Kroger Elevates Home Chef with Racheal Ray

 

Success does leave clues and Kroger needs more that Albertsons and Safeway to get it self out of being a brand that is stuck in the middle at best.  According to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®; “Racheal Ray will elevate brand relevance within Home Chef’s grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared customer focused meal kit category.”

Johnson continued, “Solutions to the age of question; What’s for Dinner can be found in meal kits which are a platform food solution for customers.  Home Chef meal kits at local branded Kroger stores are a desired quick solution Gen Z and Millennials are looking for. Racheal Ray will add incremental relevance and new electricity to Kroger’s meal solution options.”

At Kroger, meal kit solutions remain a fast grower in retailer’s own-brands portfolio. Now Home Chef meal solutions subsidiary has made co-branded meal kits with TV chef Rachael Ray available in stores.

he new meal kits with Rachael Ray recipes will roll out monthly to more than 1,300 stores across Kroger Co. supermarket banners through March 17. More Rachael Ray recipes also can be ordered online for home delivery directly from Home Chef at homechef.com/rachael.

Dan De La Rosa, group vice president of fresh merchandising at Kroger, stated, “Rachael Ray, widely known for her quick, easy-to-prepare recipes, popular cooking shows and best-selling cookbooks, and Home Chef have come together to offer a series of meals from new Rachael recipes that are simple, convenient and delicious. “Personalized food experiences do not have to be complicated. We know customers have busy schedules, and we’re excited to offer special meal kits that even the most inexperienced home cook can prepare, offered in collaboration with Rachael Ray.”

How does this sound, the first Rachael Ray Home Chef meal kit hitting stores guides customers through an easy-to-follow recipe for a steakhouse burger with dijon mushrooms and onions. Besides the burger, other recipes available both in stores and online include Pork Lo Mein with carrots and bok choy as well as sausage, pepper and onion pasta bake with ricotta.

According to Johnson, “Brand relevance is in part driven with innovation in new food products in combination with new avenues of distribution all of which are the platform for the new electricity.” 

Johnson stated “that in my minds-eye the new electricity must be very efficient for the supply and includes such things as fresh foods, smaller footprint, developing brands, fresh flowers, grocerant positioning, fresh food messaging, autonomous delivery, cashier-less retail, plates, glasses, cash-less payments, digital hand-held marketing.

All retailers to survive the next generation of retail must embrace the artificial intelligence revolution while simultaneously embracing fresh food that is portable according to Johnson. 

Other selections in the Rachael Ray meal lineup include buffalo-style turkey chili with blue cheese crema and tortilla strips, pork chop with sweet onions and apple and cheesy crushed loaded potatoes, tilapia piccata with lemon spaghetti, deviled chicken with cheesy butternut squash, steak pizzaiola with fresh grape tomatoes, wedding soup with turkey ricotta meatballs and ditalini pasta, maple-mustard glazed chicken with apple and pear and cheesy mashed potatoes, a pub-style burger on a pretzel roll with roasted fingerling potatoes, and spicy sloppy joes with oven fries.

Home Chef, part of Kroger’s own-brands portfolio, unveiled the partnership with Rachael Ray in September, noting that the weekly rotation of meals will cover 26 recipes over six months.

Rachael Ray stated, “I am so excited to partner with Home Chef to bring tasty, easy-to-prepare meals to homes nationwide,” …. “Teaching others how to cook has always been a passion of mine, and this collaboration allows me to help people build confidence in the kitchen with my own recipes delivered straight to your door.”

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. 

Home Chef Personalization and Customization Will Drive Adoption

Partnerships that edify a brand with its customers make a difference.  In the competitive meal kit space, it is nice to see that Home Chef is getting back to its roots, within the grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared space adding options that are customer focused with customization and personalization according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Home chef has evolved from just a meal kit company to a meal solution provider.  It is a small distinction, that expands the brand back to its original ‘space’ grocerant niche solutions with a much broader array of options with it comes to points of differentiation all adding relevance to a much broader customer base according to Johnson.

At Home Chef sharing meals for the holiday season goes beyond gathering around a table. The company, is introducing a new digital gifting program that allows shoppers to share meals with others through personalized e-gift cards and physical gift cards.

This new partnership will drive new electricity within the brand, as the digital offering, integrated with Synchrony’s GiftNow platform, gives consumers the opportunity to customize cards with video messages, photos and personal notes.

Yet there is more, E-cards can be sent to individuals or groups by email or text, delivered instantly or scheduled up to three months in advance. People also can use the digital service to have physical gift cards mailed to recipients. All cards are available in a range of seasonal and evergreen designs.

