Back in the day, say during the
mid-1980’s Home Meal Replacement was the talk of the retail food industry. What many legacy grocers failed to understand
was the opportunity for fresh prepared food as a daypart meal opportunity. They could not understand it because they
were not really in the meals business. Even more important they didn’t want to
be in the fresh prepared meal business according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant
Guru® with Tacoma, WA based Foodservice
Solutions®.
Grocery retailers back in the day thought
that Home Meal Replacement specifically in store fresh prepared food cost too
much to produce. They believed that it threw their labor out of line, created
scheduling problems, and had too much waste. Many still believe that
today. I guess that’s why most grocery
stores have failed meet the needs of today’s consumers.
They simply did not want to deal with
fresh prepared food. So, they cut corners,
mass produced product that they called fresh, packaged it like it was a CPG
brand, and let it sit on display or under heat lamps way too long. In short, they blew it, and many still are
doing it wrong. So, let's look at five facts that today are turning consumers in grocerant niche consumers. Here they are:
1.
11% of consumers say convenience is most important in products they eat, up from just 7% in 2013, according to The NPD Group.
2.
53% of all eating occasions include a desire to avoid spending the time and energy it takes to cook, according to The Hartman Group.
3.
80% of meals eaten at home are sourced from the pantry or the freezer, according to The NPD Group.
4.
44% of consumers say they are deliberately trying to avoid artificial color/dyes in their daily diet, according to The Hartman Group
5.
91% of U.S. consumers believe food and beverage options with recognizable ingredients are healthier, according to Innova.
Then they went back doing what they
always did, and doing it the same way.
One problem consumer’s are dynamic not static. The grocerant niche
continued to grow around the world and our Grocerant Guru® was there helping clients in the U.S., Asia, and
Europe are drive top line sales and bottom-line profits with incremental
customer adoption.
Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® has repeatedly stated that “consumers never take step back
in food quality or freshness”. The food retail industry today is no longer at
a crossroad. The consumer has moved. It’s simply a question for legacy grocery
retailers if they want to move forward with consumer or not.
It used to be restaurant chefs were the
industry tastemakers and retail eventually playing copy-cat caught up with the
trends. Today, many tastemakers come from Grocerant niche retailers. Driven by increased demand and customer migration from
cook from scratch to Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food.
Everyone from
Soccer Mom’s to Senior Citizens are putting pressure on retailers for fresh
prepared food. All retailers are in a
fierce battle to garner a larger share of stomach and the battle ground for
customers is taking place in the grocerant Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh
prepared food space.
Grocery stores continue
to play catch-up resting with the rise in food sales due to the pandemic. However we all know that will not last
forever, The convenience store sector focusing on Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat
and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food companies the ilk of Wawa, Sheetz, and Rutter’s Farm Stores are all garnering new customers from
other legacy channels of fresh food distribution including grocery store and chain
restaurants.
Grocery stores
over the past decade have lost sales and customers fast food restaurants,
C-stores, and dollar stores that have driven Take-Away, Take-Out Grocerant
niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food from 5% back in the day to
near 35% of sales today.
Trapped in footprint malaise traditional grocery
stores are in a time-warp and quagmire of their own creating, capitulating
business and it’s time for a new view, and new business model, the grocerant
model where mix & match meal component bundling has become a science.
Invite Foodservice
Solutions® to complete a Grocerant Program Assessment, Grocerant ScoreCard, or
for product positioning or placement assistance, or call our Grocerant
Guru®. Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche.
Contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or 253-759-7869
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