Restaurant Sector More of the Same is Not Working

Regular readers of this blog know Foodservice Solutions® Five P’s of Food Marketing. Regular readers understand that integrating the Five P’s into your brand promise edifies your brand with consumers hand held marketing devise the cell phone and that is a basic requirement today. The Five P’s are Product. Portability, Price, Packaging, and Placement.

Companies that are reporting higher sales and profits are reporting positive year or over year same store sales while others are lag the industry.  Nation’s Restaurant News recently stated in an article that “Off-premise business is distancing many of the restaurant industry’s standout performers from the pack of places struggling to maintain sales—even as some high flyers question if delivery or takeout is a smart way to go.”  Welcome to the Grocerant niche where Foodservice Solutions® team leads the way.

Some of the growth standouts are Wingstop, a chain that generates 75% of its sales through takeout, posted a same-store sales gain of 4.1%, Papa John’s 5.5%, Domino’s 13%, and KFC 6%.  I know they are all considered Fast Food outlets.  However remember that NPD reports that 79% of all restaurant industry sector transactions occur at fast food outlets.  America loves fresh food fast with portability.

Regular readers of this blog know how well fresh prepared Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat with portability is selling at both C-stores and grocery stores while garnering frequent customers from the restaurant sector.  Well now that Buffalo Wild Wings, which saw third-quarter comps slide by 1.6% at company-run restaurants and 1.8% at franchises, they have started testing delivery service at 90 restaurants three weeks ago.

The Cheesecake Factory, whose comps rose 1.7% even began offering delivery at seventy-eight units. We now hear that Applebee’s with same-store sales falling 5.2%  will start testing delivery in collaboration with three franchisees revitalizing Carside to Go, the chain’s takeout program.

Catering and deliver are playing a larger role at Panera Bread Company  as well.  Panera has about 250 units that are currently offering delivery, and they intend to roll out the service to at least 35% of the system by the end of next year. Our Grocerant Guru® wonders if any of the above understands the relationship that food with portability has today’s consumers and why?

Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced business development. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities or a new menu product segment and brand and menu integration strategy.  Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant or twitter.com/grocerant