Restaurant Customer Counts stifled by: The 65 Inch HDTV Syndrome

Today as the line between restaurants and food retailers is growing ever thinner. The fight for America's food dollars continues to intensify as consumers find fresh prepared Ready-2-Eat food options at a wide and growing array of retail outlets across almost every retail channel including clothing retailers, convenience stores, chain drug store, chain restaurants, grocery stores, club stores, vending, food trucks and even more non-food retailers like dollar stores. It has become the new electricity driving customer frequency according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

While manufacturers, retailers and restaurants worry about choice overload, consumers have embraced their new choices and show no signs of returning to the old ways. This has resulted in consistent sales declines at legacy food manufactures and Johnson sees no end in sight as grocerant growth continues to expand around the globe. This fight is taking place in what is called the grocerant.

While Johnson and the team at Foodservice Solutions® identified The 65 Inch HDTV Syndrome and presented the findings at MUFSO back in 2012. The restaurant industry is not an industry known for trying to be first as in fastest to market with an ideation, food or technology advance. In the United States the larger the chain in almost all cases the more slowly they are to adopt something than a smaller chain or independent restaurants will. Chain restaurants goal is simple feed one meal at a time in the restaurant while protecting and edifying the brand. It’s 2018 and food delivery which Johnson touted in his MUFSO presentation in 2012 is just now being taken as a serious brand extension.

Historically chain restaurant leaders have denied the credibility of start-up competitors as non-relevant. The pizza sector is a great example; evolving from family dinning independents to national chain of "Red Roof" Italian, then to delivery only outlets and now take-N-bake is garnering market share in the legacy pizza sector.

Trends in the Food Industry Point to an Increase in Non-Traditional Meal Occasions

At the intersection of the consumer, fresh prepared food and technology we fine that consumer eating behavior is evolving and is now beyond the control of traditional food marketers. Evolving culture and lifestyle, demographics along with the new uncertain economy are all putting pressure on the American food consumer:

Demands of work, economic shrinkage, demands of raising a family, commuting, social interaction, kid's after-school activities, all contribute to a food marketplace where convenience vies with price over legacy brands. Recent advances in food packaging and new points of non-traditional food distribution have empowered consumer choice, and Americans are embracing these choices even as legacy marketers cringe. Who's after restaurant food dollars… simply put… everyone.

Why should a restaurateur you care if Walgreens is selling fresh prepared Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared ‘better-for-you’ meal components? Why should you care if Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Safeway and Wegmans are selling Ready-2-Eat and or Heat-N-Eat fresh pizza? Why should you care if Coinstar is selling Seattle Best Coffee at 1,000 locations for $1.00?

You should care because they are selling it, and you are not! The fastest growing sector of retail food service for the past four years has been the Convenience store sector. The C-store sectors growth in large part has been driven by fresh prepared food. Non-traditional avenues of distribution are growing, gobbling market share while establishing new patterns of consumption, price points and customer loyalty. The grocerant niche meals, meal components are the new electricity driving food industry growth and customer adoption.

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.

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 retail food brands and manufactures to embrace new fresh food partnerships more now than ever before according to Johnson.

The team at Tacoma WA, based Foodservice Solutions® see expanded retail disruption driven by the 65 Inch HDTV Syndrome. Don’t let you’re retail brand be stifled for another 6 years. Look out-side your four walls.  Outside eyes can provide top line growth and bottom line profits.

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.

Grocerant Fresh Prepared Food with Portability: Is What’s for Dinner

When asking What’s for dinner there is a very good chance you are looking for fresh prepared multi-flavor, multi-ethnic Grocerant meal components that you can bundle into a customized family meal. Heat-N-Eat and Ready-2--Eat fresh prepared food with portability is driving retail food success in 2018.

Where are you shopping for you food today is not the same place your mother was nor is the meal prepared the same way it was back in the day according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

In the US more and more multi-generational families are gathering for meals together.  Thus the demand for more divergent flavors continues to permeate the dinner table. Grocerant mix and match bundled meal component offerings allow for increased family integration, understanding and acceptance in less time without a required cook from scratch skill set according to Johnson.

Back in the 1940's cooking from scratch was the normal. The average home cooked meal took 150 minutes to prepare. Everyone sat down at the table and enjoyed it or not but they all ate the same thing. Today's "home cooked meal" takes on average less than 30 minutes to prepared. In most cases at least two different entrées are served.

The average time spent inside a McDonalds in the 2,000 was 11 minutes. Today 65+ percent of all McDonald's food is sold via the drive-thru. U.S. fast-food chains are increasingly remodeling restaurants in an effort to garner additional drive-thru customers inside and increase sales, simple because the drive-thru can't hold all the cars.

Consumers Want Easy to Prepare Meals

The grocerant niche continues to grow with companies like Central Market, Whole Foods, Wegmans and 7-Eleven entering the fresh prepared better for you space. Meal time is now becoming a time of convenient meal participation, with differentiation and individualization for the entire family. Safeway with its lifestyle stores are heading in the right direction however the stores are so large consumers are forced to spend more time in them than they want.

More often than not the multi-generational family today is multi-ethnic as well. Creating a demand for more varied flavors and additional cooking skill set that is simply not there. Grocery stores, Convenience Stores, Restaurants and Chain Drug Stores are all selling Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food. Is your focus family dinning? Are you selling meals or meal components for Take-Out, delivery or Take-Away?

Lacking the skill set to prepared fresh prepared multi-ethnic meal components at home coupled with the time it takes to prepared a home cooked meal it is clear the buying habits of consumers will continue to evolve. Bundling mix and match meal components into a meal is one key driver within the grocerant niche according to Johnson.

Given that most American family are comprised of multi-cultural background. The fight for share of stomach will only intensify. How is you’re r brand prepared sell fresh prepared food to this new set of consumers in search of full flavored meal-components?

Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions® a Tacoma, WA based retail foodservice consultancy has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. 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.  Visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant/ or twitter.com/grocerant for more.

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.