Updated 10/22/2015
During the mid-1980’s Home Meal
Replacement was the talk of the retail food industry. What many legacy
grocers failed to understand was the opportunity for fresh prepared food as a
day-part meal opportunity / solutions because they were not really in the meals
business. More important they didn’t want to be in the fresh prepared meal
business. Much like today most legacy grocery retailers are in the pantry
business and do not want to be in the fresh prepared meal business. There
is but one problem with that, the customer has moved from filling the pantry to
What’s for Dinner? They want fresh
prepared meals.
Grocery retailers back in the
day (1980’s) thought that Home Meal Replacement (HMR) specifically in store
fresh prepared food cost too much to work. They complained that their
labor went out of line when trying HMR, that it created scheduling problems,
and had too much waste. The same holds true today. Most grocery
stores today continue to treat the Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat
fresh prepared food as a 1980’s HMR program and an CPG product.
In fact Progressive Grocer
Magazine’s just completed Grocerant Summit that became a platform
advocating more of the same, that is to say it looked and sounded more like
yesterday (10 years ago) than today, more importantly it sounded nothing like
tomorrow’s retail food world.
In fact there were purveyors, Grocerant Summit
sponsors, and speakers touting “fresh” products with a shelf life of 14 to 23
days! That is simply ridiculous, disingenuous, and disrespectful of the
industry and the consumer today.
The lack of focus on fresh
prepared food with a consumer interactive and participatory design during the Grocerant
Summit is an indication that the legacy grocery store sector
will continue to see customer erosion and market share capitulation.
During the mid-1980’s grocery
stores simply did not want to deal with fresh prepared food. So they cut
corners, mass produced product what they
called fresh, packaged it like it was a CPG brand, and let it sit on display or
under heat lamps way to long.
In short they blew it, and many
still are doing it wrong. Then they went back doing what they always did,
and doing it the same way. One problem consumers are dynamic not static,
the Grocerant niche continued to grow around the world and our Grocerant Guru™ was
there.
It used to be restaurant chefs
were the industry tastemakers and retail eventually playing copy-cat caught up
with the trends. Today many tastemakers come from Grocerant niche retailers.
Driven by increased demand and customer migration from cook from scratch to
Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food everyone from Soccer Mom’s
to Senior Citizens are putting pressure on retailers for fresh prepared food.
If grocery stores want to
become valued retailers within the food space they need to begin
focusing on Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food with seriousness not
lip service.
All retailers are in a fierce
battle to garner a larger share of stomach and the battle ground for customers
is taking place in the grocerant Ready-2-Eat fresh prepared food space. Are
Grocery stores prepared to garner customers or will they continue to capitulate
them?
Grocery stores are now playing
catch-up with the fast expanding Convenience store sector focusing on Grocerant
niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food companies the ilk of Wawa, Sheetz, and Rutter’s Farm
Stores. Grocery stores over the past decade have lost out too full
service and fast casual restaurants that have driven Take-Away, Take-Out
Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food from 5% to near
15% of sales today.
Trapped in footprint malaise
traditional grocery stores are closing stores, capitulating business and it’s
time for a new view, and new business model, the Grocerant model. Visit: www.FoodserviceSolutions.us or call: 253-759-7869 Email: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us
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