Restaurant Day-part Growth Requires Innovation in Menu and Marketing.

Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru Steven Johnson has picked up success clues since 1991 and continues sharing them with the industry.  Restaurateurs work hard to build the top sales and bottom line profits while maintaining market share.  Eric Dzwonczk, AlixPartners’ managing director believes that innovation will be the main driver for success for restaurants moving forward with a focus on daypart expansion.

Dzwonczk stated: "Anything you can do to get customers into your store 24 hours a day is potentially a good thing,". ..Specifically, each daypart is becoming critical, he said. More quick-service restaurants (QSRs) and casual dining players are moving away from their traditional lunch and dinner focus and going after breakfast. At the same time, predominately breakfast businesses are going after lunch and dinner, or moving into late night. …

"McCafe and other specialty drinks get customers in during the day when they otherwise wouldn't be there. That has become very attractive to the mid-afternoon sect," he explained. "Putting things in there like Wi-Fi and television -- all these are done to get consumers into the store at times when they typically wouldn't be there."  Marketing must include reaching out to consumers with legacy programs via new avenues of mobile communication.

Competition for share of stomach continues to increase particularly in the ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat fresh prepared food niche.  Companies the ilk of Walgreens, Wawa, Sheetz, Whole Foods and Central Market have increased their focus on ready-2-eat fresh prepared foods and are winning the hearts and minds of the consumer. I agree with Dzwonczk innovation via daypart is critical for restaurant success moving forward as regular readers of this blog know.

Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced business development. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities or a brand leveraging integration strategy.  Foodservice Solutions of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant or twitter.com/grocerant.