What Happened to Foodservice ‘Braggability’?

Chain restaurant year over year sales and customer count growth has been difficult for chain restaurants lacking differentiation in product or messaging.  While Millennials are seeking food discovery, others are simply tired of the same old same old.  Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® Steven Johnson says “Differentiation does not mean different rather it means familiar with a twist and today that twist must be clearly defined and noticeable.” I ask do you have “Braggability’?

Henry Ford in his 1922 autobiography “My Life and Work” he famously remarked, “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” In this statement, Ford the pioneer of the assembly line was stating that mass producing the same product in large numbers was the secret to keeping prices low.

There is one problem all things being equal, people like to have things that are made just for them. Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® continually reminds us that the consumer is dynamic not static. That helps explain the evolving retail demand for a food platform that includes convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization.

Eating-Out while Eating-In (at-home) is the foodservice undercurrent driving change within the industry. Take-out food, and meal component bundling are leading ways in which people are looking to differentiate themselves simplify their lives, and save time.

Prior to 2005 no one would have thought that the future of food was not a chain restaurant.  Streets were lined with Look-A-Like, Menu-A-Like Steakhouses, Fern Bars and grills, Quick Service Restaurants and food courts in every mall and city in the United States.

The grocerant niche is filled with fresh prepared food that has caught on fire. Once considered uniquely American the grocerant niche is booming in Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa of late.  Universal commonalities of time saving, lack of cooking skill-set, meal component bundling have firmly taken root according to Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru®.  

The grocerant niche has become about discovery, simplicity, and transparency fresh food fast without the labels of ingredients that no one wants to pronounce let alone understand. New unique venues and menus are two of the  drivers for companies the ilk of Pinkies Liquor stores, Wawa, Sheetz, and HelloFresh  a global Meal Kit success story driving new trends. Each has ‘braggability, they are different, notable driving non-traditional meals sales and delivering new meal occasion points of fresh food distribution.

Is your restaurant experiencing positive customer counts?  Are you catering to diners who are looking for differentiation? Do you have a look alike / copycat menu?  What are your points of ‘braggability’?

Non-traditional food retailers that serve great food in unusual surroundings offering a side of ‘braggability’ while creating a social buzz are becoming a roar that includes companies Ikea.  More and more baggability’ is in the form of Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food. The restaurant business is famously filled with Look-A-Like, Menu-A-Like outlets.  What do you give your customers to talk about? Boast about?

We ask does your restaurant have ‘braggability’? How do you package your food? How do you package a meal?  Is the meal you offer today the same as it was ten years ago? If so them maybe your restaurant is running more like yesterday that today.  Create ‘braggability’ it’s simple it will make you noticed by new customers and notable to your current customers.

Are you trapped doing what you have always done and doing the same way.  Interested in learning how Foodservice Solutions FIVE P’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.