Consumers Need Help They don’t want to Cook from Scratch

 

With restaurants closed or on reduced hours, consumer have been forced to cook from scratch and the simple fact is they are tired of it.  They say they miss the ‘flavors’, ‘variety’ and texture offered by restaurants according to Foodservice Solutions®, Grocerant ScoreCards conducted in September. 

When asked if they wanted to cook dinner from scratch or assemble dinner from fresh meal components 91.1 % of Gen Z chose assemble from Fresh Prepared Meal Components and Millennials 83.6 chose meal components.  According to Steven Johnson, Foodservice Solutions®, Grocerant Guru® that has been the trend for the past 25 years and Gen Z learned how to prepared meal components from their time stared parents.

A recent study conducted by EnsembleIQ reported that there is a high probability that nearly 40% of consumers will continue to homemade meals more often even after COVID-19 has pasted. That said the opportunity for every branded food retailer including restaurants, convenience stores, grocery store, liquor stores, drug stores and dollar stores will be in a race to fill you table with grocerant niche meal components according to Johnson. Let’s look at more of the EnsembleIQ findings:

The survey of 1,072 consumers, of which 80% said they do most of their household’s meal planning and cooking, was also strategically timed to gather responses during the latter part of July. The logic behind when the survey was fielded, was to better assess satisfaction with behaviors established during the earlier months of the pandemic, as a means to gauge future behaviors with a higher degree of accuracy.

·         Nearly 90% of those surveyed experimented with new recipes and ways to cook food during the pandemic.

·         Close to 70% said that they enjoyed “a lot” the meals they prepared.

·         Roughly half said that they got a lot of enjoyment out of cooking.

·         One reason for this is that close to 35% said they bought new utensils, countertop appliances and cookware to “play with.”

·       Roughly 42% said that they generally prefer their household’s home cooking to that of restaurants, while only 13% said that restaurant food is far better than home cooking.

·         When asked if they got tired of cooking at home, 28% said that they were very tired of cooking, and 45% said that they were a little tired.

·         “The key driver of increased use of prepared foods uncovered in the research is that roughly half of those surveyed viewed it as more affordable than restaurant food,”.  

We know now that consumers will continue to eat at home.  But where will the meals, meal be sold, produced, or branded?  Is your company producing something for tonight’s dinner table?  

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

Grocerant Prepared Food Success Clues

 

The pandemic will still be with us in 2021, consumers are moving forward and will need special attention at the intersection of old desires in dinning and meals and what they have come to become accustom too according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA base Foodservice Solutions.

Here is the good news 38% of consumers are looking forward to dining out again in the next three months, according to a new survey conducted by YouGov and commissioned by SevenRooms, a data-driven guest experience platform. But every potential customer has different needs and expectations. Here are some of the insights from that report we though could be of some help to you targeting customer for meals and meal dayparts.  

To make it less challenging for operators to navigate the new dining landscape, SevenRooms grouped these needs into four “diner personas” based on the survey results.

1.       The pickup patron: These consumers won’t be ready to dine out until there’s a vaccine. Nearly 1 in 4 (23%) will only order for takeout or delivery for the remainder of 2020. Restaurants seem to be doing a good job with these platforms—about half of all Americans continue to feel comfortable ordering food to go.

2.       The safety-savvy consumer: It’s no surprise that customers want to see restaurants following health and safety guidelines. Face masks and 6-foot social distancing are givens, but this group of guests is looking for more. Over one-third of respondents (37%) want physical barriers between tables, 33% want personal hand sanitizers placed on the table and 24% want their food covered when it’s served to them.

3.       The tech-conscious contactless diner: About 1 in 7 consumers (13%) will only visit restaurants that offer a contactless dining experience. Topping the list are virtual waitlists, with 22% of respondents saying they want to join a waitlist before they arrive so they can be seated immediately. Around the same number (21%) want operators to use contact tracing technology, and 17% are in favor of QR codes for ordering and paying.

