Pizza is Back In Style

Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® is just about the only food industry professional that was neither surprised by or confused as to why a clothing retailer would buy a Pizza chain.  It’s simple retail consumers are dynamic not static and any retailer that does not move with the consumer will capitulate market share and earnings.

Pizza is consumer interactive and participatory exactly what a clothing retailer in striving for in marketing messaging.  In our Omni-channel retail world one cannot overlook the brand commonalities that bring these companies together.  They are:

     Americans spend 37 billion a year on pizza sales volume

      About 1 in 8 Americans eats pizza any given
   day frequency

      Pre-teens eat about two times the national
   average demographics

     More than ¼ boys between 6 and 19 eat
   pizza every demographics

      Girls between 6 and 19 eat more pizza than
   any category of guys core demographics

While Costco customers have no problem buying a Latter, a HDTV, Toilet paper, Rotisserie chicken, and a $1.50 Hot Dog and Coca Cola on the same visit why would anyone think Urban Outfitters could not do the same?  By the way the ‘café’ stand where you buy your Hot Dog and soda at Costco reports sales on its own $1.72 Billion dollars and is profitable! 

Then we have Ikea which reports $2 Billion in sales from the restaurant filled with Ready-2-Eat fresh prepared food each year.  Then of course there is Nordstrom’s who’s Coffee Kiosk at each store average $1 Million a year each in sales! 

Retail in 2016 in interactive and participatory brands must be as well.  So when Urban Outfitters announced that it would be buying Philadelphia-based restaurant group Vetri Family, famous for its pizza chain Pizzeria Vetri. Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® applauded the deal.  

Susan Anderson analyst at FBR & Co stated "Retailers are struggling with how to get traffic in stores… Consumers are increasingly shopping online, which makes it harder and harder for retailers like Urban Outfitters to draw them into a physical store.”

Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru-Kodali chimed in saying “the Vetri acquisition was a good move… restaurants are a rapidly growing area of retail; retailers can run really lucrative restaurants and retailers need to diversify so a sector like this is smart,"

Foodservice Solutions® team wants to remind you that McDonald’s sells more toys than any other retailer in the world, and Starbucks outstanding growth is driven by an Omni-channel retail and product focus.

Success does leave clues and understanding the dynamic evolving retail environment is a success clue never to be over looked.  The grocerant niche filled with Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food is driving change in every sector of retail today.  

Success does leave clues.  Are you trapped doing what you have always done and doing the same way?  Interested in learning how Foodservice Solutions 5P’s of Food Marketing can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us