Since most consumers do not want to cook from scratch,
nor do they want to cook at all they more often than not want to order out, go
out or order for delivery. Look at the numbers below and you can see how large
the opportunity to give customer what they want when they want it.
- Recent Grocerant ScoreCards found
81.1% of consumers don’t know what’s for dinner at Noon, and 61.1 don’t
know what’ s for dinner at 4PM %.
- Roughly 63.7% of consumers purchase prepared food items from
a retail location at least three times a month.
- 79.6% all
dinners have at least 1 grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat meal
component and 66.6% have two meal components.
- When asked if they wanted
to cook dinner from scratch or assemble dinner from fresh meal components
91.3 % of Gen Z chose assemble from Fresh Prepared Meal Components and
Millennials 83.4% chose meal components.
- Seventy-three percent of retail prepared food purchases are
taken to go
- Prepared food purchases are frequently a
planned purchase among 61.2% of shoppers, while 40.9% of shoppers said
they buy prepared foods on impulse. Dinner has the highest amount of
prepared food buys with 81.7% of respondents making purchases for that
meal, while lunch comes in at 76.9% and breakfast at 61.4%.
- 57.8% of consumers would like to add Alcohol to
a dinner order
Gen Z and Millennials
have a desire for food and beverage discovery, but they also want exciting new
brands and line extensions aka they will try anything new. So, give them a choice.
Beer, wine and liquor
are standards however have you considered selling with both hard seltzer and
ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails: Consumers want old favorites, but they also want
exciting new brands and line extensions. Grocerant niche mix and match meal
component bundling is a hallmark driving grocerant niche adoption.
So, let’s take a
look as some of IRI numbers
for the 52 weeks ending Dec. 26, 2021, show the hard seltzer category at
c-stores with sales of more than $2.1 billion, an increase of 25.9% year to
year.
Within that category,
White Claw was the leading brand, with sales just topping $1 billion, up 9.6%.
Truly followed at nearly $529,000, a 56.2% gain. Bud Light Seltzer recorded
sales of just over $199 million, a jump of 13.5%. Corona Hard Seltzer notched
sales of almost $53 million, a decline of 16.8%.
Bump
Williams, the founder, president and CEO of Bump Williams Consulting in Shelton,
Conn., stated, “Single-serve cans will explode in volume this year,”. Key for
growth will be a balance of what he called big, successful legacy brands like
White Claw. Remember that when you are bundling meals and beverages these products
travel well and can be kept cold.
Now, according
to NielsenIQ,
Total U.S. Convenience data for the 52 weeks ending Jan. 15, 2022, showed total
spirits sales were $3.04
billion, up 9.8%. Within that category, prepared-cocktail sales were
slightly over $167 million, a dramatic 62.4% rise. Yes, cocktails in a can
are going to be hot. So, if you want to
drive top line sales and bottom-line profits while edifying your relationship
with your consumer; start bundling them for takeout.
There is no doubt
that Gen Z and Millennials appreciate the flavor profiles of some of the newer
RTD cocktails. They are fruity. It’s almost like everything is fruity and
sweet, this is all part of food and beverage discovery. If you are
selling meals for takeout then you should be selling Ready-2-Drink cocktails
and Hard seltzers.
Don’t over reach. Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideations look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Interested in learning how Foodservice Solutions® 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 the following links: Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter
