Foodservice Sales a Battle for Share-of-Stomach

Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® Steven Johnson coined the term Grocerant after his first visit to Eatzi’s back in 1996.  Johnson and was published in both FoodService Director and Nation’s Restaurant News in August  the same year in an opinion article called, Call Them Grocerants.

Since 1996 Foodservice Solutions® primary focus has been assisting others drive top line sales and bottom line profits with the Grocerant Niche filled Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food and what a journey it has been. 

The Grocerant Niche is all about Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food that is deemed ‘better-for-you’ by consumers.  It’s about the consumer migration away from traditional restaurant meals eaten out, away from CPG pantry stocking from legacy grocery stores, and away from high priced milk and bread from convenience stores too fresh food fast for takeout, takeaway, to-go, and drive-thru’s meals to go or delivered or in many cases today a simple meal kit. 

Foodservice retail today is about Share of Stomach.  The question becomes who is winning the battle of What’s for Dinner?  While foodservice trade media, the ilk of Progressive Grocer, Supermarket News, Nation’s Restaurant News, Convenience Store News and the National Restaurant Association all stepped up their focus on the grocerant niche each tries to define it as their own.  They are all wrong the grocerant niche is customer-centric. 

It’s the about the consumer and foodservice retailers battle for share of stomach. Defining it for your category only limits your ability to understand the customer, meal periods, the ‘new meal’, and accept that there are new avenues of fresh food distribution.

The team at suspects that all of the attention, accolade, and success that our own Grocerant Guru® has had helping industry titans and start-ups find success with in the grocerant niche has caused quite a stir. In fact daily readership of our blogs posted to our social media accounts has hit a new record of 26,250 views per day,   thank you.  

The team at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® thanks all of you for assisting us become the global leader in the grocerant niche and maintain that leadership.  Why, all of the attention now? Increased customer migration, evolving consumer consumption patterns, and increased access to Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food. 

Evolving meal occasions day-parts, channels, and snacking have help evolve the battle for Share of Stomach. The Grocerant niche is here to stay. Consumer migration from legacy points of fresh food distribution too new points of fresh food distribution that highlight take-out, take-away, and on-the-go consumption will continue to drive change in the retail foodservice landscape. 

Today the grocerant niche is fast becoming a disruptive force driven by ongoing customer migration according to our Grocerant Guru®. It’s was 2015 that we saw Americans spending more eating out than on groceries for the very first time.  That reallocation of spending has created by what Foodservice Solutions® team has coined Eating-Out while Eating-In.

Success does leave clues and since 1991 www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  has picked up important customer relevant clues and exceled helping others drive top line sales and bottom line profits leveraging insights from those clues. You too can drive incremental top line sale and bottom line profits.  Visit: www.GrocerantGuru.com or Email: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us for information on how you can edify sales at your operation.