Pizza Hut’s Customers helping Brew up Success

Grocerant niche mix and meal bundling continues to drive customer adoption and Pizza Hut is seeing first hand just how it works according to Grocerant Guru® Steven Johnson of Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®

Regular readers of this blog know all of Yum brands concepts are ‘looking for that elusive new electricity to drive incremental sales and profits.  In the case of Pizza Hut one of the new points of electricity just might be its beer delivery test in Phoenix, Pizza Hut said it is expanding the program to 100 locations in Arizona and California.

Pizza is now offering delivery of two packs and six packs of beer, ranging in price from between $3 and $4.50 for two packs and $5.99 and $10.99 for six packs. Six beer options are available: Budweiser, Bud Light, Blue Moon, Coors Light, Miller High Life and Shock Top.

Starting this month, Pizza Huts beer delivery has also been added at more Arizona locations including restaurants in Tucson, Glendale, Prescott, and Winslow. Pizza Hut’s California, beer delivery is now available at participating restaurants in Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Fresno, Riverside, Sacramento, Santa Barbara and Santa Clara, the company said. In Southern California, restaurants in Anaheim, Huntington Beach and Redding will be adding beer delivery later this month.

Pizza Hut said free delivery will be offered in some Arizona markets when customers purchase select six-packs of beer.  Increasing consumer check average is often a risky thing to do how Johnson believes that in this case delivery of beer is seen as a extra value added service and he believes that will not derail this program.

Pizza Hut has indicated that it intends to expand the beer delivery program quickly in 2018.  Roughly 1,700 of Pizza Hut’s nearly 7,500 domestic locations already have liquor licenses. Pizza Hut operates over 16,700 restaurants in more than 100 countries. 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, urban clothing, grocerant consultants, urban farming (produce, seafood, etc.), autonomous delivery, cashier-less retail, cash-less payments, digital hand held marketing. This program has all of that.

Foodservice 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.  That will require brands to embrace new fresh food partnerships more now than ever before according to Johnson.

Are you looking for a new partnership to drive sales? Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing tactics look more like yesterday that tomorrow?  Visit www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information or contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us Remember success does leave clues and we just may have the clue you need to propel your continued success.

Where are we eating dinner looks to be top of mind with consumers.

Grocerant niche fresh prepared continues to get consumers out of the kitchen, save time and create a platform for curated, customized, colorful meals comprised of individualized meal components according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

In new research by Artisola, a fresh-pasta brand, surveyed 2,000 Americans and found that just 27% cook at home every single day. Regular readers of this blog know that consumer migration to grocerant niche meal components continues to increase.  Here is more from The Artisola Survey:

1.       68% of Americans cook more than four times a week, and 6% of Americans say they don’t cook at all.

2.       When deciding what to cook, 38% use what’s in their fridge, while another 29% eat what’s convenient, meaning prepared foods that just have to be warmed.

3.       When asked why they don’t cook as much as they’d like, 47% of Americans said they were tired of cooking the same thing.

4.       If you were questioning the survival of meal kits, 50% of those surveyed said they spend more than an hour on meal preparation.

5.       Who cooks the most at home? According to the survey, these are the top five states that have the most people who cook seven days a week, starting with No. 1: Iowa, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Oklahoma and Arkansas, with California ranking 18 on the list and New York coming in at 20.

Is it time for you to 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

Starbucks, Pizza Hut and 7-Eleven too Test Self-Driving Stores

Three of the largest foodservice companies in the world 7-Eleven, Starbucks  and Pizza Hut are exploring expanding new points of fresh food distribution via self-driving Toyota all electric vehicles.  Regular readers of this blog know that Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® has talked a lot about how foodservice companies are searching for new electricity to drive elevated contemporized brand relevance well here are two companies that excel at doing just that. 

That new electricity that is going to be tested will elevate the brand competition for fresh food, beverages, and fresh prepared meal components within the grocerant niche.  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, grocerant consultants, urban farming (produce, seafood, etc.), autonomous delivery, cashier-free retail, cash-less payments, digital hand held marketing. This program has all of that.

Foodservice 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.  That will require brands to embrace new fresh food partnerships more now than ever before according to Johnson.

More importantly its going to leave many in the grocery sector scratching their heads wondering how are we ever going to compete with the likes of Amazon Go just walk out technology and Amazon Fresh online grocery shopping and now restaurants and c-stores that can drive right up to a house, office building or work site and delivery fresh prepared meals or meal components? The answer is simple quit thinking like you have always thought and start looking a customer ahead.

Toyota Motor’s is teaming up with key grocerant niche foodservice players to develop new services that harness self-driving technology.  The Japanese automaker has partnered with convenience-store chain Seven-Eleven Japan to develop a mobile store using its automated driving platform. An electric vehicle will either be loaded with goods and drive itself to a predetermined location or consumers will be able to stop the unmanned vehicle to make purchases.  How cool is that!  Yes, the world is evolving fast are you?

Toyota  calls its automated mobility services ecosystem e-Palette. Last January in the U.S., Toyota unveiled three concept vehicles for the program -- one as long as 7 meters -- that it envisions providing such services as automatic transportation of people and goods or mobile shops.

