Fresh Is No Longer a Department — It Is the Foodservice Battleground

 

For years Steven Johnson, The Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® has argued that Fresh Is First.

Today, the data tells us something even more important: Fresh is no longer simply a department, a perimeter strategy, or a grocery-store differentiator. Fresh has become a competitive foodservice platform.

And the retailers, restaurants, convenience stores and food brands that understand that distinction will be the ones capturing the next generation of meal occasions.

The old food marketing playbook was built around categories: grocery, restaurant, convenience, deli, bakery, frozen and center store.

The consumer doesn't think that way anymore.

Consumers think about what they want to eat, when they want it, how much time they have, what it will cost and whether it looks and tastes good.

That is the real battlefield.

The Fresh Revolution Has Become a Foodservice Revolution

Back when this article was originally written, the idea that fresh prepared food could become a major competitive weapon across food retail was still emerging.

Fast-forward to 2024, 2025 and 2026, and the evidence is difficult to ignore.

FMI reported that retail foodservice prepared-food sales reached approximately $50.9 billion in 2024, up 1.4%. At the same time, 70.7% of households regularly purchased foodservice-at-retail products, averaging 9.5 purchase occasions annually.

But perhaps even more revealing is where fresh sits within the overall grocery equation.

FMI reported that fresh foods represented 42% of total grocery sales in 2024. Foodservice within fresh foods reached approximately $56 billion, making prepared food one of the industry's most important differentiation strategies.

That is not a niche.

That is a structural shift.

2024: Fresh Became a Competitive Weapon

Circana's 2024 food-and-beverage outlook predicted that deli would outperform overall food-and-beverage unit sales, with convenient grab-and-go products helping drive the category.

Circana specifically pointed to the need for perimeter departments to optimize turnkey solutions for consumers seeking food on the go.

Meanwhile, Technomic found that convenience stores were increasingly competing on food quality.

In its 2024 research, consumers rated c-store foodservice at least as good as—or better than—quick-service restaurants on several attributes, including price, freshness, cleanliness and quality. Technomic also found that 75% of c-store foodservice patrons prioritize the ability to multitask during the visit.

Think about what just happened.

The supermarket began behaving more like a restaurant.

The convenience store began behaving more like a restaurant.

Restaurants began behaving more like retailers.

And consumers simply kept moving between all of them.

That is Food Channel Blurring.

2025: The Grocery Deli Crossed the Line

Then came an even more important signal.

FMI's 2025 Power of Foodservice at Retail report found that the share of consumers using deli-prepared foods instead of restaurant meals more than doubled—from 12% in 2017 to 28% in 2025.

More than half of Americans—53%—were taking a hybrid approach to meals, combining deli-prepared foods with items prepared at home.

Retail foodservice dollar sales rose 1.6% to $52.1 billion over the measured period.

Read that again.

The grocery deli is no longer simply competing with another grocery store.

It is competing for restaurant occasions.

And restaurants shouldn't assume the competition is another restaurant.

The competition might be a grocery-store rotisserie chicken, a prepared entrée, a fresh sandwich, a salad, pizza, sushi, a convenience-store meal or something ordered digitally and delivered to the front door.

The consumer doesn't care which industry invented the meal.

They care whether the meal solves the occasion.

Convenience Has Become a Food Attribute

This is where I believe many legacy food marketers still have it wrong.

They continue to treat convenience as a distribution advantage.

It isn't.

Convenience is now part of the product.

A fresh sandwich that requires a 20-minute wait isn't necessarily competing against another sandwich.

It is competing against the sandwich that can be picked up in 90 seconds.

A grocery deli that produces outstanding food but doesn't make it easy to find, order, pay for and carry home is leaving value on the table.

FMI's 2024 research showed that consumers increasingly want restaurant-like capabilities from retail foodservice, including online menus, advance ordering and pickup or delivery.

That is why Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat matter so much.

They collapse the distance between fresh food and immediate consumption.

2026: Fresh Is Moving From Differentiator to Destination

Now look at 2026.

