a dinner crowd any time soon to fill the seats.  The ability of consumers to order food online with a smartphone, a app, or point and click on-line and have dinner it delivered to your door is fast becoming one of the defining cultural experiences of our age. 

The question is, are you integrating Mix and Match menu offerings with a family time focus? Are you integrating day-part participation with a branded invitation? Is your branded solution limited within your four walls?  What new points of non-traditional distribution has your team explored? Dinner time can still be your brands time. 

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.