Restaurant Sector Customer Power Outage

January comes around every eleven months without fail and as usual January is colder than most moths of the year.  Winter storms cannot be blamed for continued declining same store sales within the restaurant sector according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Only Neanderthal chain marketing executives and industry analyst out of touch with today’s consumers would suggest such a thing. The consumer is dynamic not static and brands must act or react faster to consumer evolve path to purchase foodservice patterns or risk continued customer capitulation according to Johnson. After nine years of declining or flat year over year customer counts the restaurant sector has host it mojo, energy, its swag. 

 According to the latest index from Black Box Intelligence in January restaurant sector same store sales once again declined by 0.3%.  However customer traffic, declined 3% year-over-year in January.  That is a big problem requiring restaurant sector business model change according to Johnson.

The restaurant sector needs to regain its swag, its mojo, its energy and our own Grocerant Guru® believes that in 2018 the best way to do that is too leverage branded strategic partnerships. If there is there is one dominate element that can power incremental success within the restaurant sector over the coming years it is what Johnson calls it the new electricity that is strategic partnerships.   

The new electricity must be very efficient for the supply and includes such things as regional fresh foods, urban farming (produce, seafood, etc.), local wine, and local beer, autonomous delivery, cashier-less retail, cash-less payments, digital hand held marketing and outside-eyes.

Food companies the ilk of chain restaurants that want to survive the next generation of retail must embrace the artificial intelligence revolution while simultaneously embracing grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food.  That will require brands to embrace new fresh food partnerships more now than ever before according to Johnson.

Are your customer counts increasing? In 30 seconds or less can you tell everyone what is fueling your growth? What is your new electricity? Customer relevance is a brand moving with consumers not one practicing brand protectionism. Consumers are dynamic not static is your brand dynamic?

Success does leave clues www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  is the global leader in grocerant niche business development.  We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities.  Has your company had a Grocerant ScoreCard completed a Grocerant Program Assessment, or new Grocerant niche product ideation?  Want one?  Call 253-759-7869 Email: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us