McKinsey reports that grocery shoppers identify convenience (74%) and saving time (68%) among the leading reasons they buy prepared foods from grocers.

Even more important, the frequency of prepared-food purchases increased 9% year over year from August 2024 to August 2025.

And FMI's latest 2026 research reinforces the point: prepared, ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat grocery foods have become part of today's lunch routine because they are fast and convenient.

At the same time, consumers haven't abandoned the home.

Quite the opposite.

FMI reports that 44% of shoppers say they are having more family meals at home than a year earlier, while 35% say they are cooking more often. Half say they are eating fewer restaurant meals and ordering less takeout and delivery for their families.

This is enormously important.

It means the opportunity isn't simply restaurant versus grocery.

It is foodservice versus friction.

Consumers want the economics, flexibility and comfort of home without necessarily wanting to do all the work required to produce the meal.

That is precisely where the Grocerant niche wins.

Fresh + Prepared + Convenient = The New Value Equation

Foodservice is also confronting a consumer who has become much more deliberate about spending.

Circana reported that U.S. foodservice operator spending reached $357.3 billion for the 12 months ending June 2025, up 3.7%, even though traffic was essentially flat.

And Circana found that 29% of commercial foodservice traffic was purchased on a deal, the highest level recorded in its 50-year historical analysis.

But here is the catch:

Value is not synonymous with cheap.

Consumers are increasingly evaluating the complete equation:

Price + Portion + Quality + Freshness + Convenience + Experience.

That is why a $9 prepared meal can compete with a $15 restaurant meal—and why a $5 meal can still lose if it looks tired, tastes mediocre or creates friction.

The winning proposition isn't simply lower price.

It is better perceived value for the occasion.

The New Food Marketing Battlefield Is the Meal Occasion

This brings us back to the five ideas in the original article:

Fresh.

Health.

Experience.

Instant gratification.

New.

Those ideas haven't disappeared.

They have merged.

Today's consumer increasingly wants food that is:

Fresh enough to feel good.
Convenient enough to fit real life.
Interesting enough to be worth buying.
Affordable enough to justify the purchase.
Available enough to become habitual.

That is why I believe the next phase of food marketing will be less about protecting traditional channels and much more about winning meal occasions.

A grocery store can win breakfast.

A convenience store can win lunch.

A restaurant can win dinner.

A supermarket deli can win the family meal.

A coffee shop can win the afternoon snack.

And a digital platform can win all of them.

The boundaries are gone.

The Fresh Food Opportunity Is Bigger Than the Grocery Store

One of the most telling developments is happening in convenience.

Circana expanded its U.S. convenience-store coverage in 2025 to include approximately $15 billion in annual sales from prepared foods, dispensed beverages and fresh products across 40 major chains. That includes prepared sandwiches, pizza, coffee, bakery and produce.

That should make every food marketer uncomfortable.

Because the c-store isn't merely selling gasoline, beverages and packaged snacks anymore.

It is building a fresh foodservice ecosystem.

And Technomic's research shows operators are continuing to invest in freshness, quality, selection and innovation to make c-stores credible foodservice destinations.

Meanwhile, restaurants are investing heavily in off-premise convenience, digital ordering, loyalty and formats designed around speed.

Everybody is moving toward the same consumer.

The Grocerant Guru® Bottom Line

I have been saying for years that the grocerant niche would expand because consumers don't shop channels—they shop solutions.

The data from 2024, 2025 and 2026 suggests that the transformation is no longer coming.

It is here.

Fresh is first because fresh creates the perception of quality.

Prepared is powerful because it removes labor from the consumer.

Ready-2-Eat wins because it eliminates time.

Heat-N-Eat wins because it gives consumers control.

And foodservice wins when all four are combined with taste and value.

The future belongs to companies that stop asking, "What category are we in?"

The better question is:

"Which meal occasion are we trying to own?"

Two Insights From the Grocerant Guru®

1. Stop merchandising Fresh—start marketing meals.

A beautiful fresh department isn't enough. Consumers don't wake up wanting to visit the perimeter. They wake up wanting breakfast, lunch, dinner, a snack or something they can take home tonight. The next generation of fresh-food marketing must merchandise around meal occasions, dayparts and solutions, not simply departments.