Toyota also plans to collaborate with Starbucks on a mobile cafe and with group member Toyota Industries on delivering packages to homes in unmanned mobile lockers. The automaker will determine with each company how to use electric-vehicle technology, and the new partnerships will likely be based in Japan.

Toyota’s e-Palette system is not only aimed at promoting the company's electric cars, but also the creation of new offerings like safety controls, insurance, payments and maintenance. Toyota aims to lease these vehicles and provide various services to its collaborators. It also hopes to gather data that will help commercialize more advanced automation.

Are you trapped doing what you have always done and doing it the same way?  Where is your new electricity coming from?  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.

Foodservice Marketing Partnerships Drive Success at Sprite, Shake Shack, McDonald’s

Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® Steven Johnson in January 2018 announced that strategic partnerships would be the undercurrent of a new electricity driving foodservice top line growth and bottom-line profits moving forward.   Well here is another example McDonalds and Shake Shack partner with Joe Freshgoods and Allbirds to release limited edition mashup merchandise.

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, urban clothing, grocerant consultants, urban farming (produce, seafood, etc.), autonomous delivery, cashier-less retail, cash-less payments, digital hand held marketing. This program has all of that.

Foodservice 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.  That will require brands to embrace new fresh food partnerships more now than ever before according to Johnson.

Retailers understand that as brands release new products, one of the lessons they are learning is that partnering with another popular brand can help build the excitement. Two recent promotions featured seemingly odd partnerships in which fast food met fashion. In the first of these brand collabs, the popular burger chain Shake Shack teamed up with San Francisco shoe maker Allbirds.

The new electricity Allbirds provided was an exclusive shoe in white wool with green laces, featuring the Shake Shack logo on the tongue. The shoe is only available for purchase at Shake Shack’s original Madison Square Park location in Manhattan. Shake Shack will also be serving its new Hokey Pokey Shake to celebrate the collaboration.

The new electricity  Sprite and McDonald’s created was partnering with streetwear designer Joe Freshgoods to promote the fast food chain’s new exclusive Sprite flavor, the Mix. The fashionable clothing line will be available only at a select few McDonald’s locations. Spotify is also getting in on the fun with an exclusive track by rapper KYLE.

Are you looking for a new partnership to drive sales? Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing tactics look more like yesterday that tomorrow?  Visit www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information or contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us Remember success does leave clues and we just may have the clue you need to propel your continued success.

Chain Restaurant Leadership Mediocrity and Complacency Stifles Success

When it comes to building top line sales and bottom line profits chain restaurants have failed to keep their brands relevant as consumers continue to opt grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food options instead of frequenting restaurants or ordering from a chain restaurant.

Regular readers of this blog understand that chain restaurant brand protectionism of the 1970’s, 1990’s and 2000’s is dead.  Only Neanderthal C-level chain restaurant executives are trying to maintain the status quo of a bygone era.   If your chain added online ordering, catering options, delivery within the past three years you most likely fit in that Neanderthal grouping as those points of consumer relevance introduced by our own Grocerant Guru® back in 1998 this is 2018.  How far behind the consumer are you today?

Consider this restaurant sector menu prices are up 2.4% through May 2018 and chain restaurant same store sales are up a 0.3% in May according to TDn2K The simple fact is many chain restaurant executives frequent long established food industry trade events to look for new jobs rather than hear new things according team Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  

When they do listen to educational event at an industry conference they nine times out of ten hear the same speakers adding no new insights only a new version of the same old metric, focus, of past relevance year after year. Well just how well has that worked.   

Black Box Intelligence, reports that same-store traffic declined by 2.9% during the month May 2018, a 150-basis-point decrease from April’s 1.4% decline. Does anyone think the business model for chain restaurants needs to evolve to stay relevant?

Reality check, hell yes it’s time for a reality check.  When Steven Johnson the Grocerant Guru® published his white paper back in 2012 titled The 65 Inch HDTV Syndrome, grocery store service deli’s, convenience stores, and new non-traditional fresh food retailers took notice but not chain restaurants as they were working very hard to ‘protect the brand’.

The fact is that brand protectionism has stifled customer relevance for most legacy restaurant chains.  Simply look at Boston Market’s a once thriving grocerant niche concepts store count in 2005, 2010, 2015, 2018 and you can see how adding table service, trying to look like a chain restaurant of 1980 help them as they reduced store count substantially between 2005 and 2018.

Is your chain restaurant staring to look more like Boston Market than Amazon Go or Bingo Box?  Are you selling fresh prepared food for yesterday’s consumers, today’s consumers or tomorrows?  If your sending your executive to industry trade events to the same person speak you heard 30 times the past 30 years you might be wasting your team members time.

If you just hearing about Netflix consuming more and more consumers time and leaving less time visit your restaurant I’ve got news for you your wasting your companies money, you’re wasting your employees time and you are losing customer relevance.

The fact is fundamental change requires evolving with the consumers thus not practicing brand protectionism you brand must to as alive as the consumer.  Consumers are not eating less food they are buying to somewhere else.  We know where and why they are buying.  It just might be time to call the Grocerant Guru®.  Don’t become the next Boston Market.

