Food Retailing Never Take’s a Step Backward

Meal components are drive home viewing and home dining in 2013. Grocery stores, C-stores, and Club stores vie for Dinner customers threatening the restaurant sector’s market share. The 65 Inch HDTV Syndrome edifies the dinner at home trend. The choice between dining-out or cooking at home could be the size of the HDTV.  At the intersection of the consumer, technology and retail food sales we find the grocerant niche creating and expanding points of quality food distribution.

 It’s at that intersection that Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru Steven Johnson identified one universal commonality driving consumers buying pattern changes.  Johnson calls it “The 65 Inch HDTV Syndrome” consumer like HDTV’s have invested heavily in them they are key to the evolving food space.

The grocerant niche is the result of the blurring line between restaurants, grocery stores, convenience stores, and drug stores all selling fresh prepared, portable, convenient meal solutions.  Targeted at the time-starved consumer with Ready-2-Eat or Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food components that are perceived “better for you”, and portioned for one or two. Consumers like the Convenient Meal Participation, Differentiation, Individualization / Family Customization that these retailers offer.

Restaurateurs need to be particularly mindful of developments within the grocerant niche for they are driving the change within the price, value, service equilibrium in retail foodservice. It is at the intersection of the consumer, technology and The 5 P’s of Food Marketing: Product, Packaging, Placement, Portability, and Price that retail food sales competition is expanding. Driving ever greater Mix and Match bundled meal options and new points of distribution for consumers.  Consumers love the on-the-go options in fact Zaget’s 2013 NYC Restaurant Survey found that in New York at-home meals surpassed dining out for the first time in 30 years.

Legacy Home Meal Replacement (HMR) or Retail Meal Solutions (RMS) focus quickly faded away in the Restaurant side of business. However in the Grocery, C-store and Drug Store sector it continued to be studied, tested, and implemented. Today HMR and RMS have been replaced by the grocerant niche. It is the strategic path of choice for non-traditional food retailers, targeted at restaurant customers, profitable and expanding at an ever increasing pace.

Food Quality Never Takes a Step Back. The grocerant niche is driving new competitive points for food distribution which are a step above consumer expectation in most cases.  Food quality never takes a step back, these evolving new points of fresh food will continue to improve over time increasing industry competitiveness. Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds, and Starbucks, here comes the C-store sector.   When you look at the menu items offered by these legacy conveniences store operators it is clear to see that the grocerant niche is a platform that is creating customer focused equilibrium.   In other words C-stores are not discouraged or intimated by competition from any sector and customers are responding positively.  

Food Retailing Never Take’s a Step Backward.  Consumers are dynamic not static always looking to save both time and money.  The grocerant niche is propelling new quality points of fresh food distribution and competitors that are well financed.

Interested in learning how the 5P’s of Food Marketing can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization contact us via Email us at: grocerant@q.com or visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant or twitter.com/grocerant