Grocerant ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat
fresh prepared food is blurring the line between restaurants and grocery
stores. Grocerant food targets the time-starved consumers, not with ingredients
to make from scratch rather with ready-2-eat or heat-N-eat food components that
can be bundled into a meal.
Just
think about how you shop for most meal preparation needs. You might buy a
rotisserie chicken, pick out something from a salad bar and maybe an appetizer
at the deli service case. Those are components vs. buying uncooked chicken, a
head of lettuce and then having to clean, cut, season and then season and spend
time cooking.
Steven Johnson, is the Grocerant
Guru at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solution® and defines the niche this way "Grocerant
means any retail food item that is ready-2-eat or heat-N-eat
while fresh prepared. Currently these items can be found in grocery stores in
the deli / lifestyle section, Convenience stores in the prepared food area and
prepackaged, ready to eat items and in restaurants under the To-go, takeout or
take away or delivery section of the menu or on the website and now at Chain
Drug Stores Walgreens and Duane Reade."
What is Driving the Grocerant Trend
Its 4 PM: your customers are just beginning to think
about what's for dinner. 81% of American consumers are unsure about what's for
dinner. Time
Starved Consumers are looking for high quality ready to eat foods and
ready to heat meals. Today's time starved consumer wants to purchase meal
components that they can bundle into a customized family meal that will please
everyone without spending time cooking.
Examples of Grocerants
Restaurant examples are McDonalds, Pret
A Manger Burger King, Pizza Hut, Papa Murphy's and Starbucks, each having a fresh
ready-2-eat or heat-N-eat food menu. You may not think of Walgreens as a food
destination yet Walgreens sells fresh soft-serve yogurt, coffee and sushi at
selected stores, so they are technically grocerants. In the Casual Dining
sector Maggiano's Little Italy offers a buy one take a 2nd home for
free in their Classic Pastas menu section.
Convenience Store examples are 7 Eleven, Wawa,
Sheetz and QuickChek, all of which sell fresh and prepared sandwiches, salads,
beverages.
Supermarket examples are Whole Foods,
Central Market, Safeway and Kroger… all sell fresh prepared chicken, salads,
sandwiches and most offer sushi and beverages.
Drug Store
examples are Walgreen and Duane Reade both offer in both New York and
ChicagoSushi, Smoothie, Wine, Coffee, and Fro-yo Bars then
there are the 455+ CafeW’s severing baked goods and beverages.
The retail supermarket and convenience store sector have
unique grocerant challenges. Presentation of the ready-2-eat or heat-N-eat
fresh food is important. When you get a meal at a restaurant, the plate and the
food look great… let's call this "food for now". Retailers are
primarily selling "food for later" or take-out and unless an item is
a sandwich, the looks of ready-2-eat meals and snacks begin to change.
Why is it so hard to package food to go? In the Hot food
section of the grocery store the food in most cases does not look appealing so
our expectations drop when we get it for Take-Away. In convenience stores like
Wawa, the ready to eat food looks great in the to-go containers. Why? Because
Wawa puts the entire package together. They exert more control on the look and
feel of "food for later".
Around the world we are now seeing sections in
department's stores and kiosk in malls in Europe and Asia and airports around
the world. The items can range from entrees to side items and deserts. Some
examples of items range from fried chicken, mash potatoes, cream spinach, to
liver and onions, pizza, hot dogs, steak, prime rib, various casseroles
(hot-dish) to salads, side salads pie, cake and any single proportioned
deserts. They can be picked up at the specific unit, or delivered.
In summary, a Grocerant is a result of the blurring of
the line between restaurants and grocery stores aimed at the time-starved
consumer with ready-2-eat or heat-N-eat food components that can be bundled
into a meal. With new non-traditional points of distribution and retail food
competition opening daily it is the grocerant niche that is growing faster than
any other sector of food retail today.
Invite Foodservice
Solutions® to complete a Migration
Marketing assessment, grocerant program
assessment. For brand, product placement, menu positioning assistance simply
calls Foodservice Solutions® today. Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma, WA has been the global
leader in the Grocerant niche visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson,
Linkedin.com/in/grocerant or twitter.com/grocerant
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