Are you trapped doing what you have always done and doing it the same way?  Where is your new electricity coming from?  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.

Are you Exploring Cashier-less Foodservice

Amazon’s Amazon Go, Alibaba’s BingoBox are disruptors that cannot be discounted, dismissed, or detoured according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  Cashier-less retail is driving consumer trial, customer migration, and foodservice sector uncertainty. 

Many legacy Grocery stores, Chain Restaurants, and Convenience Stores tout operational efficiencies however most of those efficiencies are based on industry standards established in the 1960’s and have little if any relevance today. 

If you are a foodservice company today and your business model looks more like the 1990’s, 2005, or 2015 your best days just may be behind you according to Johnson. Here is an example The foodservice retail sector is evolving faster today than ever before driven by consumers that want their orders faster than ever before.  Wendy’s, for example, planned to roll out self-ordering kiosks at about 1,000 of its retail locations by the end of 2017 in an attempt to both lure younger customers and to battle long lines at peak dining hours. That solution looks more like a yesterday than tomorrow’s retail template for success according to Johnson.

Self-service kiosk are simply a inside the box solutions while customers are looking from outside the box for incremental food options according to Johnson. What food companies sell, where they sell it and to whom they sell it too have evolved.  Selling the same thing, in the same way for most food retailers is not a long term prescription for success.  Business models are evolving. Does your business model look more like yesterday than today or tomorrow?

Cashier-less retailers today offer a wider variety of fresh prepared food and beverages enabling consumers to customize, personalize ad family dinner, individual lunch or breakfast for less and faster than most  fast food restaurants offer today.  Don’t let your foodservice brand get trapped looking back and playing catch-up while other are braking away from the pack.

Are you trapped doing what you have always done and doing it the same way?  Where is your new electricity coming from?  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.

Innovation Grocerants offer Different Choices and Consumer Like the new Options

What brings customers into you location with the desire to buy more and more?  Innovation; simply put doing whatever you do better, faster, and doing it with Braggability, as Braggability inspires word of mouth advertising, empowers personal endorsements, setting the stage for an ongoing dialogue according to our Grocerant Guru®. 

While Millennials are seeking food discovery, others are simply tired of the same old same old. Foodservice retail customer migration has been most difficult for legacy foodservice chains lacking differentiation.   Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® Steven Johnson says “Differentiation does not mean different rather it means familiar with a twist and today that twist must be clearly defined and noticeable.” I ask does your foodservice retail outlet have “Braggability’? Grocerants niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat food is different, much has ‘Braggability”.

When you think about it very little has changes since Henry Ford’s 1922 autobiography “My Life and Work” he famously remarked, “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” In this statement, Ford the pioneer of the assembly line was stating that mass producing the same product in large numbers was the secret to keeping prices low.

All things being equal, people like to have things that are custom made just for them or allow for customization and personalization. Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® continually reminds us that the consumer is dynamic not static. That helps explain the evolving retail demand for a food platform that includes convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization that platform has become the Grocerant niche.  

Consumers like ‘eating-out while eating-in’ (eating-at-home) according to our Grocerant Guru®., means take-out food has become the food of choice, and meal component bundling is how most foodservice retailers can garner the attention of new customers. Mix and Match meal component bundling is the best way which retailers can differentiate themselves, from other retail outlets while garnering new customers with an increased frequency of purchasing

Back in the day that is to say prior to 2005 no one would have thought that the future of food was not a chain restaurant.  Streets were lined with Look-a-Like Menu-a-Like steakhouses, fern bars and grills, Quick Service Restaurants and food courts in every mall and city in the United States.

Not any longer today the Grocerant Niche fresh prepared food has caught on fire. Once considered uniquely American the grocerant niche is booming in Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa of late.  Universal commonalities of time saving, lack of cooking skill-set, meal component bundling have taken root.  Many of us at Foodservice Solutions® have been helping drive success in the Grocerant niche since 1991. 

Grocerant Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food is about discovery, simplicity, and transparency fresh food fast without the labels of ingredients that no one wants to pronounce let alone understand. New unique venues and menus are two of the biggest drives companies the ilk of Pinkies Liquor stores, Wawa is much more than a C-store, Hello-Fresh is a global Meal Kit success story driving new trends. Each has ‘braggability, they are different, notable driving non-traditional meals outlets and occasions to social consumption acceptance.

These new non-traditional food retailer’s of which many serve great food in unusual surroundings, each offer a side of ‘braggability’ while creating a social buzz that is becoming a roar.  More and more that ‘braggability’ is in the form of Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food. The retail foodservice and restaurant business is famously Look-a-Like Menu-a-Like outlet design alike platform. Simply put that has become boring for consumers.  What do you give your customers to talk about? Boast about?

So think about it. Does your retail foodservice outlet have ‘braggability’? How do you package your food? How do you package a meal?  Is the meal you offer today the same as it was ten years ago? If so them maybe your restaurant is running more like yesterday that today.  Create ‘braggability’ it’s simple it will make you noticed by new customers and notable by your current customers.

Foodservice Solutions FIVE P’s of Food Marketing can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization and braggability?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information.