Global Food Trends Catch -up with Tesco

Back in the day Tesco was the global grocerant niche leader, food industry icon and pace-setter of grocery trends and then the past began to creep in as industry food industry veterans replaced innovators according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

During the 1990’s Tesco was the innovator driving industry excitement, customer relevance, top line growth and bottom-line profits and the world watched, copied, and followed their lead.  However, over time innovative leaderships was replaced and legacy category managers were sent into eke out profits, as an unintended consequence they drove out innovation opening the door for all sorts of retail competition.

Twenty-five years later Tesco is rebooting, rereading the grocerant playbook and stepping-up to stand out as a legacy grocery store search for customer relevance according to Johnson.  With a focus on Robot-driven supermarkets, upmarket convenience stores and a tenfold increase in plant-based ready meals it appears that the ‘halo’ of better-for-you food positioning Johnson was encouraging Tesco to follow back in the day is about to take hold.

The UK’s biggest supermarket chain, which accounts for nearly a third of all groceries sold in the UK, told investors and City analysts at a presentation on Tuesday there was still room for it to open additional small stores in Britain including more than 100 One Stop outlets.

The company has 169 One Stop franchises, in addition to 776 fully owned Tesco outlets and more than 1,000 Tesco Express stores.  Today small stores are also a key part of future growth overseas, including 750 new outlets in Thailand. While the future for Tesco just might be robot technology within its distribution centers.  It is also adding self-scanning handsets and mobile apps, which enable shoppers to pay without using a till, are also expected to help Tesco save £68m in costs as it aims for all self-scan transactions to be cashless in two years and all self-service checkout payments to be cashless within five years.

It is our hope Tesco will continue to drive growth via innovation in customer touchpoints rather than regressive category tactics of yesterday.   Have your sales and profits been stifled using legacy tactics of the 1990’s.  Do your stores look more like yesterday than tomorrow?

Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing tactics look more like yesterday that tomorrow?  Visit www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information or contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us Remember success does leave clues and we just may have the clue you need to propel your continued success.