What is Authentic Foodservice During COVID-19

 

Consumers are dynamic not static and consumers are attracted to restaurant foods that are authentic, accessible, with an aroma that offers familiarity as comfort, creating a stress relief amid uncertain times. They want the full-flavored ethnic foods that they grew up with or have been exposed too according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. 

Yes, they want all of that, and they want to eat in a restaurant, but know that’s not a good idea during COVID-19.  So, they are opting for grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food in record number from every sector of food retail.

When Brian Solis wrote recently that “You’re no longer a brand trying to put more “butts in seats” during peak hours. You’re no longer a brand trying to adapt to curbside, BOPIS, or delivery while balancing traditional “butts in seats” models. …

You’re no longer a brand trying to figure out how to compete against ghost kitchens in your elusive free time. You’re all these things and more. Aim for most valuable customers and learn how to use traditional and digital means to deliver value-added, sought after experiences. That’s what this is all about. Disruption happens to you or because of you. Choose the latter!

Brian Solis got the team at Foodservice Solutions® thinking about how our Grocerant Guru® has been helping brands evolve their business model.  In a new report Salesforce and Hathway  that argues that underperforming restaurant brands need to focus on a special subset of Generation-N—the high-value customers (Generation-Novel or Generation-N). Even though these customers make up about a quarter of the population right now, they are responsible for nearly 50 percent of the dining revenue. Through their research and consumer modeling, they were able to find that the chain restaurants that are currently thriving are the ones that are capitalizing on the preferences, motivations and behaviors of these high-value customers. Consumers are dynamic not static.  Are you evolving with consumers fast enough?

Now think about this, McKinsey estimates that 70 percent of consumers will not resume normal, out of home, activities for the near future, and they will take guidance from true experts on when it’s safe to do so. McKinsey also discovered that e-commerce adoption had radically accelerated by 10 years in a matter of a few months. Add to this, the psychological consensus that it takes an average of 66 days to form new behaviors and you have the makings of a new genre of consumerism.

In Salesforce’s Global Shopping Index research, 84 percent of customers said that the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services. So how do you do that within the fastest growing sector of food retail today?  Simple focus on Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food that is authentic and full flavored according to Johnson.

IRI finds sales of meat alternatives sales were up 100.5% for the 52 weeks ending Aug. 9, and up more than 273% for that period vs. three years ago. Without question, consumers have also turned to plant-based options with greater frequency during the pandemic. How has your menu evolved? Looking for high-level insights targeting the Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food grocerant niche?

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

Grocerant Niche Fresh Food Fast is not a CPG Product

Stumble, bumble, and fumble are three words often used to describe how most grocery store and convenience stores prepare and sell Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food offerings.  According to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® “stumble, bumble, and fumble” can be best used to describe how many retailers try and convert fresh food into a CPG product.

While the average C-store generated close to 10,000 more in prepared food sales in 2019 over 2018 a 5.9% increase, Johnson believes that those if they did not try to convert fresh food to a CPG product the increase would have been in 21%+ range.

Frozen beverages the ilk of ‘Slurpee’s’ were up 12.5% and all fresh prepared beverage sales were up over 9.6%. When you look at both grocery store fresh food sales and the convenience sector total food and beverage sales were up 8.7% 2019 over 2018. Johnson reminds us that this is a consumer trend not a fad as the restaurant sector has been capitulating year over year customer counts to both the grocery and c-store sectors for close to 11 years now.

While prepared food segment accounts for nearly 70 percent of all c-store foodservice dollars, the total is closer to 28% within the grocery sector. So, here are five success clues that the team at Foodservice Solutions® believes will help drive top line sales and bottom-line profits leveraging the power of grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food.

1.       Create a menu item as an entity with identity that will become a staple on your menu.

2.       Serve fresh food fast, cook in small batches in-house keep fresh in freshness.

3.       Menu authenticity requires focusing on consumer touchpoints.

4.       Extending the ‘halo’ of better for you to both menu item and packaging.

5.       With success comes scalability, think a customer ahead.  Ask can this scale.

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

Battle for Share of Stomach

Grocerant Niche Green Shoots

The foodservice conundrum ‘COVID-19’ proves one thing according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® “We are all in this together”.  The battle for share of stomach may be distorted at present but Darian Pickett, CEO Acosta says consumers are optimistic and want a return comforting food legacy and evolving avenues of distribution.