2. The real competitor isn't another food company—it is friction.

If your customer has to search, wait, order, pay, assemble, cook or clean when a competitor eliminates those steps, your brand has a problem. The winners will make fresh food faster, easier, more visible and more craveable without sacrificing quality.

Something to Think About

If Fresh Is First—and consumers are increasingly buying fresh prepared food wherever they can find it—why are so many food companies still organizing their businesses around yesterday's channels instead of tomorrow's meal occasions?

That may be the most important question in food marketing today.

Success does leave clues.

The Grocerant Guru® continues to believe that the greatest opportunity in food retail and foodservice is at the intersection of Fresh + Taste + Technology + Convenience + Value.

The companies that connect those dots first won't just sell more food.

They will own more occasions.

Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideas look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Interested in learning how our Grocerant Guru® 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 one of the following links: Facebook,  LinkedIn, or Twitter

Competitive Food Marketing Is Dead — The Consumer Has Moved On

 

The Grocerant Guru® says the food marketer’s biggest competitor is no longer the restaurant across the street. It is the consumer’s smartphone, search engine, AI assistant, grocery deli, convenience store, and every other channel competing for the next meal.

For years, food marketers have operated as though consumers still followed a predictable path: breakfast, lunch, dinner; grocery store, restaurant, home. They built annual marketing calendars around promotions, television, circulars, loyalty programs and product launches.

That world is disappearing.

The status quo in food marketing is dead.

The consumer has moved on—and the food industry needs to move with them.

The question remains deceptively simple: “What’s for dinner?”

But today, the consumer does not necessarily ask a spouse, look through a cookbook or drive to the nearest restaurant to answer it. Increasingly, the answer can come from Google, TikTok, Instagram, a retailer app, a restaurant app, a delivery platform—or increasingly, artificial intelligence.

In 2026, FMI reports that 53% of shoppers have used AI for at least one food-related task, including recipes, nutrition information, meal planning, shopping lists, price comparisons and product discovery. Even more important, 84% of shoppers can identify at least one way they would use a personal digital assistant to help feed their families.

Read that again.

The food marketer is no longer simply competing for shelf space, menu share or advertising impressions.

The food marketer is competing to become part of the consumer's decision-making algorithm.

The Smartphone Was Only the Beginning

The old Grocerant Guru® premise was that the consumer's path to purchase increasingly existed in the palm of the consumer's hand.

That prediction has aged well—but the smartphone is no longer the end game.

In 2024, FMI reported that 37% of grocery shoppers were already using their mobile phones to compare prices across stores, a dramatic increase from 2016. Half of shoppers were using digital coupons, compared with 37% using physical coupons. FMI also found that consumers were spending less time preparing dinner, with 32% spending less than 30 minutes on dinner preparation, up from 18% in 2020.

The message for legacy food marketers should be uncomfortable:

Consumers have more information, more choices and less patience than ever.

And they are not waiting for your next television campaign to tell them what to eat.

2024: The Consumer Started Taking Control

The evidence was already visible in 2024.

The National Restaurant Association found that seven in 10 adults looked for deals when ordering takeout or delivery or dining in a restaurant. Seven in 10 limited-service restaurant customers said they would be likely to use a smartphone app to order, while eight in 10 delivery customers said they would order through a smartphone app.

Meanwhile, FMI found that food retailers were responding to the same consumer migration. 79% were increasing in-store space for freshly prepared grab-and-go foods, while 81% were experimenting with in-store technology.

This is where the traditional competitive model begins to break down.

A supermarket is not simply competing with another supermarket.

A restaurant is not simply competing with another restaurant.

A convenience store is not simply competing with another convenience store.

They are all competing for the same eating occasion.

That is the essence of the Grocerant.

2025: The Walls Between Channels Came Down

By 2025, the food channel-blurring phenomenon was impossible to ignore.

Circana reported that U.S. foodservice operator spending reached $357.3 billion for the 12 months ending June 2025, up 3.7% from the prior year.

