Restaurant Customer Count Discontinuity Troubling

Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru®, Steven Johnson, predicts that 2020 will be a record year of chain restaurant discontinuity.  The end of the year Q4 2020, will bring with it inflation of 2.5% to 3.1%.  In the event all predictions are correct, inflation will drive menu price increases and for the fifth year in a row incremental customer count declines for many restaurants.

Restaurants have been averaging close to 2.8% decline in customer counts for the past five years. That is unsustainable according to Johnson who states “14% customer count declines over five years, without a business model change, can’t last much longer for many chain operators.”    

The results are simple to predict, more turnover in at the CEO level for chain restaurant, more store closing, suppliers selling ilk niche products to new non-traditional fresh food outlets. Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat an Heat-N-Eat fresh food sales are expected to increase 9.2% during 2020.

How is it that C-stores have evolved their business model with Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat an Heat-N-Eat fresh food, grocery stores have evolved their model with Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat an Heat-N-Eat fresh food, furniture stores the ilk of IKEA reports sales of Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat an Heat-N-Eat fresh food at over $2 Billion a year and yet chain restaurants look more like yesterday than tomorrow?

Back in the day (2005) the team at Foodservice Solutions® released a White Paper Restaurant Consumer Discontinuity; we noted consumer migration in food format preference from meals eaten in restaurants to fresh prepared meals bought and eaten at home.  The undercurrents of consumer migration from Eating-Out too Eating-Out while Eating-In in larger part was driven by The 65 inch HDTV Syndrome.   

Today, 63.7% of all U.S. households are comprised for one or two people. 80% of Americans visit a fast food restaurant at least once a month. Regular readers of this blog know we regularly documented that consumers like to mix and match meal components and they can get them fast at fast food restaurants. Mix and match meal bundling is a benchmark for success within the grocerant niche. Don’t capitulate another year and let consumer discontinuity linger.

The latest Foodservice Solutions® grocerant scorecards reveal that 78.1% of consumers believe grocery store deli fresh foods are ‘better-for-you’ than most restaurant meals. If you are selling fresh food and your outlets look more like yesterday than tomorrow and your year over year customer counts are declining it might to time to call in some outside-eyes.  Are you looking a customer ahead? Or are you looking at yesterday customer today?  

Meal time is now becoming a time of convenient meal participation, with differentiation and individualization for the entire family.  The ability of the retailer to empower consumer choice within a bundled offering creates an additional platform for success. Success does leave clues?

Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced business development. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities.  Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant or twitter.com/grocerant

Battle for Share of Stomach