PepsiCo Grocerant Niche Mix and Match Help Drive Sales, Profits, Success

Regular readers of this blog know that PepPlace, was a one-month popup, launched in partnership with Famous Dave’s, had a beverage-first menu, with a mix and match food beverage customer first focus targeting insights from one of the hallmarks of the grocerant niche mix & match meal component bunding according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Now PepsiCo is sharing the insights it garnered for free on the off-premise business, drawing on lessons learned from its own delivery-only concept, Pep’s Place with any food retailer that want’s to drive top line sales and bottom-line profits.

Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food has been driving top-line sales in every sector of retail foodservice for over 14 years according to the team at Foodservice Solutions®.  Now industry giants the ilk of PepsiCo are embracing not only the grocerant platform but assisting all food retailers with first hand insights.

The new insights are part of a new service within PepsiCo’s Foodservice Digital Lab, a consultancy created in 2019 to assist restaurants on all things digital as that side of the business became more prominent. 

Success does leave clues and now they are expanding their Digital Lab to include help with delivery-only formats like ghost kitchens and virtual brands.

André Moraes, senior director of marketing at PepsiCo Foodservice, stated, “Demand for those options continues to grow among restaurants, though they don’t always know the best place to start….“We’ve absolutely been hearing about ghost kitchens and virtual brands from many customers,” he said. “There’s demand for how to execute these properly.”

Now, PepsiCo can advise restaurants on things like starting their own virtual brand, bringing an outside brand into their kitchen or outsourcing their concept to other restaurants, Moraes said.

It will lend its considerable marketing expertise to the effort as well as guidance on technology and menu. It can also draw from its first-hand experience with Pep’s Place.

Moraes continued, “the project underscored the importance of discoverability and order flow for an online-only brand…“Understanding how guests will find you and how to make your brand and concept approachable to them is very important.”

This is important, PepsiCo will help restaurants with all of this, free of charge. Moraes went on to say, “What’s really important to us is that we’re being more than a beverage, snacks and food partner but being a go-to partner when it comes to opportunity like this.”  

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