Four Smaller Walls Too Drive Relevant Growth at TGI Friday’s

 

When consumers are evolving faster than your brand, customer relevance ebbs to the point your franchisees close stores, your profits trail off, and you watch your customers migrate to any brand that is more relevant to them. 

That said, brands have value, consumers know just what they like from your brand but at times they need something additional, different, or fresh according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

The grocerant niche filled with Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food continues to drive top-line sales and bottom-line profits in every sector of retail foodservice today. In fact, TGI Friday’s was one of the first branded chain restaurants to place products in the Frozen Food Court and continues to find success their according to Johnson.

When your primary target consumers age there is no reason to abandon them according to Johnson.  TGI Friday’s clearly understands the importance of developing their brands off-premise business while extending a customer’s life time value.

In an effort to edify its brand, and extend its best customers life time value, TGI Fridays is launching a small-format spinoff called Fridays on the Fly with more fresh food fast.

In a Battle for Share of Stomach

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These smaller footprint units focus is on meal delivery and takeout.  In addition, they will serve multiple virtual brands out of a single kitchen, adding customer relevance by day-part, flavor profile, price.

Not able at this time to move on completely, each new unit for now will also have a dining room for on-site guests. While the new smaller footprint format may appear is a product of the pandemic, which has enabled the brand to do more off-premise business. The trending growth of the grocerant niche filled with fresh prepared Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat food has been top-of-mind at TGI Friday’s for a good 20 years.

TGI Friday’s CEO Ray Blanchette, stated, "Now that 30% of our revenue comes away from restaurant, we can actually do both," Our Grocerant Guru® has been helping brands do just that for 28+ years.  Hint; there is no sign of consumers desire not to continue to evolve garnering branded fresh food from new non-traditional points of distribution.

At TGI Friday’s as regular readers of this blog know part of the off-premise revenue is coming from a host of virtual brands. Fridays has its own online-only concepts such as Conviction Chicken and has also partnered with C3 to offer some of its brands out of its restaurants. Krispy Rice, for instance, is now in test at 14 locations in Southern California and the Washington, D.C., area with promising results, said John Neitzel, Fridays' president and COO. 

So, the first On the Fly location is currently under construction, and executives did not say how many units it ultimately expects to open. The company expects the stores to generate $2 million average unit volumes with annualized earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation of $300,000. "The sky's the limit in terms of potential," Neitzel said. The team at Foodservice Solutions® agrees.  How are you evolving? Where are you evolving?

Looking for success clues of your own? Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced food marketing and business development ideations. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities, technology, or a new menu product segment.  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