In research from Acosta’s first shopper survey from March 6-12 found “concern levels averaged 6.9, and now it’s risen to 8.2 out of 10. That said, we’re optimistic these concerns will reverse with more than half of shoppers surveyed noting they expect their shopping habits to return to ‘normal’ once the pandemic is over.” Here are some insights from Acosta’s third COVID-19 research report, gathered via online surveys conducted between April 3-7, provides insight into both current and future consumer behavior, as well as recommendations for retailers, including:

Previewing Post-Pandemic Life

·         68% of shoppers said it’s extremely or very likely that their grocery habits will return to normal once the pandemic is over.

·         58% of shoppers said it’s extremely or very likely they will return to the same eating-out routines they had before.

·         56% of shoppers said it’s extremely or very likely that they will eat at home more than they used to for a while.

·         31% of shoppers said it’s extremely or very likely they will do more online grocery pickup or delivery than they did before.

Recommendations for Retailers

·         Focus on people first, namely shoppers and staff, and ensure enhanced safety by enabling no-touch transactions, such as self-checkout and Apple Pay.

·         Recognize and respond to changing shopper attitudes and behaviors by offering assorted comfort foods and snacks in addition to essentials.

·         Ensure the retail digital shelf and e-commerce strategies are prepared for the accelerated shift to online grocery demand.

·         With staying at home likely remaining strong in the months post-COVID, provide convenient shopper "solutions" centered on meals and self-care.

·         Accommodate lower-income shoppers who are getting relief to buy food via stimulus checks; they may be looking to trade down and leverage promotions.

Acosta’s research was gathered via online surveys using the company’s proprietary shopper community from April 3-7. The report also includes comparison data from online surveys conducted March 6-12 and March 20-29.

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

Restaurant Food Marketing Executives are in High Demand

These must be the good old days where it wasn’t who you knew, but what you knew, that counted when you were looking for a job. If you have a graduate degree in Food Marketing you are in a select group. From what we are hearing, you are in high demand if the number of referrals, recommendations, and references that we have been asked for recently count. 

If you have restaurant industry food marketing experience there is increased demand for your service according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  Food retail channel lines do not blur in the minds-eye of the consumer according to the Grocerant Guru®.

At the intersection of the growth in grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food and consumers insatiable demand for ever more fresh food we find companies the ilk of Casey’s General Stores with grocerant niche prepared food sales currently at $1.1 Billion Dollars (more than many chain restaurants). 

Recently Casey’s announced restaurant industry veteran Michelle Wickham will join the company as Vice President, Food Service. Wickham’s new job is not intended to be a caretaker role.  There is no doubt that Casey’s plans to evolve the grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food space food sales even higher.

Battle for Share of Stomach

Tom Brennan, Chief Merchandising Officer at Casey’s stated “Michelle’s extensive experience in the restaurant industry will be crucial for the continuing elevation of our guests’ experience with convenient food,” …. “We look forward to her leadership and the passion and energy she will bring in helping Casey’s ensure our stores are consistently delivering delicious food and beverages, on-the-go, and at the highest quality.”

With more than 30 years of restaurant industry experience, including fast casual and casual dining. Most recently, she served as Vice President of Culinary, Category, R&D Management, and Catering for national burger chain Red Robin. However, she worked in a number of operational, sales, and product development roles with Qdoba Mexican Eats, the Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Seattle’s Best, and Yum! Brands.

It’s not just convenience store sector that is looking for Food Marketing Professionals it is Grocery stores chains that sell billions in grocerant niche fresh food, Dollar stores that are fast evolving grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat food offerings.  Let’s not forget restaurants that want evolve their grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food sales are in need of professional trained food marketers.

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 us on our social media sites by clicking one of the following links: Facebook,  LinkedIn, or Twitter

Why is Panera Just Loafing

Most regular readers of this blog know by now that Panera Bread has begun to experiment selling groceries? Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru®, Steven Johnson stated “the way Panera Bread entered grocerant niche sales was a mistake.”

Back in the day Johnson worked on projects for and with Au Bon Pain and Louis Kane as many regular readers of this blog know.  Most of you also know of the great success Au Bon Pain had, has with catering sales in city centers, there early use of online ordering, and delivery and how they evolve the St. Louis Bread Company into what is now (the spinoff) Panera Bread. In Spanish Panera meaning “granary” or “breadbasket” has now never been more important when thinking of the future of the chain according to Johnson.

