Takeout Food, Restaurant Kiosk Takeaways, Delivery of Grocery Deli Food is Everywhere

 

There are times we must remind followers of this log that this blog focus is on our specialty: GROCERANT Food & Beverages.  Grocerant niche food and beverage meal component options are a result of the blurring of the line between restaurants, grocery stores, C-stores, Dollar Stores, and Furniture stores (Ikea) aimed at the time-starved consumer with Ready-2-Eat and or Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food components that can be bundled into either personalized meal or customized family meal.

However, around the world we continue seeing sections in department’s stores, kiosk in malls, virtual food retail brands being offered.  The food items can range from entrees to side items, desert, and snacks. 

Today while restaurant, grocery takeout and mobile apps simply the required platform, food marketers are garnering new customers via virtual restaurants, ghost kitchens, voice ordering and robot delivery according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

(Note for those who have forgotten: it was Johnson who was first too coined the term Grocerant and be published in trade magazines back in the day including Restaurant Business and Nation’s Restaurant News.)

Blurring the lines between retail food channels even more drive for convenience in fresh prepared food has never been higher nor is showing any signs that this sector is anywhere near a top according to Johnson and the team at Foodservice Solutions®.

Millennials have blurred the line so much that believe that ‘Eating-Out means Eating-In at home. Gen Z and Millennials want to order from restaurants how they want to, when they want to. It's one factor driving the proliferation of technology in restaurants right now.

The smart phone ushered in a new wave of now consumer relevant technology, the extent to which guests are embracing that technology, and asking for more, is still pretty surprising. It has empowered food marketers the ability to build virtual branded food outlets aka a restaurant not on s surface street but rather in the palm of the consumer’s hand.

While that informational smart phone virtual super highway continues to expand a recent survey of 1,000 Americans by consulting firm Deloitte takes stock of consumer habits around things like delivery and digital ordering as well as more advanced technologies like voice ordering and automation.

Here are five key takeaways from the study.

Customers are ordering more takeout than ever. Fears that pickup and delivery might fall off as dining rooms reopened appear to have been greatly exaggerated. According to Deloitte, customers are ordering takeout more often than they were in the thick of the pandemic—by a lot. More than 60% of respondents said they order delivery or takeout once a week, up from 29% a year ago and 18% before the pandemic.

QSRs are the most popular takeout destinations, with 62% saying they order fast food most often, followed by fast casuals (52%) and casual-dining concepts (40%). 

Meanwhile, ghost kitchens have officially entered the consideration set. Nearly 80% of respondents said they're likely to order from a ghost kitchen, 20% more than last year and 32% more than two years ago. 

Apps are in-demand, both off-premise and on. When ordering takeout, 57% of consumers said they use a mobile app, which is only a little higher than last year's figure of 54% and not all that surprising. What is surprising, though, is the number of guests who said they would order digitally from inside a restaurant. Nearly two-thirds (64%) prefer that method when dining in, compared to 53% who did last year. 

Customers want to order direct. Diners' preference for using a restaurants' own channels vs. a third-party aggregator has been well-established, and is underscored by the Deloitte study. Forty percent of customers opt to order through a restaurant's app or website, while just 11% prefer to order through a third party.

Customers welcome more automation. A vast majority (81%) would order from an automated voice system in the drive-thru, Deloitte found. The amount who would be willing to have their food delivered by a robot or drone is up by 10% over last year. And 54% would be OK ordering from a partially or fully automated kitchen. Most of these technologies are just getting off the ground, but the demand is clearly there.

Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced business development. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities or a new menu product segment and brand and menu integration strategy.  Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche visit us on our social media sites by clicking one of the following links: Facebook,  LinkedIn, or Twitter