Food Consumers Discontent Favors Dollar Stores

 

Was your restaurant closed one day this week or last week because you could not find enough employees? Have you been raising prices, month after month to replace diminishing year over year customer counts like grocery stores? How is that working for you?  Are you employees tired, is your rent going down? 

Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® stated, “there is a growing discontent among grocery store customers and restaurant customers over reduced hours, reduced menu choice, raising prices and out of stock items elevating customer migration from both grocery stores and restaurants too the Dollar store sector.

While the restaurant sector will lose/close between 20,000 and 35,000 more units this year than they open.  Grocery stores helped by the pandemic and an increase in SNAP $ they will stay mostly steady, all the while the dollar store chains are leading the U.S. retail industry in terms of new store openings in 2021 by a large margin.

So, get this, in a new report from Coresight Research found that chains such as Dollar Tree and Dollar General will open a collective 1,626 new locations out of a total of 4,799 announced store openings in 2021 to date. Now let me say this, closing your business one day a week to give employees a day off is not a strategy.  It’s more like putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg.

Food consumers are migrating foodservice channels that are not edifying consumer relevance. Non-consumer facing ‘Band-Aids’ will not help you garner new consumers nor will it edify you with your current base of consumers.

That’s right, Dollar Tree plans to open 393 Dollar Tree stores and 198 locations under the Family Dollar brand this year, while Dollar General stated it plans to add 1,035 locations. Some of Dollar General's new stores will open under its Popshelf banner, a retail concept that features on-trend seasonal and home décor, health and beauty must-haves, home cleaning supplies, party goods, entertaining needs and more.

What are you doing for your customers today?  Invite Foodservice Solutions® to complete a 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