4.       The carefree guest: This diner persona is eager to dine out in restaurants and less concerned about risks and restrictions. While 29% are comfortable sitting indoors at a restaurant, many more (42%) are limiting visits to outdoor venues. Familiar restaurants are more likely to be on their list—37% are more comfortable dining at places they’ve been to before, but 25% would visit a new restaurant. Bars are not a priority; only 15% of consumers would patronize a drinking establishment.

Joel Montaniel, CEO and co-founder of SevenRooms stated, “As local economies across the country continue to reopen, restaurant operators are navigating the right balance between safety and traditional models for hospitality,” “Our research has made one thing clear: Operators need to be flexible. Whether it’s in regard to outdoor dining, virtual waitlists or contactless order and pay—guest have different needs.”

YouGov PLC conducted the survey with 1,237 Americans from July 31-Aug. 3. The four diner personas are identified in the company’s new report, “Restaurant Reckoning: Dynamic Diner.”

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

The Grocerant Niche Growth Can Drive Innovation within the Restaurant Sector

Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® once again reiterates convenience is the key factor driving supermarket prepared food sales, tired of cooking, tired of doing dishes shoppers seek quick-and-easy alternatives to cooking meals at home while giving the family entrée choices they don’t have the skill-set to cook at home.  

Food retailers in every foodservice sector can make life at home alone or with the family easier by offering mix & match bundled meal deals that combine an entree with two sides, for example, or other combinations of grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat or Heat-N-Eat meal components. With the grocerant niche merchandising top of mind combined with a branded promotion, bundled meals can help drive incremental spending by encouraging customers to “trade up” from a stand-alone entrée according to our Grocerant Guru® Steven Johnson.

Think about how our Grocerant Guru® suggest selling incremental meal components. By merchandising grab-and-go side dishes for two-to-four people near the rotisserie chicken as part of a meal deal is one way to make bundling easy for shoppers and spur impulse sales. Offering a variety of sides and starches lets shoppers customize their meal based on the preferences of individual family members. Or, consider bundling the entree with a family-sized prepared salad from the deli to make a quick and easy light meal with broad appeal.

The restaurant sector has seen a boom in delivery and takeout that is often attributed to a surge in demand from millennials, but new research shows baby boomers may be the drivers of ongoing growth.  That according to our Grocerant Guru® this is but another example of customer migration from grocery stores to new non-traditional fresh food retail outlets for meals for home.

In research from the National Restaurant Association shows that 51% of baby boomers—defined for the research as consumers ages 55 to 73—are not ordering delivery and takeout as often as they’d like. That compares with 43% of millennials, or people ages 21 to 38.

Nearly the same portion of the younger group, 42%, indicated a desire to dine on-premise more frequently. That compares with the 38% of baby boomers who said they’d like to eat at restaurants more often.

Sandwiched in between those two generations were Gen Xers, who demonstrated a strong desire for more off-premise meals (49%) and on-premise dining (47%). The research defines members of that cohort as consumers ages 39 to 54.

The research confirms that consumers are still hungering for more takeout and delivery. Forty-nine percent said they would like more off-premise restaurant meals, compared with 42% who cited a pent-up demand for dine-in occasions. It’s time to evolve your 1999, 2005, 2015 business model with customer relevance.

When you look at all of the data one thing is clear consumers do not want to cook, do not want to do dishes, and they all want dinner with ease.  How are you preparing to serve dinner to the next generation of dinners? Do you know where they will want to eat? When the want to eat? Or how they want to eat their next meal?

Looking for success clues of your own? Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced Grocerant niche 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

Restaurant Sector: Grocerants are the next new Normal

At the intersection of get me out of the house and What’s for dinner, consumers seeking solutions to how to feed the family. Many are afraid of stepping outside, many others are leery of what germs are on the packaging, delivery item, and payment methods. For 80,000,000+ restaurants are closed and many of those may never reopen even if this only last 4, 6, or 8, more weeks.

Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru®, Steven Johnson based in Tacoma, WA believes that there is a huge opportunity for independent restaurants and chain restaurants to evolve their current business model, with long-term relevance, focusing on grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat meals and meal components with mix & match product bundling.

The grocerant niche has been the undercurrent of global foodservice growth for 19 plus years according to Johnson. Three key elements that continue to expand in importance for consumers are the fact consumers are looking for value both dollar value and time savings, convenience they want options and new points of distribution, experience means no extensive cooking or clean-up.

Restaurants that evolve with customer relevance touchpoints will make a Huge Comeback.  Consumers are becoming claustrophobic and will need an outlet to socialize and within the options those garnering the most success will have branded, craveable, grocerant niche mix & match product options according to Johnson.

In 2020 very few like cooking and being FORCED to wash dishes and clean up daily.  Branded restaurants will come back with SPECIALS to drive people back. Restaurants that want to keep those customers coming will start today thinking about how they can best evolve their business model and customer touchpoints. Are you looking a customer ahead?

While grocery stores are selling untold cases of canned food to consumers much of it will sit on the shelves in consumer homes slowing sales in grocery stores.  The simple fact is Non-traditional fresh food ‘grocerant’ retailers with drive growth over the next 10 years, outpacing that of the legacy both restaurants and grocery stores. 

Foodservice Solutions® team is here to help you drive top line sales and bottom-line profits. Are you looking a customer ahead? Visit www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information or contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us Remember success does leave clues and we just may the clue you need to propel your continued success.

Are you a Player

in the Battle for Share of Stomach

Forced to Stay Home: Eating-Out While Eating-In Can Drive Retail Food Sales Success

Success does leave clues while the undercurrents of consumers eating (Restaurant, Grocery, Catering, C-store, and Meal Kits) fresh prepared meals at home has been driving the success of Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat food.

The Coronavirus combined with forced restaurant closings has elevate the importance of evolving your business plan to include all of the important attributes of successful Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food sales according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Remember there are just too many options from which consumers can chose meal and meal delivery.  For success brands must renew their brands offerings to accommodate the new attributes driving long-term customer adoption within the grocerant niche. 

To start consumer’s want fresh food, fast, with flavor.  They want Hot food Hot, and Cold food cold. They do not want to figure out how to cook, and do dishes according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

There is a new incremental opportunity for non-traditional fresh food retailers too sell grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat sell meals and meal components to go for the long-term driving up average chack, driving up top-line revenue, while driving incremental bottom-line profit according to Johnson. That opportunity has created a battle for share of stomach.

Are You Winning in the 

Battle for Share of Stomach

Who should or who will be extending their reach with grocerant niche fresh food for 2020, 2025? That list will include Restaurants, Furniture Stores, Drug Stores, Grocery Stores, Convenience Stores, Clothing Stores, and Dollar Stores to name but a few.  

Here are 6 reasons Eating-Out while Eating-In will continue to gain momentum around the world in 2025:

1.       Technology:  5G is coming around the world in 2020 with new phones, tables, and computers offering 10 times the speed of service, elevating the non-store shopping experience.  Will your brand be watching, waiting, or a leading player in 2020?

2.       During the 2019 Holiday shopping season: 9 out of 10 Belgians reach for their smartphones for holiday shopping.

3.       Food from everywhere: In 2019 Consumers Used All Food Distribution Channels More Than a Year Ago With 39%+ at Drive-thru’s, 34%+ Food Delivery, 29%+ Takeout 44%. Note: 58% of restaurant occasions are now off -premise.

4.       80% of household shoppers: in an IRI survey said they purchased deli prepared foods regularly.

5.       90 percent of guests: research a restaurant online before dining — more than any other business type.

6.       Restaurant year over year customer counts declined 5.7% in December 2019. Consumers are not eating less they are eating somewhere else and buying from new non-traditional fresh food retailers.

