Harvesting retail food customers.



Old fashioned, legacy, today’s and tomorrow’s foodservice; where is your company positioned? When I was young my grandmother planed for holiday season, when the entire family would gather. She would grow and can pumpkin, then bake a pie from scratch. My mother would buy canned pumpkin, bake a pie and call it from scratch our holidays. My older sister buys a frozen pie made by Marie Callender’s bakes it and calls it fresh baked. I on the other hand, buy extra folding chairs, a new camera at Costco and pick up a pumpkin pie and say it was baked fresh from scratch.

Retail foodservice is about the consumer. If your company is doing with it did 7 years ago with only minor tweaks you may be entering an era of OLD FASHIONED. Consumer continuity in retail foodservice has changed little in the minds eye of the consumer. The vast majority of consumers still have Turkey and Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving. What has changed is the retail landscape.

Who sells food, how it is prepared, and new points of distribution have empowered consumer choice. The competition is no longer just between a grocery store and a restaurant it is divided between everyone who sells food. Demographics tell us the size of the family unit continue to get smaller. The successful food retailers of today and tomorrow have and are focusing, positioning and meeting the needs of those smaller units in large part with alternative non traditional formats.

Non traditional points of food distribution are evolving garnering your customers. If you’re waiting for the recession to end and things to go back to the way they were. Sorry you are out of luck. Retail foodservice customers are dynamic not static. They move forward, not backward.

Outside eyes can deliver top line insights and bottom line profits. Invite Foodservice Solutions to provide brand and product positioning assistance or a grocerant program assessment. Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche for more on Steven A. Johnson and Foodservice Solutions visit http://www.linkedin.com/in/grocerant or on Facebook at Steven Johnson