Restaurants are Slow to Learn and Evolve with Grocerant niche Fresh Foods

Chain restaurants have not paid enough attention to the growing list of non-traditional competitors eager to garner their customers according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  This week’s IDDBA show in Orlando, Fl was filled meals and meal component options for non-traditional retailers to use to help garner customers.

Consider this U.S. convenience stores experienced the 16th straight year of record in-store sales in 2018, according to newly released National Association of Convenience Stores State of the Industry data. Grocery stores have figured out that is they want to garner more customers they need to get them most of them anyway from the restaurant sector.

I guess success does leave clues as grocery sector “refrigerated meals outpaced the deli prepared foods department, with 8.3% sales growth compared to a year ago. This trend is noticeably clear when comparing the entrees and salad categories. Refrigerated entrees grew at 14.9% compared to a year ago, outperforming the 3.4% growth of deli prepared entrees.

While Deli prepared sales declined by 2.4%, while the refrigerated prepared salad/fruit/coleslaw category grew 6.2%. Deli prepared foods, however, remain an important aspect of a retail store offering (accounting for 15% of all perimeter sales) and a trip driver (12 purchase occasions for the average shopper per year). 

The restaurant sector will continue to capitulate year over year customer count the better convenience stores and grocery stores do introducing grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food according to Johnson.

Looking for success clues of your own? Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced food marketing and business development ideations. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities, technology, or a new menu product segment.  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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