C-stores Sales Growth Garners Unexpected Competitor

Success does leave clues and at the recent NACS State of the Industry Summit all data points pointed to an increase from some new competitors that are non-traditional fresh food retailers yet not to be over looked.  The overwhelming sediment from people we spoke to was grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food is the foundation to build incremental success upon.

Here is what we found exciting and insightful. In research presented by Nielsen found that “the c-store industry is second to just e-commerce when it comes to projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2016 to 2021,. But don’t be too boastful: The dollar channel is right behind it.”

So, Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® wondered out loud who is in position to garner both fresh food sales and CPG simultaneously in a new consumer fresh format that could disrupt traditional convenience stores?

Regular readers of this blog know who were thinking of and so was our friend Todd Hale.  The company is Amazon and the formant Amazon Go.  Hale pointed out that Amazon Go convenience store is a platform that allows consumers to pay automatically via their smartphone and an Amazon Prime account has one giant advantage beyond speeding the visit for customers. "It's the data and analytics that they're going to get from this store," said industry watcher and consultant Todd Hale, formerly with Nielsen. "With data and analytics, they’re going to understand who their customer is, how they shop and what they’re putting into their basket."

Now think about all that Amazon does with online payments, mobile ordering, delivery of both grocery, delivery of restaurant meals and how they could combine all those functions into the palm of your hand via a smartphone making them fresh, fast, and convenient.  That could be disruptive.

Then there is the dollar store sector that regular readers know about that are testing, grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food at price points consumers find extremely attractive. The undercurrents of industry competition are increasing.  Is your company positioned for today or tomorrows fresh food retail world?

Hale continued saying “But what consumers are really flocking to is fresh. Fresh sells.” Edifying Foodservice Solutions® findings is once again rewarding for the team at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Hale noted “that growth in fresh products closer to the point of consumption, such as sushi, soups, desserts, salads, prepared chicken and pizza, are winning among shoppers who are choosing meals and meal components over ingredients, which signals a demand for immediacy. 

One problem our Grocerant Guru® did have with the data points from Nielsen was they looked only at grocery!  That worked a long time ago and is relevant to a point today however when looking at the consumer it’s about share of stomach rather than share of a shrinking grocery sector alone. 

Consumers are migrating from many legacy channels so while what’s working in a legacy channel capitulating market share is important it is not as important as looking at the whole customer.  Dr. Bill Bishop Chief Architect at Brick Meets Click says that the rate of change is increasing while our Grocerant Guru® Steven Johnson says today new avenues of distribution are turning into Highways and consumers are not looking back.

Do your foodservice offerings look more like yesterday that tomorrow?  Visit www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information or contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us Remember success does leave clues and we just may the clue you need to propel your continued success.