Eric Dean, senior director of marketing partnerships for Chicago-based Home Chef, stated, "We're excited to elevate our digital gifting operations and offer customers more opportunities to personalize and send gift cards," …. "By partnering with GiftNow, we have transformed the gifting experience at homechef.com, making it more experiential, customizable and accessible for both gifters and recipients."

Pari Raccah, general manager with GiftNow, said that the gift cards were created to provide consumers with a more seamless and personalized option. "The gift of food is always one that people cherish as the kitchen remains the heart of the home, and Home Chef's meal kit delivery service is an ideal gift," she remarked. How is your brand driving new electricity?

According to Johnson, “Brand relevance is in part driven with innovation in new food products in combination with new avenues of distribution all of which are the platform for the new electricity.”  That said, what are you waiting for?

Johnson stated “that in my minds-eye the new electricity must be very efficient for the supply and includes such things as fresh foods, developing brands, unique urban clothing, grocerant positioning, fresh food messaging, autonomous delivery, cashier-less retail, plates, glasses, cash-less payments, digital hand-held marketing.

All retailers to survive the next generation of retail must embrace the artificial intelligence revolution while simultaneously embracing fresh food that is portable, fresh, with differentiation that is familiar not different. 

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 

Will Innovation Drive Kroger’s Home Chef Forward?

 

Innovation is crucial to the continuing success of any brand, product, or meal solution.  We asked Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® if Kroger’s Home Chef had plateaued?

Recently Home Chef announced that it had reached a major milestone in meal solutions, with the brand surpassing $1 billion in annual sales. Regular readers of this blog know that Home Chef was started in 2013 by Pat Vihtelic, then Home Chef merged with the Cincinnati-based Kroger in 2018. At that time what Home Chef needed was distribution, with Kroger, Home Chef found 19 different banners each its own avenue of distribution. Clearly the products are good and consumers are scooping them up.

Meal Kits have focused on advancing the availability of mealtime shortcuts and solutions.  At Kroger Home Chef offered new products and pricing, while assisting transform how customers approach preparing meals. 

Dan De La Rosa, Kroger’s group VP of fresh merchandising, stated, “Kroger’s commitment to being ‘Fresh for Everyone’ is underscored by our Home Chef products, which help us bring families together in the kitchen with meal options for any occasion,” … “We continue to strategically expand Home Chef offerings across our family of companies. Whether it’s meal kits, or heat-and-eat and ready-to-cook solutions—which are available via subscription, in-store, pickup, or delivery—it’s safe to say that Home Chef has mealtime covered.”

In a Battle for Share of Stomach

Are you Winning? 

Time starved consumers continue to seek out grocerant niche mealtime shortcuts like meal kits, Read-2-Eat, and Heat-N-Eat meals. Home Chef says it is listening to feedback and expanding its product selection is evolving to help customers reduce cooking time without sacrificing quality or flavor. 

Erik Jensen, president of Home Chef, stated, “At Home Chef, we’re on a mission to make mealtime easier with fresh ingredients and simple instructions,” … “By offering time-saving meal solutions at Kroger Family of Stores, we’re able to simplify the cooking process, provide a wide variety of options, and allow customers to enjoy a delicious homemade experience. We’re excited to continue scaling the brand and creating new products that are accessible to customers nationwide.”

Regular readers of this blog also know that in recent months, the grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared meal solutions market has become increasingly competitive, including Blue Apron and HelloFresh, as both continuing to expand their offerings.

Last month, Blue Apron introduced Heat & Eat, the company’s first-ever grocerant niche fresh prepared, single-serving meal offering, ready in five minutes or less. Yes, we also knew that earlier this year, HelloFresh introduced HelloFresh Market, a digital grocery store offering customers a range of add-ons to the meal kit order they already receive on their doorstep.

However, Home Chef “currently offers more than 500 products across a variety of categories, including meal kits, heat-and-eat meals, ready-to-eat products, and seasonal meals, among others. The brand says it will continue to create new products that offer customers a range of fresh mealtime shortcuts.” We ask 500 SKU’s once again Kroger acting like a legacy grocer want’s to be all things to everyone.  That according to Johnson is not innovation.

Vihtelic, continued, “Home Chef was founded on the idea to simplify mealtime with easy-to-make, delicious recipes,” ... “Since 2013, we’ve grown from delivering meals with a rented truck to becoming a leading brand for Kroger. With Kroger’s support, our two brands offer a collective passion to make mealtime easy and bring people together over a meal.”

According to Johnson, the meal kit sector is about to breakout once again as employees return to work.  This time innovation in fresh prepared Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat meal components will be what elevates the sector to new heights.  