Are waiting, watching, as others move forward reaching your customers with new products, packaged with the ‘halo’ of better for you, on a new avenue of distribution. Do your stores look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Are your year over year customer counts growing? If they are not, your brand is dying.

Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced business development. We can help you identify, quantify, and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities, a new menu product segment, or product / menu integration strategy.  Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant/ or twitter.com/grocerant

Dickey's Barbecue Pit Tries Driving Customer Traffic with Kid’s Eat Free at What Cost?

January can be a very slow month for chain restaurants and most chain restaurants leverage price to drive customer back into the stores according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. Dickey’s Barbecue Pit is starting of a new decade by offering free delivery and extending its popular Kids Eat Free Sundays to every day during the month of January.

Laura Rea Dickey, CEO of Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants, stated “With these offers, families can enjoy an easy, delicious meal in our home or theirs throughout January, all while sticking to their budget.” Guests can receive free delivery when they order online or through the Dickey’s App. Kids Eat Free is available at participating locations with any $10 dine-in adult purchase.

So, one of the classic traffic drivers for restaurants is the Kids Eat FREE promotion. It used to be found mainly in family style restaurants such as the IHOPs and Denny’s of the world, but now as guest traffic is down across all categories, you see more and more types of restaurants running a Kids Eat Free promotion. The question is, "Does it work?" The easy answer is, yes it works to drive traffic, but the better question is, "Is it right for my business?"

Free is a very good price, and will always bring people in to get the free food. Look at the lines out the door each time a national chain has a free food giveaway promotion. The problem is, just getting people in the door no matter what it costs is not why you're in business. Sure, you need customers, but you need to make a profit on those customers. Your ultimate job is to make money for yourself and your investors, not just drive guest counts.

The typical Kids Eat Free promotion has some strings attached so you can be guaranteed to recoup your food costs. Some restaurants require the purchase of a kid’s beverage in order to receive the free meal. Others require the purchase of a regular priced adult meal in order to receive the free kid’s meals. These requirements protect you from going into a negative transaction territory where you're actually losing money on the deal. There's also often there a limit on the number of children allowed per adult, usually 2 kids per adult meal purchased, so you don't get a busload of kids from the local camp and only sell one adult meal to their leader while you give away 27 kids meals.

A price-based promotion like this does not build loyalty. It attracts customers who are price sensitive, and without the low-price incentive to come in, they won't continue to keep coming. It's akin to your coupon customers. If they have your coupon in hand this week, they'll visit you, but if they have your competitor's coupon in hand next week, they'll visit them. I was involved with a chain that offered Kids Eat Free on Saturday and Sunday nights, two very slow nights for this chain. While we promoted Kids Eat Free, guest counts grew quickly, but as soon as we took it away the counts went right back down to their previous levels.

The other factor to consider is the length of time you're willing to offer this promotion. Many owners roll out the kid’s promotion as an immediate fix to low guest counts on a certain day or daypart. Once that fix starts working, the increase in guest counts is like a drug and you want more and more. If it worked for Tuesday, let's also offer it on Thursday. And at some point, you've devalued your product in your customer's eyes.

Why should I pay $5 for this kid’s meal today when it's FREE tomorrow? And if you keep the promotion in place for any length of time, your customers grow to expect it. There may be a backlash of angry customers when you decide that it's time to stop offering the promotion.

So, should you rollout a Kids Eat FREE promotion? If you do, go into it with a plan. Know what it costs you. Know how much growth you need to offset the food costs. Prepare a marketing plan because you have to tell the world about it, otherwise you're just giving away money to current customers. And make an exit strategy. Offer it for the summer or a certain period of time, to keep customer expectations under control, create some urgency, and keep yourself out of the situation where customers expect to have their Kids Eat Free at your restaurant forever.

Are you looking a customer ahead?  Will your year over year customer counts be positive for January 2020? Success does leave clues.  Is your brand extending it value to more consumers in 2020?  Foodservice Solutions®, Grocerant Guru® has customer focused ideations you can leverage.