When a grocery store keeps churning
‘restaurant’ style’ concepts or restaurants within their four walls it is a
clear signal that customer relevance is fleeting according to Steven Johnson,
Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.
Grocers are so used to trying
to be all things to all people, there are times that they forget that the
average customers that enters their stores buys 100 different items a year and
that they simply buy them over and over again.
The food business in not brain surgery, it is a science with well-defined
customer focused paths to success according to Johnson.
What many within the grocery
sector forget is the customer evolves every day, every week, every year and simply
doing what your brand has done in the past and doing it the same way will not
drive relevance. You can churn concept after concept and unless you evolve the
result will be the same. In this case with
Kroger, they will get incremental trial
with a new concept but each of the new concepts will have a defined ‘shelf-life’
within a grocer store.
Why is it that grocer’s the
ilk of Kroger keep doing what they have done for the past 25 years and expect a
different result? While most of you have heard that Pork &
Mindy’s is partnering with Mariano’s to open quick-service versions of the
restaurant in 28 Chicago-area Mariano’s locations. What is clear is that Kroger
continues to think someone else can drive more sales than they can in that
space. Having been to their stores we agree.
While Mariano’s has turned food
shopping into a community experience. The
profitable in that experience appears lacking and Kroger bought Mariano’s with
the hopes of reducing the lack of profits while simultaneously garnering
incremental knowledge on the ‘experience’ of Mariano’s. I guess that did not
work out so well.
At
the same time Jeff Mauro’s Pork & Mindy’s is replacing another concept. Kroger has a new concept. That concept is a Nashville-style chicken and fish concept, Rouxster’s Cookhouse was
developed exclusively for Mariano’s by local chef John Meyer, the founder of
Southern-style restaurant BJ’s Market & Bakery in Chicago and Blueprint
Foods, which crafts foodservice and menu concepts for grocery stores and
specialty markets, casual-dining restaurants and hospitality venues.
We
have three questions for the team at Kroger:
1.
What
is the monthly visit frequency of Pork & Mindy’s top 5% of customers?
2.
What
is the monthly visit frequency of consumers eating Nashville Hot Chicken?
3.
What
is the number one service deli item sold at Mariano’s month after month?
Do you know why those
questions are important? If not, you ready for some fresh ideations? Today, consumers want Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared grocerant niche fresh food in increasing numbers. Integration of fresh food, fresh food messaging, and price have never been more important.
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.
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