Where will dinner come from tonight?

Year after year we find food research companies have uncovered that a family meal can be many things. Most important companies the ilk of Technomic, The Hartman Group and Mintel all have discovered multiple options for obtaining the family meal. Key in each of the findings and most interesting too all of us is where the food for the meal comes and how it is prepared and or assembled in the home.

Here is my take from the collective data: Meal time is now becoming a time of convenient meal participation, with differentiation and individualization for the entire family.  

Here are three examples of which we have seen firsthand and each reflects a composite of research on just how meal times are changing.

1. IN home Family Dinner with Children: Comprised of meal components from McDonalds & Taco Time for children under 14 years olds and dinner for adults from Whole foods prepared meal section.  This is dinner, is it a family meal.  Since they all eat together it is assembled in the home and eaten at the same time.   This is not an every day occasion but more often than you may think.

 2.  Urban family Dinner: During a recent business trip after a meeting I went to a business associates home ordered food in.  His wife, I and him, we ordered from three separate companies (Italian Chinese, Greek) one was pickup next door.  I was assured this was not unusual in their household. Again we all ate at the same time, same table simply different food. This occurs much more than you think.

3. Take & Bake pizza is the sole food item only 60% of the time. The other 40% of the time it is complemented with prepared food from other outlets either grocery stores or restaurants. The frequency of 18 – 24 years consumption of pizza is once every 3.7 days. 

Are you selling food that can be bundled and or un-bundled in order to become a mix and match meal component for a family meal? Success does leave clues and many retail food operators are now adopting Foodservice Solutions® 5 P’s of food marketing: Product, Packaging, Placement, Portability and Price. 

Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions® a Tacoma, WA based retail foodservice consultancy has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche.  For product or brand positioning assistance contact Steven A. Johnson or visit http://www.linkedin.com/in/grocerant or on Facebook at Steven Johnson, BING / GOOGLE: Steven Johnson Grocerants or twitter.com/grocerant