You are Kidding Me Millennials Like Sam’s Club

 

What goes around comes around. The parents of Millennials drove the growth and success of Club stores the ilk of Costco, BJ’s, and Sam’s Club according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® who stated, now that Millennials are getting married, buying homes and starting families they are following in the footsteps of their parents and flocking to or ordering from Club stores more and more. 

Success does leave clues, so after Sam's Club ran its Super Bowl ad, hundreds of thousands of members joined Scan & Go. Thus, Sam’s Club is doubling down on efforts to digitally engage with its members, and it sees Scan & Go technology as a key component of that strategy. Millennials were the first generation to be digital natives and Gen Z is the second.

According to Sam’s club spokesperson, what is helping drive record sales has been the company’s success in attracting a subset of digitally savvy Millennial members during the pandemic. These consumers are also strongly represented in what Kathryn McLay, president and CEO of Sam’s Club, termed their new Super Bowl cohort — the subset of consumers who became members thanks to the retailer’s wildly popular Super Bowl Ad.

Get this the ad starring Kevin Hart, the ad sought to “concierge” consumers through Scan & Go, said McLay during a Shoptalk keynote in Las Vegas on March 27, as it’s often mistaken for self-checkout technology. Scan & Go, which the exec described as one of the highest NPS products in retail, enables members to pay for items through a mobile app linking their membership information.

Kathryn McLay, president and CEO of Sam’s Club, stated, "We know our members who use it, renew with us,”,… and the floodgates opened by the third day of airing the ad, with hundreds of thousands of members joining.

How are you evolving your brand with relevance? Engaging in a digital-first manner is requiring the retailer to think beyond straightforward journeys. Discovering member resistance toward downloading yet another app, Sam’s Club instead deployed a digital demo in which consumers can scan a QR code to trial a single instance of Scan & Go — later downloading the app if they wish to commit.

McLay continued, “It's just a different way of playing with the tech to make it more accessible to more members,”…  "We’re beginning to play with some of those concepts, but all of that is based on having this open dialogue with a member online while they're in an offline club.”

Millennials can be reached at the intersection both physical and digital experiences.  Where Sam’s can then identified offers they can prompt members with for further engagement, including engagement in different categories.

McLay also shared insight into how Sam’s Club is leveraging learnings from its Scan & Ship technology, in which consumers scan bulky items with their phones for direct-to-home shipping. Though they initially assumed consumers would ship items immediately after scanning, they instead found consumers will let them sit in baskets for up to 30 days, later returning to purchase them after doing research.

There’s an opportunity to use this process for such things as Halloween costumes, said McLay, a category that’s historically difficult to keep stocked in every size. 

Also on the horizon: Further advancement with robotic inventory analysis. Though Walmart has walked away from the technology in its stores, McLay said it works well in Sam’s Club in part because of their limited-SKU design with pallet flows and displays.

Available at nearly all 600 locations, the camera-affixed automated floor scrubbers scan inventory levels each day. Not only are the scrubbers “automating a role that’s asking to be automated,” she said, but they’re also providing an extraordinarily accurate inventory rate and freeing up associates’ time.  

The robots are currently able to scan both tags on the floor and in the racks, and the company is exploring RFID technology so it can read the apparel tables as well. How is your brand evolving? Digital natives continue look for new different experiences including food discovery.  They may not want all of the old brands, or want to cook from scratch but they do want a shared experience both physical and digital.

Foodservice Solutions® team is here to help you drive top line sales and bottom-line profits. Are you looking a customer ahead? Visit GrocerantGuru.com for more information or contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us 

What’s for Dinner at Foodtown MEALS

 

Foodtown is once again looking at all of the hot button consumer focused touchpoints.  This time they are focusing on the number one consumer hot button touchpoint and that is What’s for Dinner. Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®, stated, “Everyday the number one consumer focused touchpoint is what’s for dinner.

Johnson continued, “The vast majority of consumers are not looking for ingredients, nor do they desire to cook a meal from scratch.  What they are looking for are grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared Mix & Match meal components that can be bundled into a customized family meal.”

Below are some insights from recent Grocerant ScoreCards:

1.       Recent Grocerant ScoreCards found 81.1% of consumers don’t know what’s for dinner at Noon, and 61.1 don’t know what’ s for dinner at 4PM %.