But growth wasn't simply about consumers eating more restaurant meals.

Circana found that consumers were pursuing what it calls “pervasive value”—value that can mean price, quality, convenience, time savings or even indulgence. Grocery quick trips increased 8.9%, while shoppers purchased fewer items per trip. Importantly, those trips included more perimeter purchases, including deli-prepared and heat-and-eat meals.

And convenience stores are becoming a much more serious competitor.

In 2025, Circana expanded its convenience-store measurement to include $15 billion in annual sales from prepared foods, beverages and fresh products across 40 major chains.

That is not a side business.

That is a competitive food channel.

The consumer doesn't care whether the meal came from a restaurant kitchen, supermarket deli, convenience store, ghost kitchen or frozen-food aisle.

The consumer cares whether the food solves today's problem.

2025 Also Proved That “Meal” Is No Longer a Fixed Occasion

Circana's 2025 Eating Patterns in America research analyzed more than 618 billion eating and drinking occasions representing more than $1.7 trillion in spending.

One of its central findings was that traditional boundaries between meals and snacks continue to blur as consumers search for food solutions throughout the day.

That should terrify anyone still building marketing plans around rigid dayparts.

Breakfast is becoming portable.

Lunch is becoming transactional.

Dinner is becoming modular.

Snacking is becoming a meal.

And a meal can be assembled from a restaurant entrée, grocery-store side dish, convenience-store beverage and something already sitting in the freezer.

The consumer is constructing meals.

Food marketers are still marketing categories.

That is the disconnect.

2026: AI Has Entered the Dinner Decision

Now comes the really uncomfortable part.

In January 2026, FMI reported that 53% of shoppers had already used AI for food-related needs. Those uses include meal planning, recipes, price comparisons, nutrition information and shopping lists.

That means the question “What's for dinner?” has acquired a new competitor.

It is no longer just:

“Which brand has the best advertising?”

It is:

“Which brand does the AI recommend?”

That changes everything.

Search engine optimization becomes only one piece of the puzzle.

Food marketers need to start thinking about AI discoverability.

Can an AI assistant find your menu?

Can it understand your ingredients?

Can it identify your nutritional attributes?

Can it see today's promotion?

Can it compare your price?

Can it determine that your prepared meal feeds a family of four?

Can it tell a consumer that your store is 2.3 miles away and has dinner ready in 10 minutes?

If the answer is no, your marketing may be invisible at the precise moment the consumer is making the decision.

And Then There Is the Grocery Store

Here is another uncomfortable fact.

FMI's 2026 research found that 44% of shoppers say they are having more family meals at home than a year ago, 35% say they are cooking more often, and half say they are eating fewer restaurant meals and ordering less takeout and delivery for their families.

That does not mean the restaurant is dead.

Far from it.

It means the definition of competition has changed.

The grocery retailer that can provide a rotisserie chicken, prepared side dishes, salad, dessert and beverage has effectively become a restaurant competitor.

The restaurant that provides a family meal bundle has become a grocery competitor.

The convenience store that delivers a hot sandwich, beverage and snack in minutes is competing with both.

And the frozen-food aisle is no longer merely the place consumers go when they have “nothing else.”

FMI's 2026 Power of Frozen research found that 76% of consumers combine fresh and frozen ingredients in the same meal, while 37% specifically use frozen foods to reduce food waste. Ease of preparation, price and taste rank among the category's leading purchase drivers.

The consumer is channel agnostic.

Why isn't the food marketer?

Legacy Marketing's Biggest Problem Isn't Technology

It is mindset.

Too many legacy food marketers still think the job is to create awareness.

Awareness is no longer enough.

Consumers can become aware of 50 products before breakfast.

They can compare prices instantly.

They can read reviews.

They can watch somebody prepare the product.

They can ask AI whether it is healthy.

They can find a substitute.

They can order it.

They can have it delivered.

And they can tell thousands of other consumers whether they liked it.

The consumer has effectively become the media channel.

That means marketing has moved from interruption to participation.