Looking for success clues of your own? Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced 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 us on our social media sites by clicking one of the following links: Facebook,  LinkedIn, or Twitter

Albertsons Stumbles with Plated Just like Kroger Did with Home Chef

It took Albertsons two years after buying Plated to figure out what to do with it.  Then, clearly they did not know what to do with Plated, so they played the copycat marketing game and followed the lead of Kroger copying what Kroger did with Home Chef.

Simply put; Albertsons like Kroger stumbled, fumbled, and bumbled away an opportunity for growth instead they devalued an asset in the minds-eye of Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. That is transform the meal kit provided into a private label instore brand.  Why?

Both Home Chef and Plated were forward looking companies that garnered the attention of consumers.  Each was growing albeit they were unprofitable.  Most important they were both threats to the legacy grocery store business model. How do large legacy companies that are unwilling to evolve deal with threats?

Well, according to Johnson, they buy them and then ‘kill’ them.  In essence both Albertson and Kroger acquired these businesses and tried to turn them into old fashion CPG products that can simply sit on the shelf according to Johnson.  How well has that worked for the grocery industry?

Over the past 12 years, there are now 50% fewer legacy grocery stores in the U.S.  The simple fact of the matter is the grocery business model is broken and buying competitive threats and trying to kill them is not the solution according to Johnson.

Meal Kits as Johnson decried are ‘training wheels for Millennials’. Meal Kits could be an asset for a floundering industry, a glimmer of positive hope for cooking at home, a solution to meal time malaise.  Yet what they have become is a legacy branded CPG product that looks more like yesterday than tomorrow.

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/

Kroger Struggles, Stutters and Starts Meal Kit Renewal

The undercurrent of long-term success of a company is often based on a vision based on fact with the correct underlying consumer valued attributes that are driving relevance according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

In the opinion of our Grocerant Guru® that after the failed experiment (Main & Vine) that resulted in an estimated loss of $12 Million dollars, Kroger would have garnered a understanding of the Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat grocerant niche.  It once again looks as if Kroger is struggling, stuttering and restarting its focus with its acquisition of Home Chef a meal kit lineup that has yet to make its mark anywhere.

Kroger’s Home Chef recently revealed that it plans to test oven-ready, heat-and-eat and lunch kit meals at 68 Kroger Co. stores, beginning this month. The first locations to offer the new varieties will be Mariano’s stores in Illinois and Kroger stores in Ohio, the latter through the retailer’s Cincinnati and Columbus divisions.

Meal kit are in the direct wheel house of the grocerant niche and it is nearly impossible to believe after buying the company a year ago they are just beginning to understand that what they bought and how they are offering fresh food is not edifying relevance with most of their customers.

One might ask, how easy is it for any company to continue doing what they have done and doing it in the same way.  Clearly, to easy.  What is customer relevant when meal planning today?  Who are the customers and just where are they shopping?

In the case of Kroger, with 19+ banners they have learned a lot one would suspect. However, in the opinion of our Grocerant Guru® a ‘lot’ is many times not enough.  Success does leave clues and clearly some companies have many clues yet to pick-up when it comes to consumers and Grocerant Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food.  

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/

Kroger’s Thanksgiving Meal Kits Empower Millennials

Thanksgiving meals for most Americans are times that families gather around the table, share a meal, tell family stories, play basketball or football in the back yard, and cook a home cooked meal that hopefully dazzles not frazzles the host, creating memories that last a life time according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

This year an increasing number Millennials are starting families, buying homes, and beginning to think about hosting their first ‘family & friends’ Thanksgiving Dinner.  Kroger has created a platform via Meal Kits that will empower millennials to cook a traditional meal without the worry of being frazzled. 

Regular readers of this blog know that Kroger acquired Home Chef recently and after rolling out Home Chef meals in many of their locations; Kroger is now integrating the acquisition by offering Holiday Meal Kits called ‘Merry Meal Kit’s in two options at select Kroger banner locations. 

The first option is a Medium Turkey or Smoked Turkey Meal Kit.  The second is a Spiral Ham Meal Kit both meals are priced the same depending on state and location.  Regular reader of this blog know that our Grocerant Guru® has called Meals Kits training wheels for Millennials. 

These Merry Meals Kits my friends are the perfect tool to complement any Millennials first Thanksgiving Dinner.  Bravo for Kroger. Kroger will edify its ‘banners’ relationship with one of the most important sectors of today’s grocery shoppers Millennials. 

Interested in learning how Foodservice Solutions 5P’s of Food Marketing 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.