2. Roughly 63.7% of consumers purchase prepared food items from a retail location at least three times a month.
3. 79.6% all dinners have at least 1 grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat meal component and 66.6% have two meal components.
4. When asked if they wanted to cook dinner from scratch or assemble dinner from fresh meal components 91.3 % of Gen Z chose assemble from Fresh Prepared Meal Components and Millennials 83.4% chose meal components.
5. Seventy-three percent of retail prepared food purchases are taken to go
6. Prepared food purchases are frequently a planned purchase among 61.2% of shoppers, while 40.9% of shoppers said they buy prepared foods on impulse. Dinner has the highest amount of prepared food buys with 81.7% of respondents making purchases for that meal, while lunch comes in at 76.9% and breakfast at 61.4%.
7. 57.8% of consumers would like to add Alcohol to a dinner order

 In A Battle For Share of Stomach

Are you Winning? 

Now back to just what Foodtown is doing.  In a campaign created by Allegiance Retail Services kicked off with social media, advertising and retail promotions. The new marketing campaign for its Foodtown banner with the message “Quality Meals Begin at Foodtown” to illustrate the brand’s commitment to offering fresh perishables, quality products, and exceptional service. The campaign is being rolled out to all 65 Foodtown stores in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, both in-store and online. 

Donna Zambo, vice president, chief marketing officer at ARS, stated, “Quality comes in many forms. But what most people want is more quality time with friends, family, or even themselves,” … “I think we all know that it can be hard to make time for life. And it’s even more difficult making the most of the time that we do get. At Foodtown, we know that without quality food, service and nutrition, quality time wouldn’t be quite as meaningful. Birthdays, anniversaries, game nights, workouts, late night study sessions and play dates are all everyday moments that make us who we are. We want to be there with our shoppers by providing fresh, quality food options for these times.” 

So, the campaign positions Foodtown as an integral member of the community dedicated to the well-being of not only its customers but associates too. Throughout the pandemic, shoppers learned to depend on their local grocers as partners in their family’s overall wellness. The new campaign underscores Foodtown’s commitment to make it easy to provide nutritious meals and snacks as families return to the pre-pandemic activities of work, school, sports, hobbies and togetherness. 

Now, the rebranding campaign is supported through strategic marketing channels, including social media, digital media, store websites, along with broadcast and print advertising, and retail promotions, sponsorships, and events. 

While driving an emotional and practical appeal, the digital campaign will focus on the benefits of quality time and show how consumers can enjoy more of it when “Quality Meals Begin at Foodtown.” The print promotional campaign will highlight the store’s quality products and feature Foodtown’s fresh, high-quality produce, meat, seafood, deli, and bakery products. 

In addition, a new Foodtown logo lockup was created featuring the tagline “Locally Owned, Family Operated,” to remind shoppers of Foodtown’s ongoing dedication to its connection to each distinct neighborhood it serves.

Zambo continued, “It is an exciting time to launch this new Foodtown rebranding campaign as people are starting to come together again after the pandemic,” …. “Food brings people together, and we are happy to celebrate the return of that quality of life.”  Meals need to be on your menu!

Don’t over reach. 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

Volvo Installing EV Charging Stations At Starbucks Stores

 

Talk about putting new electricity into your brand.  There is no company that edifies customer relevance better that Starbucks according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Just in case you have not heard, Volvo and Starbucks have struck a partnership to establish the first public electric vehicle charging network at the coffee company's U.S. stores. EV owners traveling within the Western States can soon enjoy a cup of coffee—or tea, or whatever you want—while fast charging their electric cars at Starbucks. Not only will this help Starbucks drive new electricity into its brand messaging it is going to put electricity into you car.  This my friends is what they call supercharged brand marketing.

Most of you know that any driver who has charged their electric vehicle at an out-of-the-way charging station in a questionable location understands how uncomfortable and frustrating that situation can be. Besides grocery and other retail stores, single chargers in ideal places are sometimes hard to come by, and can be well off the beaten path—adding time to an already time-consuming charging process. 

Therefor Volvo is implementing a strategy to bring chargers closer to your daily routine with a more creative approach, and it builds on an emerging trend in the EV space of pairing up charging providers and popular retailers.

Starting this summer, the Swedish automaker plans to install up to 60 Volvo-branded DC fast chargers powered by ChargePoint in at least 15 Starbucks locations. The charging network will cover a 1,350-mile route from the Denver area to Starbucks headquarters in Seattle, Washington. That means a fast-charging station for roughly every 100 miles, which is reasonably within the driving range of most electric vehicles.

Timing is everything and if you are tired of paying a high price for gasoline, it just might be time to buy a new EV, maybe even a Volvo.

According to Johnson, “Brand relevance is in part driven with innovation in new food products in combination with new avenues of distribution all of which are the platform for the new electricity.”  That said, what are you waiting for?

