Aldi Pop-Up Restaurant Threatens Incremental US Disruption

When IKEA announced that they were going to open restaurants to drive incremental growth retailers from around the world took notice.  IKEA now has Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food sales exceeding $ 2 Billion US annually. 

Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru®, Steven Johnson quite frankly wonders “how did so many of these legacy retailers not notice IKEA’s success with Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food?  Just what were they paying attention to yesterday’s business model?”

Recently Aldi Süd announced the opening of its first pop-up, Aldi Bistro, at the Mediapark, in Cologne, Germany. The opening ceremony will took place on 26 April, 2017.  Entering the grocerant niche with a pop-up restaurant will extend Aldi’s US success as many legacy grocery retailers miss understand the niche.  In fact many legacy US grocers insist on treating fresh food as a CPG product according to Johnson.

The Aldi pop-up bistro's premises were co-designed by marketing agencies Ogilvy & Mather and Pop- Up My Brand. Eight shipping containers were 'upcycled' to create a 90-square-metre venue, with seating for around 50 people.  Aldi is leveraging some of the best marketing and foodservice minds to elevate and retain grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat knowledge.

To garner the success clues Aldi’s pop-up restaurant is to operate for three months, serving food, wine and coffee from the Aldi product range just like Ikea does. It will offer daily menus created by TV and street-food chef Robert Marx, consisting of a starter, a main course and a dessert, although each course can also be ordered on its own.

The Aldi bistro venture was developed as part of the retailer's Einfach ist Mehr ('Simple is More') marketing campaign, launched in September 2016. Sandra Sibylle Schoofs, director of marketing at Aldi Süd stated "The bistro is intended to strengthen brand loyalty among Aldi customers. We have chosen a central location in a large city because we wanted to create a meeting place for young and old,"

Success does leave clues and Aldi is the fastest growing US grocer today and continues to garner top line sales and bottom line profits simultaneously garnering a larger share of US grocery Dollars, and larger share of stomach.  This fresh food move will only expand that success.

Invite Foodservice Solutions® to complete a Grocerant Program Assessment, Grocerant ScoreCard, or for product positioning or placement assistance, or call our Grocerant Guru®.  Since 1991 www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. Contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or 253-759-7869