7-Eleven New Coffee Campaign Helps Selling Even More Coffee

 

Most regular readers of this blog know that Customers come to 7-Eleven for their caffeine fix, guzzling more than 1.1 million cups of coffee per day in the U.S., they sell another 80 million cups of coffee a year in Australia.  There is no doubt that the world loves 7-Eleven coffee according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

I am sure you were not surprised when you saw that 7‑Eleven Inc. debuted new advertising spots celebrating its customers' love of coffee and the lengths they'll go to obtain a fresh cup. 

The new ads are intended to demonstrate that nothing can keep 7‑Eleven fans away from their brew — whether that means arriving late to a meeting with a cup of to-go coffee or sipping on an iced latte in the middle of a blizzard.

The commercials will have three areas of focus:

·         Mighty Mite, which features 7‑Eleven fans who take pride in the quality of their cars, their look and their coffee, especially when it makes them stand out.

·         Commute, which features the 3,000 ways to customize a cup of joe, allowing customers to be their own barista. 

·         Storm, which will drop April 12 and focuses on Gen Z, who own their obsession with iced coffee.

"Grounded in the 'Take it to Eleven' spirit of being our customer's ingenious accomplice, our new coffee campaign highlights the robust variety, excellent quality and great value our coffee delivers," said Marissa Jarratt, executive vice president and chief marketing office at 7‑Eleven. "These spots were also built off real cultural insights and are intended to reflect our diverse customer base. We were intentional to ensure that our casting authentically included members of these cultures — real fans, real car enthusiasts, real coffee lovers."

Directed by award-winning filmmaker Christine Yuan of Object and Animal, the ads take inspiration from Japanese-model car culture.

Coinciding with the ad launch, 7-Eleven will also be running a limited-time promotion via its 7Rewards loyalty program through the end of the year. Rewards members who purchase six cups of coffee, Big Gulp or Slurpee drinks will receive their seventh cup for free at participating stores.

In case you forgot, 7-Eleven operates, franchises and/or licenses more than 77,000 stores in 15 countries and regions with the 7-Eleven trademark represented on more than 83,000 stores. The brand will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2027 and reminding customers that they like your coffee will drive incremental sales.

For international corporate presentations, regional chain presentations, educational forums, or keynotes contact: Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions.  His extensive experience as a multi-unit restaurant operator, consultant, brand / product positioning expert, and public speaking will leave success clues for all. For more information visit GrocerantGuru.com, FoodserviceSolutions.US or call 1-253-759-7869

Legacy Grocery Stores Battle: Slotting Fees for Customers

 

Has begging for more and more money in the way of slotting fees become just a way of life.  What is on your shelf does matter.  Are, your customer focused of slotting fees or meals?  

With SNAP participation continuing to grow are legacy grocery stores becoming even more dependent on slotting fees?  Restaurants and new non-traditional fresh food retailers are driving top line growth with customer relevance while legacy grocery retailers focus on SNAP and Slotting fees. 

The relevant question for the consumers is What’s for Dinner.  According to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® slotting fees are distraction and in conflict with keeping focused on the consumers wants and needs.

Consumers do not want to cook from scratch day after day.  The do not have the skill-set to duplicate the international meals and meal components that have become accustom to enjoying.

So, how do Americans decide what to have for dinner when they want to go out to eat? The most common ways that people find somewhere to eat are on Google (76%), through word-of-mouth recommendations (64%), on Yelp (39%), and on social media (30%).

When asked where Americans get dinner, most (77%) commonly eat at home or cook for themselves. 50% say they regularly get takeout or pick up, 31% say they go to restaurants, and 3% say they use a meal subscription box.

No. 1 factor that consumers say would prompt them to purchase from retail foodservice is that the food looks good, and 27% of consumers say that fresher grab-and-go options would encourage them to make repeat purchases from a store’s prepared foods section.

No. 1 breakfast item is a breakfast sandwich/wrap, with 42% of consumers saying they’d purchase if

Consumer Trend Report, 92% of consumers said they expected to maintain or increase their purchases of grab-and-go items in the near future.

So, lets get to the point if you are running a legacy grocery store that has become dependent on slotting fees for your survival. Your business plan is out of date.  Your sales data is driven by what other paid you to put on the shelf.  Not what customers would choose in an open and free marketplace.

In fact, 83.6% of all restaurant meals in 2022 are purchased from a fast-food outlet or drive-thru. That’s right while most of even our loyal readers of this blog know that fact, they will not admit aloud that they too buy meals and meal components for family members at a fast food drive-thru. 

While more food is purchased for at home for more total meals eaten at home than out consider this fact. In 1966 consumers spent $149B for food away from home and in 2022 that number was $955B. The trend is your friend.  Where are you selling meals and meal components in 2023?

Do you want to meet the needs of your customers or get paid my your merchants?

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

Meals and Meal Components 

Drive Customer Adoption 

Do you Want a Larger Share of Stomach

Meals Matter a Grocerant Niche Interview You Do Not Want to Miss

 

Today’s consumers are as time starved as ever and when you couple that with a growing lack of cooking from scratch skill-set grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food continues to garner customers attention and drive food channel migration according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  Consumers continue seeking increasingly convenient home cooked meal replacement options, restaurants meals, meal components are finding their place in grocery stores frozen food court and fresh prepared meal stations within stores.

Our friends at  PYMNTS had a recent interview with, Atul Sood, chief business officer at Kitchen United, the ghost kitchen and virtual food hall company behind grocery giant Kroger’s in-store multi-brand pickup and delivery restaurants, spoke to the consumer demand for more hot food options at the supermarket. The team at Foodservice Solutions® wants me to share it.  We think it is well worth your time.

“What we had as an initial hypothesis was that when consumers do shopping for the week, they don’t necessarily want to cook that night,” Sood explained. “That seems to be really clicking with consumers. As soon as they get educated about the option of ordering from restaurants in a grocery store, that repeat orders tend to be very high and consumer retention tends to be very strong.”

He noted that while prepared meals have been an option at the grocery store for decades, name-brand restaurant options are a newer innovation, posing a major opportunity for grocers to capture some of the consumers’ dining spending and an opportunity for those restaurant brands to reach additional customers.

In fact, buying prepared meals at the grocery store is on the rise. For instance, research from PYMNTS’ study “Digital Economy Payments: Consumers Buy Into Food Bargains,” which drew from a July survey of a census-balanced panel of nearly 2,700 U.S. consumers, found that 37% of consumers had bought prepared food on their most recent grocery trip, up 7 points from the 30% of consumers who had done so back in November 2021.

“Consumers are taking to it very quickly,” Sood said. “As soon as they realize it’s an option for them, to use a pun, they really just eat it up.”

He added that once consumers try the brand’s in-Kroger virtual food halls, they return once a week or more.

Overall, online ordering may continue to lag well behind more traditional channels in terms of the total share of diners’ restaurant spending. However still, the majority of consumers engage with restaurants via digital channels at least some of the time, according to PYMNTS data.

Specifically, just 16% of consumers primarily order food via restaurants’ direct digital ordering channels such as their website or their app, according to data from PYMNTS’ study “The 2022 Restaurant Digital Divide: Restaurant Apps And Websites In The Spotlight,” which draws from a survey of nearly 2,000 U.S. consumers. Moreover, only half of that share (8%) stated that they mainly order food via third-party aggregators.

Yet, more than half of consumers have adopted digital channels. Research from PYMNTS’ recent study “12 Months Of The ConnectedEconomy™: 33,000 Consumers On Digital’s Role In Their Everyday Lives,” which draws from responses from tens of thousands of U.S. consumers, notes that 57% of consumers place orders from restaurants’ websites and/or apps each month, as of November. Plus, 42% order from aggregators.

Sood noted that while millennials and Gen Z consumers have been the quickest to adopt digital channels, the company has seen engagement across older generations as well.

“What the pandemic did was expose the different generations of consumers to the capabilities for delivery, and we’ve seen those continue to rise,” Sood said.

From a technological perspective, one of the challenges is enabling the multi-brand ordering that Kitchen United powers at these locations, so consumers can purchase from different restaurants in one order with one payment. However, Sood noted that these capabilities are key to meeting families’ demands, with parents ordering each from a different brand and kids choosing a more child-friendly option.

Looking ahead over the next several years, he expects the technology to become more common across the country, given that it is already proving popular.

“The economics are there or the consumers, the use case has been proven for the grocers, and I think this will be something you see more and more in the grocery industry,” Sood predicted.

Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideas look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Interested in learning how our Grocerant Guru® can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit: us on our social media sites by clicking one of the following links: Facebook,  LinkedIn, or Twitter

Roll, Roll, Roll Away Roller Grill, Hell No

 

Food researcher all know that customers tell you one thing and do something else.  Take for example the roller grill in side most convenience stores. Time and time again consumers tell us that it is ugly, serving unhealthily food, the food is either raw, or over cook and that they simply what to eat better according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

On top of that one of our most viewed blogs “Roll, Roll, Roll, Away Roller Grill Don’t become Square. Let’s just say that consumers still like the roller grill no matter what they tell food researchers.  

Did you know that Hot dog sales were up 12.9% over last year dollarwise across all retail channels, and sausages were up 10% in dollar sales. Roller grill offerings that signal quality to the consumer are likely to drive sales in 2023.

That said, although many convenience stores are focusing on making investments in on-site kitchens and food preparation, roller grill items are still an important part of c-store foodservice strategy today and moving forward.

John Benson, partner in the restaurants, hospitality and leisure practice at AlixPartners, stated, “In fact, many convenience stores are building out new units with expanded roller grill capacity, and consumers appear to believe that the roller grill can still deliver fresh and quality products,” Benson explained. “Promotions that bundle roller grill items with a drink or another snack especially appeal to value-focused customers and impulse buyers who may not be otherwise visiting with the intent of purchasing prepared foods.”

Then Benson pointed out that this long-time foodservice staple presents opportunities to grow the category as consumers seek new items and flavors beyond the traditional hot dogs.

If that’s not enough, Trevor Boomstra, partner in the restaurants, hospitality and leisure practice of AlixPartners, stated, “Items such as bratwursts, chicken sausages and even vegetarian sausages, for example, can grow customer reach and sales,” said. “Having a variety of sauces and other toppings also enables customization, and limited-time offers (LTOs) can leverage new sauce introductions while retaining the same core grill offering.”

In case you did not know, at Dandy Mini Mart’s Dandy Café & Deli, roller grill is not a high priority as the category has been flat, possibly because customers are opting for more healthful food items, noted James Fry, the company’s foodservice director. Sixty out of the total 65 Dandy locations in Pennsylvania and New York sell hot dogs and a few also sell sausages from the roller grill. The remaining five stores have no foodservice offering.

To “breathe some life into the category,” Dandy is planning to add a hot dog complete with grill marks reminiscent of an outdoor barbecue grill to its menu mix later this year. Fry noted that he is also exploring the possibility of adding other non-hot dog items such as tornados. 

Eric Mittenthal, president of the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council, pointed out that, dollarwise, hot dog sales were up 12.9% over last year across all retail channels. That translated to over $3 billion in sales.

“That’s a good sign that sales are up in spite of price increases across the entire meat sector,” Mittenthal said. “But hot dogs are still — and should remain — a popular choice because they are more economical than many other meats.”

Sausages have also made a “very strong” showing over the past year, up 10% in dollar sales, he noted. Although they are a little more expensive than hot dogs, they account for $5.3 billion in dollar sales.  

Remember, customers love hand held food for immediate consumption. Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideas look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Interested in learning how our Grocerant Guru® can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit: us on our social media sites by clicking one of the following links: Facebook,  LinkedIn, or Twitter

What's Simple for Dinner Grocerant Meals and Meal Components

 

Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food continues to drive customer migration looking for a simple-solutions to the age-old question What’s for Dinner.

Steven Johnson speaking last week at the annual Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Summit laid out some facts that can help food retailers from every sector better understand the demand for simple meals fast.  Johnson stated that 83.6% of all restaurant meals in 2022 are purchased from a fast-food outlet or drive-thru, simple meals fast.

So, how do Americans decide what to have for dinner when they want to go out to eat? The most common ways that people find somewhere to eat are on Google (76%), through word-of-mouth recommendations (64%), on Yelp (39%), and on social media (30%).

When asked where Americans get dinner, most (77%) commonly eat at home or cook for themselves. 50% say they regularly get takeout or pick up, 31% say they go to restaurants, and 3% say they use a meal subscription box.

39% of consumers say they’re loyal to certain retailers because of specific prepared foods. 35% of retail foodservice consumers wait two to three hours to eat their food, and 21% wait 24 hours or more, according to Technomic’s U.S. Retail Foodservice report

No. 1 factor that consumers say would prompt them to purchase from retail foodservice is that the food looks good, and 27% of consumers say that fresher grab-and-go options would encourage them to make repeat purchases from a store’s prepared foods section. No. 1 breakfast item is a breakfast sandwich/wrap, with 42% of consumers saying they’d purchase.