Johnson stated “that in my minds-eye the new electricity must be very efficient for the supply and includes such things as fresh foods, developing brands, unique urban clothing, grocerant positioning, fresh food messaging, autonomous delivery, cashier-less retail, plates, glasses, cash-less payments, digital hand-held marketing.

All retailers to survive the next generation of retail must embrace the artificial intelligence revolution while simultaneously embracing fresh food that is portable, fresh, with differentiation that is familiar not different. 

Success does leave clues. One clue that time and time again continues to resurface is “the consumer is dynamic not static”.  Regular readers of this blog know that is the common refrain of Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  Our Grocerant Guru® can help your company edify your brand with relevance.  Call 253-759-7869 for more information. 

Amazon Expands Its ‘Halo’ of Better-4-You

 

If there is one company in the food retail space that excels with customer data it is Amazon.  There can be no doubt that plant-based food products are fast becoming a mainstay on the family dinner table as Amazon Fresh has developed a private label line of Fresh Plant-based meat alternatives according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

In case you have not heard, Amazon is expanding its Fresh food brand with the addition of Fresh Plant-Based, a portfolio of plant-based products available online and in-store at Amazon Fresh. At Amazon customer get what customers want at a very competitive price and when you combine that with delivery that is second to none it is sure to be a home run according to Johnson.

There are fifteen products that are currently available, including patties, Italian meatballs, frozen Chick’n Nuggets and almond milks, and Amazon said in a release that it will continue to expand its Fresh Plant-Based product line this year “to bring customers more healthy, affordable plant-based products.”

So, with the introduction of Fresh Plant-Based products at Amazon you can clearly see that it comes at time of increased innovation within the meat alternatives category, particularly in frozen. Frozen meat, poultry and seafood alternatives sales reached $78 million in January 2022, an increase of 10.6% vs. a year ago, and about $33 million more than refrigerated alternatives, according to data from Chicago-based IRI. Regular readers of this blog know that Gen Z and Millennials are in constant search of ‘new food and flavors’ aka food discovery.

Anne-Marie Roerink, president of 210 Analytics, stated, “We continue to see enormous strength in [the frozen meat alternatives] department,” …. “Millennials love frozen foods and recognize them as convenient, healthy and fresh, and more and more boomers are also becoming involved as they turn into empty nesters. The big advantage of no perishable waste and being able to use small portions of a larger bag is driving a lot of that, too.”

The dairy alternatives market, meanwhile, is also experiencing a boost as cases of lactose intolerance rise and awareness of plant-based foods increases, New York-based market research and consulting company Reports and Data cited as it predicts the global dairy alternatives market will reach $50.87 billion in 2028 and register a revenue compound annual growth rate of 10.5% during the forecast period. So, why are you waiting to evolve?

Invite Foodservice Solutions® to complete a Grocerant ScoreCard, or for product positioning or placement assistance, or call our Grocerant Guru®.  Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. Contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or 253-759-7869

Grocerant Takeout, To-Go, Takeaways Now Offering “Rentable Containers”

 

The halo of better for you continues to drive customer trial, and adoption within the grocerant niche. Mix & Match meal component bunding is one of the key hallmarks of the grocerant niche and every time the ‘halo’ of better-4-you expands so do top-line sales and bottom-line profits according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

One of the first grocery stores to deliver on the grocerant niche promise was UK’s Morrisons as regular readers of this blog know.  Now Morrisons has introduced new ‘rentable’ boxes on its Salad Bar extend the halo of sustainably, while edifying its relationship with consumers.

The ‘Refill a Box’ will elevate Morrisons as a top-of-mind fresh food stop according to Johnson. The ‘rentable’ box is designed to be used 400 times to prevent disposable plastic containers from being used.

So, to use the new boxes, customers must first download an app, (CauliBox app) register, tap on ‘scan to take a box’ and insert their card details. The is about a $5 charge / deposit for the rental box which will be refunded when the box is returned within seven days.

Yes, there is more sustainable news this time from Kaufland’s where customers can currently fill organic food in a total of eight Kaufland branches as needed. As part of the plastic strategy REset Plastic, the unpackaged stations are now being expanded to include disposable cups made from recyclate. After use, these can be returned as empties to the branch where they were purchased and then end up in the recycling cycle of the Schwarz Group, to which Kaufland belongs.

Thomas Schäfer, Head of Sales at Kaufland, stated, “The disposable cups are an alternative to own containers and are ideal when customers spontaneously decide to buy unpackaged goods. By returning it to the material cycle, we conserve resources,” .. The cups have a capacity of 600 milliliters, they are made, like the lid, from 50 percent recycled PET and have a deposit of 0.25 euros. Of course, customers can also fill the food into their own containers.