Success does leave clues.  Panera Bread without a doubt has left many success clues for other fast casual chains to learn from and many more clues for those simply wanting to learn what it means to consistently do more things right the almost any other restaurant company for the past 25 years.

When Panera Bread joined the growing number of restaurant chains that are leveraging their sourcing capabilities to provide for the basic food needs of their customers by offering groceries. It appears they simply jumped in, took the easy route.  The opportunity for Panera Breaded to become the breadbasket for the local communities was overlooked.

Johnson insist Panera Bread’s goal should be evolve the concepts business model platform into a ‘breadbasket for today’s consumers’, and a solution to the age-old question; What’s for Dinner, integrating both its goal and brand messaging.  

While Panera is selling “baked goods, dairy and produce at its more than 2,000 locations available for takeout — through Panera’s rapid pickup, curbside pickup or drive-thru — as well as delivery.” All can be ordered with Panera’s regular menu items or separately on the chain’s website or app.

The app Panera Grocery purchases are applied to reward points in the chain’s MyPanera loyalty program, and the current offer of $5 off of purchases of $15 or more applies to groceries as well.” Johnson notes “That’s simply a reactive solution, short sighted, and with a mixed branded messaging.”  

When Panera CEO Niren Chaudhary said in a press release announcing the new offerings. “With this new service we can help deliver good food and fresh ingredients from our pantry to yours, helping provide better access to essential items that are increasingly harder to come by.” That was simply reactive messaging, clearly rushed. 

The reason the grocerant niche has been the undercurrent of growth in every sector of retail foodservice for the past 15 years driving customer migration is because the key elements are consumer touchpoints that many legacy retailer have either denied, over-looked, or refused to entertain according to Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru®.  Here lets take a look at what Panera is offering today:

·         Avocados: $1.49 each

·         Tomatoes: $1.49 each

·         Blueberries: $2.99 for 6-ounce container

·         Red Grapes: $5.99 per bag of around 2 pounds

·         Greek Yogurt: $5.99 per tub

·         Kids’ strawberry or mixed berry yogurt tubes: $7.99 for 16

·         Skim or 2% milk: $4.99 per gallon

Success does leave clues.  Panera Bread can and should excel within the grocerant niche.  Johnson stated he is confident that Panera will implement something the ilk of Foodservice Solutions® four steps too success: build, measure, learn, and repeat. Then they can take lessons learned, creating a new platform to drive incremental top line sales and bottom line profits. Or they can call the Grocerant Guru® for insights learned over the past 26 years leading the grocerant niche and more forward with fresh food fast edifying consumer relevant touchpoints.  

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

Seoul Taco Evolving Business Model think GROCERANT

Fresh Food with Flavor sells fast and Seoul Taco understands the undercurrent driving customer migration and brand adoption and wants to garner incremental customers, top-line sales and bottom-line profits while driving its brand forward according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  

David Choi the innovative chef and owner of Seoul Taco is expanding offerings at all locations to include grocery items and meal kits positioning his operation in the middle of the grocerant niche. Seoul Taco in Illinois and Missouri now carry a variety of pantry staples for pick-up and delivery, including tortillas, dairy products, eggs, and more. Seoul Taco is also selling pre-packaged meal kits of the brand’s signature menu items, thus time starved, flavor seeking consumers and ‘kill tow birds with one stone’ so to speak.

Battle for Share of Stomach

Offerings serve up to four people, and include:

·         Gogi Bowl Meal Kit: Choice of protein, choice of rice, gochujang pepper paste, Korean salad mix, green onions, carrot, and eggs (to be cooked at home)

·         Burrito Meal Kit: Choice of protein, kimchi fried rice, carrots, green onions, Seoul sauce, wasabi sauce, sour cream, Korean salad mix, and flour tortillas

·         Taco Meal Kit: Choice of protein, Korean salad mix, Seoul sauce, green onions, sesame seeds, and corn tortillas

Meats marinated with the brand’s signature sauces are also available by the pound for guests to cook at home. Seoul Taco is also stocking Asian specialty food items, including rice, spices, and sauces. Seoul Taco is also offering the brand’s entire menu for pick-up and delivery. Evolving the restaurants business model simple makes sense.  What is your brand doing to drive top line sales and bottom line profits?

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 www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  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