Consumer Trend Report, 92% of consumers said they expected to maintain or increase their purchases of grab-and-go items in the near future

Grocery stores are capitulating customers to nontraditional fresh food channels of distribution.  They need help and FreshRealm just might be the company to help them.

According to FreshRealm, “persisting inflation coupled with work-from-home flexibility means consumers are eating at home more than ever across all day parts. Nearly 40% of Americans are opting for one to three prepared or semi-prepared breakfast and lunch options each week,1 and almost a quarter of shopper’s report paying more frequent visits to the fresh meals section of their grocery stores since the pandemic began. With consumers seeking at-home meal options that are fresh, delicious and convenient, retailers have an opportunity to capture valuable share-of-stomach with fresh prepared meal offerings.

So, as retailers look to capitalize on evolving consumer behavior by expanding their fresh prepared meal offerings, a deterrent may be skyrocketing labor costs and decreasing labor availability. In-house assembly requires costly labor commitments from employees across functions and levels—from store teams that assemble, package and stock meals; to planners that develop and source innovative recipes; to marketers that merchandise offerings across channels. Cost aside, with labor shortages continuing to plague the grocery industry, an undertaking that demands such heavy labor involvement may not be feasible.

Third-party partners present a compellingly cost-effective savings opportunity for grocery retailers facing the high-cost barriers of expanding fresh prepared meal offerings. A recent cost model comparison from FreshRealm found that retailers can save up to 40% when they choose to source fully prepared ready-to-cook and ready-to-heat meals from a third-party partner rather than assemble in-house. And the cost savings doesn’t stop with retailers—the Suggested Retail Price for the FreshRealm meal was 17% less than the meal made in-house, bringing cost relief to shoppers conflicted with the struggle of rising food costs, too. Retailers can then provide more variety and lower costs to consumers while driving foot traffic.

With the company’s wide array of fresh ready-to-eat, ready-to-heat, and ready-to-cook private label and branded meal solutions, Fresh Realm is uniquely positioned to offer a personalized solution that addresses every retailer and consumer need. 

Ready to start saving? FreshRealm is working with grocers nationwide to create fresh prepared meal in-store destinations. Visit FreshRealm.com for a full look at the company’s range of ready-to-heat, ready-to-cook and meal kit solutions that are helping retailers and consumers save when they need it most.”

Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideas look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Interested in learning how our Grocerant Guru® can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit: us on our social media sites by clicking one of the following links: Facebook,  LinkedIn, or Twitter

Time to Get Krystal Side Chik Bracket Challenge on Tiktok

 

College hoops are driving office conversations once again, family debates, and friendships. So, you know that Krystal, is the home of the original slider.  Now Krystal is heating up March brackets by launching its Side Chik Mania. Starting March 28, (in two days), TikTok will be heating up with a debate on the ultimate Side Chik. Joining in on the debate will be Victor Cruz, who will crown his Ultimate Side Chik through his TikTok bracket.

In case you did not know, the bracket starts with four Side Chiks; Spicy Chik, Donut-Glazed Sweet Chik Biscuit, Donut-Glazed Spicy Chik Biscuit, and of course the Classic Chik. After the initial matchup, the filter puts the winner to the final matchup. Fans of the fast-food chain can submit their picks, rating their favorite versions of the slider-sized chicken sandwiches. All users must do is tilt their head to the Side Chik of their choice.

Now, the Ultimate Side Chik will be chosen by fans and is based on the Side Chik that is the winner of the greatest number of brackets on TikTok. Pending guest responses, Krystal will crown the ultimate Side Chik on April 3.

Here pay attention; as Fans should be sure to cast their vote using the TikTok filter by April 3 and keep their DMs open. Pending which Chik is crowned the Ultimate Side Chik, Krystal will be DMing fans whose brackets had the same Ultimate Side Chik and “shooting their shot” with Krystal-themed surprise and delight gifts.

Ajona “Jax” Camile, Creative Marketing Director for Krystal, stated, “We’re always aiming to tap into cultural moments, and we refuse to always ‘play by the rules.’ Getting our audience talking is the ultimate goal at Krystal,” ... “So of course, we had to put our own spin on March basketball by bringing our Side Chiks courtside for their own competition.”

Are you looking for a new partnership to drive sales? Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing tactics look more like yesterday that tomorrow?  Visit GrocerantGuru.com 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.