Food Retailers’ 7 Clues to Success in 2025

 

The food retail landscape is evolving faster than ever, driven by advancing technology, shifting consumer behaviors, and the relentless demand for convenience. As we navigate 2025, these dynamics underscore the importance of understanding emerging trends and leveraging them to capture incremental sales according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  Let’s explore seven key strategies that will shape food retailer success this year, with actionable examples and industry-backed insights.

1. Anticipating Customer Needs in Real-Time

Industry Fact: Studies reveal that 61% of consumers decide what to eat for dinner after 4 PM. With rising last-minute purchase habits, retailers must master real-time convenience.
Actionable Example: Kroger leverages artificial intelligence (AI) in their mobile app to suggest meal solutions based on current promotions and inventory, offering instant savings and recipe suggestions.

To win, grocers should adopt predictive analytics and integrate loyalty data with real-time meal kits or Ready-2-Eat (RTE) displays that fit customer lifestyles.

2. Seamless Omnichannel Experiences

Industry Fact: Shoppers who engage across multiple platforms—online, in-store, and delivery—spend 23% more per visit than single-channel users.
Actionable Example: Aldi introduced an upgraded online shopping experience allowing mix-and-match bundling. Their "Dinner for Two Under $10" bundles outperform competitors in driving cart value while engaging multiple touchpoints.

Simplifying app and in-store integration will build loyal, time-strapped customers who prefer omnichannel ease over isolated experiences.

3. Fresh-Focused, Locally Relevant Assortments

Industry Fact: According to FMI data, 45% of consumers are actively seeking local or sustainably sourced food.
Actionable Example: Whole Foods remains a leader by curating assortments like locally crafted sauces and meal kits incorporating regional flavors. Their emphasis on in-store signage sharing local producer stories fosters trust.

Retailers that prioritize local sourcing can tap into evolving consumer demand while highlighting freshness and sustainability.

4. Investment in High-Tech Solutions

Industry Fact: Self-checkout and app-driven navigation systems reduce basket abandonment by 20%.
Actionable Example: Amazon Fresh uses "Just Walk Out" technology to remove traditional checkout altogether, offering frictionless shopping experiences that set new convenience benchmarks.

Grocers embracing touchless payments, QR-coded promotions, and AI inventory tracking systems will outpace their tech-laggard competitors in shopper satisfaction.

5. Highlighting Health and Wellness

Industry Fact: NielsenIQ reports that 73% of households look for functional foods with added health benefits.
Actionable Example: Trader Joe's launched a "Healthy Hackables" series in their app and in-store displays, showcasing quick recipe ideas using nutrient-packed ingredients. Items like chickpea pasta paired with pre-diced vegetables have seen increased sales.

Integrating wellness-driven marketing campaigns and meal solutions simplifies decision-making for time-starved families.

6. Innovation in Ready-2-Eat and Heat-n-Eat Meals

Industry Fact: RTE and Heat-n-Eat food sales are projected to grow by 9.2% CAGR through 2027, highlighting sustained demand.
Actionable Example: H-E-B's robust meal solution program, offering globally inspired meals like Korean BBQ chicken or Mexican tamales, attracts millennials and Gen Z seeking flavorful convenience.

Retailers must invest in diverse RTE offerings, balancing global flavors with consistent quality that resonates across generational demographics.

7. Social Media as a Shopper’s Assistant

Industry Fact: 83% of Millennials and Gen Z shoppers rely on social platforms like Instagram for meal inspiration.
Actionable Example: Publix’s engaging TikTok recipes, featuring their branded meal components, drove 150K impressions per video while increasing RTE sales by 17%.

Food retailers must embrace TikTok, Instagram Reels, and Pinterest to influence purchase decisions where consumers spend their time scrolling for ideas.

Think About This: Success is in the Blend

As food retailers chart the path forward in 2025, success lies in seamlessly blending technological innovation, consumer insight, and convenience. By focusing on these seven strategies, grocers can stay ahead of shifting expectations and ensure they remain relevant in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Remember, it’s all about delivering what the consumer wants—before they even realize they need it.

What strategy resonates most with your current efforts? Share below!

Success does leave clues. One clue that time and time again continues to resurface is “the consumer is dynamic not static”.  Regular readers of this blog know that is the common refrain of Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  Our Grocerant Guru® can help your company edify your brand with relevance.  Call 253-759-7869 for more information. 

 

At McDonald’s Partnerships Help in Looking A Customer Ahead

Success does leave clues. Regular readers of this blog understand that looking at relevant success clues provide a sound platform when looking a customer ahead to edify your brands relationship for the long term according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  

So, when Ford Motor Company and McDonald’s USA announced a new partnership that will be giving vehicles a caffeine boost by using part of a familiar staple in the morning routine, coffee beans, in vehicle parts such as headlamp housing. Note:(This is the first time Ford has used coffee bean skins that will be upcycled for select vehicle parts.)