In 2024, the National Restaurant Association found that 76% of operators believed technology provided a competitive edge.

By 2026, that conversation has moved well beyond ordering and payment.

It is now about discovery, personalization, recommendation, convenience and relevance.

The New Competitive Battlefield: The Eating Occasion

The food industry needs to stop asking:

“Who is our competitor?”

Start asking:

“Who can win this eating occasion?”

At 5:15 p.m., a family doesn't necessarily distinguish between:

·       A supermarket deli;

·       McDonald's;

·       Costco;

·       DoorDash;

·       a convenience store;

·       a frozen entrée;

·       leftovers;

·       meal kits;

·       a restaurant family bundle; or

·       an AI-generated recipe.

They see them as solutions to the same problem.

That's why the Grocerant is not a niche anymore.

The Grocerant is the competitive battlefield.

The consumer wants food that is affordable, convenient, fresh, tasty, portable, customizable and available now.

The winning brand will deliver the best combination of those attributes at the exact moment the consumer is ready to buy.

Marketing's Old Calendar Is Breaking

The old model was:

Plan → Advertise → Promote → Wait → Measure.

The emerging model is:

Sense → Personalize → Recommend → Fulfill → Learn → Repeat.

That is a radically different marketing system.

And AI accelerates it.

The 2026 consumer is increasingly comfortable allowing technology to participate in meal planning. Younger shoppers are particularly digital: FMI reports that nine out of 10 Gen Z shoppers use at least one digital tool to plan grocery trips, including retailer apps, search engines, AI tools and social media. Gen Z also visits an average of 6.7 grocery retailers each month.

The consumer isn't loyal to your channel.

The consumer is loyal to what works.

That distinction is enormous.

The Status Quo Is Dead

Food marketers who continue to measure success primarily through impressions, reach, promotional lift and store traffic are measuring yesterday's marketplace.

Tomorrow's metrics will increasingly include:

Discovery.

Recommendation.

Conversion.

Convenience.

Frequency.

Personalization.

Eating-occasion share.

And perhaps most importantly:

How often does your brand become the answer when the consumer asks, “What's for dinner?”

That is the new marketing question.

Not “Did consumers see our ad?”

Not “Did they visit our website?”

Not even “Did they visit our store?”

Did we become the solution?

Four Insights From the Grocerant Guru®

1. The Next Battle Is for the AI Recommendation

The next generation of food marketing will not be fought exclusively on television, Google search or social media.

It will be fought inside AI-generated recommendations.

If AI can't understand your brand, menu, value proposition, ingredients, availability, location and customer experience, you may not exist at the moment of decision.

The smartest food marketers will begin optimizing not only for search engines—but for answer engines.

2. The Eating Occasion Will Replace the Food Category

Consumers don't wake up thinking, “I need to purchase something from the deli category.”

They think:

“I need dinner.”

Or lunch.

Or a snack.

Or something high-protein after the gym.

Or something the kids will actually eat.

The future belongs to brands that market solutions to eating occasions, not products sitting inside organizational categories.

3. Convenience Will Become a Brand Attribute

Convenience used to mean location.

Then it meant drive-thru.

Then delivery.

Now convenience means the entire journey from idea to consumption.

The winning brand will remove friction from discovery, ordering, payment, preparation, pickup and consumption.

The food marketer's new question should be:

“What friction can we eliminate next?”

4. The Grocerant Will Become the Center of Food Marketing Strategy

Restaurants, grocery retailers, convenience stores, manufacturers and technology companies can continue pretending they operate in separate industries.

Consumers don't.

The consumer sees one enormous food marketplace.

And the winner will be whichever brand can deliver the right food, at the right price, through the right channel, at the right moment—with the least friction.

That is why I believe the next decade of food marketing will be less about protecting traditional channels and more about owning eating occasions.

The consumer has already moved.

Now the question is whether legacy food marketers are willing to move with them.

Remember: success does leave clues. The problem is that some food marketers are still looking for yesterday's clues.

— Steven Johnson, The Grocerant Guru®
Foodservice Solutions®

The Battle is for 

SHARE OF STOMACH