Expanding Grocerant Niche Fresh Prepared Food Sales is Exactly what Grocer’s should be Doing

Success does leave clues and one sure clue of success is the rapid adoption of grocerant niche fresh prepared meals and peal components according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. 

At the intersection of the family dinner table and food sales Foodservice Solutions® most recent Grocerant ScoreCard found that 64.7% of households do know What’s for Dinner at 4PM every day.  The same report also found that 83.1% of dinner tables included at least one grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat or Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food item, or as we call them meal components.

So, when our Grocerant Guru® heard that The Kroger Co. and Walgreens are teaming on an exploratory pilot in which shoppers will be able to order Kroger grocery items online and pick them up at 13 of the drug store chain’s stores in northern Kentucky, he got excited thinking Kroger is getting on the right path.

When in fact all it was about is extending Kroger’s private label ‘Our Brands products, including the natural and organic Simple Truth brands into some Walgreens. What a big miss for Kroger and even bigger missed opportunity for Walgreens.

Clearly Kroger with over 18 store Banners and several private label brands still is looking back wanting to be a company that fills your pantry with food from there banners and private label product line.  Selling more of what they used to sell is how Kroger got itself into a pickle today? 

That pickle is a grocery store company with national footprint that is growing 1/3 the rate of the fastest growing grocer Aldi.  How can that be?  Simply put they have a ‘category management’ mindset of yesterday. 

With 9,800 units Walgreens can take lots of Kroger’s private label branded foods.  However, much like other CPG food manufactures consumers will continue to migrate from legacy CPG shelf stable food from the pantry to fresh prepared meals.  If Kroger wants to thrive in 2025 they had better start looking a customer ahead instead of looking like a company of yesterday.

Walgreens on the other hand does and outstanding job at its Duane Reade units with ‘Fresh & Ready’ foods that have provided a platform for incremental customer adoption by daypart.  If success does leave clues and it does Walgreens grocerant niche ‘Fresh & Ready’ will be a brand that continues to expand from urban to suburban locations.

Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideations look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Interested in learning how www.FoodserviceSolutions.us can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information.