Grocerant Fresh Prepared Food with Portability: Is What’s for Dinner

When asking What’s for dinner there is a very good chance you are looking for fresh prepared multi-flavor, multi-ethnic Grocerant meal components that you can bundle into a customized family meal. Heat-N-Eat and Ready-2--Eat fresh prepared food with portability is driving retail food success in 2018.

Where are you shopping for you food today is not the same place your mother was nor is the meal prepared the same way it was back in the day according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

In the US more and more multi-generational families are gathering for meals together.  Thus the demand for more divergent flavors continues to permeate the dinner table. Grocerant mix and match bundled meal component offerings allow for increased family integration, understanding and acceptance in less time without a required cook from scratch skill set according to Johnson.

Back in the 1940's cooking from scratch was the normal. The average home cooked meal took 150 minutes to prepare. Everyone sat down at the table and enjoyed it or not but they all ate the same thing. Today's "home cooked meal" takes on average less than 30 minutes to prepared. In most cases at least two different entrées are served.

The average time spent inside a McDonalds in the 2,000 was 11 minutes. Today 65+ percent of all McDonald's food is sold via the drive-thru. U.S. fast-food chains are increasingly remodeling restaurants in an effort to garner additional drive-thru customers inside and increase sales, simple because the drive-thru can't hold all the cars.

Consumers Want Easy to Prepare Meals

The grocerant niche continues to grow with companies like Central Market, Whole Foods, Wegmans and 7-Eleven entering the fresh prepared better for you space. Meal time is now becoming a time of convenient meal participation, with differentiation and individualization for the entire family. Safeway with its lifestyle stores are heading in the right direction however the stores are so large consumers are forced to spend more time in them than they want.

More often than not the multi-generational family today is multi-ethnic as well. Creating a demand for more varied flavors and additional cooking skill set that is simply not there. Grocery stores, Convenience Stores, Restaurants and Chain Drug Stores are all selling Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food. Is your focus family dinning? Are you selling meals or meal components for Take-Out, delivery or Take-Away?

Lacking the skill set to prepared fresh prepared multi-ethnic meal components at home coupled with the time it takes to prepared a home cooked meal it is clear the buying habits of consumers will continue to evolve. Bundling mix and match meal components into a meal is one key driver within the grocerant niche according to Johnson.

Given that most American family are comprised of multi-cultural background. The fight for share of stomach will only intensify. How is you’re r brand prepared sell fresh prepared food to this new set of consumers in search of full flavored meal-components?

Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions® a Tacoma, WA based retail foodservice consultancy has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. 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.  Visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant/ or twitter.com/grocerant for more.