Can Restaurant Customer Migration be Stopped

Once again this year recent Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant ScoreCards indicate that restaurant customer migration is driven by the 65 Inch HDTV Syndrome first identified by our own Grocerant Guru®, Steven Johnson back in late 2011.

The line between restaurants, convenience stores, grocery stores, drug stores, and new non-traditional food retailers is growing ever thinner. The fight for America's food dollars continues to intensify as consumers find fresh prepared Ready-2-Eat food options at a wide and growing array of outlets across almost every channel.

While manufacturers, retailers and restaurants worry about choice overload, consumers have embraced their new choices and show no signs of returning to the old ways. This fight is taking place in what is called the grocerant niche. One thing is clear there in an sharp increase in the battle for share of stomach according to Johnson.

Regular readers of this blog know that restaurant industry is not an industry known for trying to be first as in fastest to market with an ideation, food or technology advance. In the United States the larger the chain in almost all cases the more slowly they are to adopt something than a smaller chain or independent restaurants will. Chain restaurants goal is simple feed one meal at a time in the restaurant while protecting and edifying the brand.

While historically chain restaurant leaders have denied the credibility of start-up competitors as non-relevant. Today, we find that it is the legacy foodservice trade press that is in denial that new non-traditional fresh food outlets have garnered their legacy customers.  The ‘over saturation’ is in fact simply a lack of customer relevance that continues to result in customers seeking new venues to obtain fresh food and fresh meal components.

It is at the intersection of the consumer, fresh prepared food and technology we fine that consumer eating behavior is evolving and is now beyond the control of traditional food marketers. Consumers are dynamic not static and brands must be dynamic as well. Are you capitulating year over year customer counts moving up? Or are your year over year customer counts in decline?

The retail food world is evolving at an ever-increasing pace filled with innovation in food, portion size, points of distribution, and quality fresh prepared meal solutions. The price, value, service equilibrium is resetting in retail foodservice. In order to edify the brand and reinforce consumer relevance restaurateurs must leverage Foodservice Solutions® 5P's of food marketing. 

Many legacy food retailers continue to practice brand protectionism, stifle the brand while diminishing consumer relevance. The consumer is dynamic not static. Brands must be dynamic, evolving with the consumer.

Are you looking for a new partnership to drive sales? 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.