You knew that McDonald’s was looking far beyond today, with the goal of driving a deeper relationship around the ‘halo’ of ‘better for you’ that today’s consumers are looking for while creating a platform for new brand electricity.

Given that every year, millions of pounds of coffee chaff, (the dried skin of the bean that naturally comes off during the roasting process—are turned into garden mulch or charcoal in North America. Together, Ford and McDonald’s can provide an innovative new home to a significant portion of that material. The companies found that chaff can be converted into a durable material to reinforce certain vehicle parts. By heating the chaff to high temperatures under low oxygen, mixing it with plastic and other additives and turning it into pellets, the material can be formed into various shapes.

So, get this, the chaff composite meets the quality specifications for parts like headlamp housings and other interior and under hood components. Now who in the world would have ever thought of such a thing?  The simple fact is, someone looking outside the box.  If your brand doing what you have always done and doing it the same way?  Just, how is that working for you?

The resulting components will be about 20 percent lighter and require up to 25 percent less energy during the molding process. Heat properties of the chaff component are significantly better than the currently used material, according to Ford.

So, Debbie Mielewski, Ford senior technical leader, sustainability and emerging materials research team has the ability to look outside the box.  Mielewski stated, “McDonald’s commitment to innovation was impressive to us and matched our own forward-thinking vision and action for sustainability,” says “This has been a priority for Ford for over 20 years, and this is an example of jump starting the closed-loop economy, where different industries work together and exchange materials that otherwise would be side or waste products.”

McDonald’s is expected to direct a significant portion of its coffee chaff in North America to Ford to be incorporated into vehicle parts. “Like McDonald’s, Ford is committed to minimizing waste and we’re always looking for innovative ways to further that goal,” adds Ian Olson, senior director, global sustainability, McDonald’s. “By finding a way to use coffee chaff as a resource, we are elevating how companies together can increase participation in the circular economy.”

The collaboration with Ford and McDonald’s is the latest example of the innovative approaches both companies take to product and environmental stewardship. The project also involves Varroc Lighting Systems, which supplies the headlamps, and Competitive Green Technologies, the processor of the coffee chaff. Ford is progressing toward a goal of using recycled and renewable plastics in vehicles globally, with an increasing range of sustainable materials. How are you creating new electricity around your brand?

Johnson stated “that in my minds-eye the new electricity must be very efficient for the supply chain and includes such things as fresh foods, plant based foods, sustainable supply chain, sampling, toy’s, beer, BMW in car online ordering,  unique urban clothing, grocerant positioning, fresh food messaging, autonomous delivery, cashier-less retail, plates, glasses, cash-less payments, digital hand-held marketing.

All food and beverage retailers to survive the next generation of retail must embrace the artificial intelligence revolution while simultaneously embracing fresh food and beverages that are portable, fresh, with differentiation that is familiar not different.  Does your retail path forward look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Why? Do you need a new partnership?

Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced business development. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities or a new menu product segment and brand and menu integration strategy.  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/

In A Global 

Battle for Share of Stomach

Domino’s Dominates Delivery

Leaders lead there is no doubt in the minds-eye of anyone at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® that when it comes to technology, delivery, and customer relevance that Domino’s leadership is undeniable in fact our own Grocerant Guru®, Steven Johnson who believes that Domino’s branded delivery has taken a dominate position in the minds-eye of the consumer.

Most regular readers of this blog have seen, experienced, Domino’s fist chain wide delivery vehicle. That car has become a point of qualitative differentiation for Domino’s according to Johnson that simultaneously drove a marketing message that Domino’s was ‘Looking A Customer Ahead’.

Now that Ford motors and Domino’s Pizza are teaming up to test self-driving pizza delivery cars in Michigan, as part of an effort to better understand how customers respond to and interact with autonomous vehicles we can envision another spike up in customer relevance for Domino’s.

Soon randomly selected Domino’s customers in Ann Arbor, Michigan will have the option to accept pizza deliveries from a Ford Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicle. But the car won’t be driving itself. Each car will be driven by a Ford safety engineer, with other researchers onboard, who will zero in on the last 50 feet of the customer experience.

Sherif Marakby, Vice President of Ford Autonomous Vehicles and Electrification, described the project as ethnographic research stating that “We don’t want to wait until we get everything done on the tech and remove the driver. We’re trying to start doing the research. We still are working on the technology, because it’s not ready to be put on public streets,” he said. “It’s simulating that the vehicle is in autonomous mode.”

Russell Weiner, president of Domino’s USA, said in a statement. “The majority of our questions are about the last 50 feet of the delivery experience.”… “We’re interested to learn what people think about this type of delivery.  Areas of focus include how willing are people to come outside to pick up their orders, the way they approach the car, and how they interact with the screen outside of the vehicle to get the food.

Is your company ‘Looking A Customer Ahead’?  Are you trapped doing what you have always done and doing it the same way?  Interested in learning how www.FoodserviceSolutions.us 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:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information.