Outback Steakhouse Giving Consumers what they Want

Well Alice May Brock said:” Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian, wine and tarragon make it French, sour cream makes it Russian, lemon and cinnamon make it Greek, soy sauce makes it Chinese, garlic makes it good.” Steven Johnson, the Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® said “Today restaurants must give consumers pick-up, takeout, delivery, all with digital ordering.”

Yes, back in the day our Grocerant Guru® sold the first seven restaurant chains online ordering for Food.com and one of the chains Johnson recalls not interested was Outback Steakhouse who claimed that their food ‘dose not ‘carry well’.  They said that despite proprietary that indicated consumers wanted more delivery and takeout from Outback.

Today 21% of consumers say they are increasingly replacing carryout orders with delivery orders. That’s even higher—30%—for those 18-34 years old according to Technomic.  Dave Deno, Bloomin’s CFO said “Delivery, takeout and catering sales rose across the portfolio during Q4 by 18% year over year, raising the overall contribution to 14% of sales.” It’s time that restaurant marketing teams and executives evolve their brands to accommodate today’s consumers according to Johnson. 

Johnson continued “Retail food brand protectionism has no relevance in the marketplace today other than as a benchmarking tool.”  Now Bloomin’ Brands intends to maintain the momentum in part by redesigning stores to better accommodate delivery and takeout sales, better late than never according to Johnson.

Deno noted that both “Outback and Carrabba’s restaurants now offer delivery. Unlike most of the other full-service concepts offering the service, the Bloomin’ chains opted to deliver meals themselves rather than partner with third parties such as Grubhub or DoorDash. The company expects to expand delivery to 600 stores.”  Are you practicing Brand Protectionism? Do your stores look more like yesterday than today?

Invite Foodservice Solutions® to complete a Grocerant Program Assessment, Grocerant ScoreCard, or for product positioning or placement ideation. Since 1991 www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. Contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or 253-759-7869