Chain Restaurants It’s time to be Pro-Active not Reactive

Quit waiting around to see what is going to happen next! That is the message that Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® has been touting since 1991 when he founded the company.  Today, the Grocerant Guru® believes the companies that are pro-active thinking about relevant consumer touchpoints moving forward will win. Today, winning is all about building Grocerant niche sales and brand messaging.

Regular readers of this blog know that the Restaurant Industry is not known for trying to be the fastest to market with a ideation in food technology or with menu platform expansion as copycat restaurant concepts proliferate in every sub-sector of the restaurant industry differentiation and growth is left too non-traditional fresh food retailers according to Johnson. Consumers are dynamic not static and restaurant brands must be dynamic or risk losing customers and relevance.

Recently, TDn2k reveled in new research at its annual Global Best Practices Conference in Dallas; that 33 of the chains in its research universe reported gains in customer traffic during 2018. What did they find?  Well, it’s what our Grocerant Guru® has been pointing out since 1991 the consumer is moving full steam ahead into the fresh prepared Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat meals and meal components.  Your right as regular readers of this blog know they are migrating to the GROCERANT NICHE fresh foods. 

TDn2K analysis of what those 33 companies did differently from the 113 other concepts in the pack revealed they excelled in similar ways. Let’s take a look:

1. First, the gainers showed “the ability to grow their midafternoon traffic “Their afternoon traffic was up 9.9%.”
2. Another area where they outperformed was in off-premise sales. Many of the 146 chains had boosted sales through delivery or carryout, but the takeout increases for the traffic gainers jumped at the head-turning clip of 15%,
3. Service Counts, the chains that boosted customer counts in 2018 generated 6.5% more positive comments about service than did the traffic losers.

The simple fact is as our Grocerant Guru® identified, quantified, and qualified back in 2011 the retail food Price, Value, Service equilibrium has changed for consumers. The restaurant industries long standing practice of brand and format, protectionism has not served it well.  The sector can will again if willing.

However, it’s at the intersection of the consumer, meals, meal components, and portability that the restaurant sector has the greatest potential for growth.  Restaurants are fresh food manufactures that simply need to reposition their product in the minds-eye of the consumer to increase sales according to Johnson. 

Success does leave clues, are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideations look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Interested in learning how Foodservice Solutions® 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 us on our social media sites by clicking the following links: Facebook,  LinkedIn, or Twitter