Regular reader
of this blog, ask me all the time, why don’t legacy grocery stores, legacy
chain restaurants embrace the grocerant niche faster? It’s simple they want to be what they were 5,
10, and even 15 years ago. They demand
that the marketing team practice brand protectionism according to Steven Johnson,
Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA
based Foodservice Solutions®.
What
does not change is that college students continue to be the undercurrent of
visual change when to come to food, fresh food and on campus dinning. Once
again, Ohio State dining services is
bringing big changes to campus food and meal plans this fall.
Key
among the changes is Oxley’s-to-go;
which is located next to Oxley’s by the Numbers, Oxley’s-to-go is a new
sandwich concept that includes more locally sourced food and the ability for
students with a Traditions plan to use the to-go option. Thus driving grocerant niche mix & match
meal bundling to a new sector of college students empowering them to eat and
obtain a meal the way they did at home according to Johnson.
Zia
Ahmed, senior director of dining services. “We made some adjustments based on
feedback, but this year we felt like it’s been a couple of years that we
haven’t had a major revamp of the menu. The biggest changes to the menu have
been made to the grab-and-go options available in cafes and market locations
across campus.”
Here
look at some of the mix and match options of the new grab-and-go items
available to students are Japanese-inspired bento boxes, which are
single-portion containers which traditionally hold rice, fish or meat and
cooked vegetables. Also featured is a custard-like Greek yogurt panna cotta and
several new salad options like spicy chicken and cobb.
“Our
entire grab-and-go package we’ve revamped and made it a lot more brighter,
colorful.” Ahmed said. “They were great before but we’ve made it even better by
bringing in more color, more vegetables [and] more fresh items.”
Another
big dining modification applies to the unlimited meal plan. Students with this
plan will now be able to take Traditions meals to-go once per meal time, up to
five times a week.
Ahmed
said the change to the to-go option was based entirely off student feedback. “The
majority of our ideas, if not all of them, come from student feedback,” he
said. “Based on the feedback we received a significant interest from students
who were using unlimited plans to have the to-go option available to them.”
Ahmed
said he worked with Undergraduate Student Government to gauge what changes
students want to bring to dining services. He and USG found that students with
the unlimited plan pushed for the to-go option.
My
friends let’s cut through the crap. College
students get it, why don’t you? If you
are a fresh food retailer today and your floor plan, menu options, food looks
more like yesterday than tomorrow I bet you are capitulating customers? How many restaurant chains look, and feel
more like yesterday? How are industry
customer counts? Maybe, just maybe it’s
time you begin to look a customer ahead.
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, www.Linkedin.com/in/grocerant/
or www.twitter.com/grocerant/
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