So, offering unpackaged goods reduces both plastic and food waste in private households. The unpacked range at Kaufland includes around 40 staple foods such as rice, pasta, bulgur and quinoa, but also chocolate-coated nuts, dried fruit and muesli. The food supplier is Eco Terra. The company is committed to preserving biodiversity, respecting traditional knowledge and ensuring that everyone involved in the supply chain receives a fair share of the value added. So, how are you edifying your relationship with consumers?

For international corporate presentations, regional chain presentations, educational forums, or keynotes contact: Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions.  His extensive experience as a multi-unit restaurant operator, consultant, brand / product positioning expert, and public speaking will leave success clues for all. For more information visit GrocerantGuru.com, FoodserviceSolutions.US or call 1-253-759-7869.

In a Battle for Share of Stomach

Are you Looking A Customer Ahead

Are You Selling Meals in the Metaverse?

 

If you are not looking a customer ahead you may not have heard of the metaverse.  According to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®, consumers are dynamic not static.  Consumers don’t sit still waiting for you call.  If you want them to come in your food outlet you have to talk with them, to them, and hear their calls from the metaverse.  So, just what is the Metaverse?  Well, we turned to NRN.com and found this article on Shirley Chung, and how she uses NFTs to build a community and promote her restaurant.  We think you will enjoy it.

 

“With the help of the new digital market, Chung is marketing her California restaurant in the metaverse to great success

Welcome to the metaverse; like it or hate it, we’re all part of it now. And one person who’s embraced it is Shirley Chung, chef and owner of Ms Chi Café in Culver City, Calif. and proprietor of Dumpling Mafia, a dumpling NFT community.

A trained chef at some of the most prestigious restaurants — think Thomas Keller and Jose Andres — Chung is no slouch. So why go into the NFT market?

“Innovation is so important for a chef in 2021,” Chung said in a statement. “I specialize in Chinese American cooking and I’m proud to be part of a movement of chefs who are redefining what Chinese food is. New-school dumplings like my cheeseburger dumpling are a great way to tell this new story. So are NFT dumplings.”

She’s not the only chef to see potential in the space. Big names like Tom Colicchio and Spike Mendelsohn have been entering the metaverse, too. Restaurants like Brooklyn Chop House and Flyfish Club from Gary Vaynerchuk’s VCR Group have both begun functioning as private clubs or have private sections, with the former offering memberships that cost up to $1 million.

But Chung has a plan to use her entry into the metaverse for something more wholesome.

This is all being done to market Ms Chi Café, with the help of a community that she has been building since 2017, when she launched the Dumpling Mafia along with friend Andy Wang. At the time it was just a passion for really good dumplings in the Los Angeles area.

When followers were asking how to become a part of the movement, the two hatched an idea. And what started as a hashtag (#DumplingMafia) on Instagram became an NFT.

An NFT, or non-fungible token, is a piece of currency that can vary in price, as opposed to a fungible token like a dollar bill or bitcoin that is fixed in price. The purchase of these NFTs — which are often designs, like the dumpling animations by Narrator for this collection — grants the consumer either access to join a club or the ability to exchange it for goods or services.

The selection will include 88 unique Dumpling Mafia Boss character NFTs and 888 Dumpling Mafia membership cards with at least five different designs. The NFTs feature his signature whimsical style depicting happy dumplings and baby “pig dragons” — Chung’s Chinese zodiac sign is the Dragon, and her husband’s is the Pig.

The NFTs will be available for purchase exclusively at Coin Cloud’s website.

“The thing about a restaurant is that a restaurant is four walls. The thing about a chef like Shirley Chung is she’s much bigger than that,” Chung’s business partner Wang told Coin Cloud. “She’s on Instagram, she’s on TV, so why can’t she be in the metaverse, too?”

Foodservice Solutions® team is here to help you drive top line sales and bottom-line profits. Are you looking a customer ahead? Visit GrocerantGuru.com for more information or contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us Remember success does leave clues and we just may the clue you need to propel your continued success.

Inclusive Mix & Match Meal and Beverage Component Bundling Drives Success

When the question comes up; What’s for Dinner, more often than not 58.7% of the time according to recent Grocerant Scorecards according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Since most consumers do not want to cook from scratch, nor do they want to cook at all they more often than not want to order out, go out or order for delivery. Look at the numbers below and you can see how large the opportunity to give customer what they want when they want it.

1. Recent Grocerant ScoreCards found 81.1% of consumers don’t know what’s for dinner at Noon, and 61.1 don’t know what’ s for dinner at 4PM %.
2. Roughly 63.7% of consumers purchase prepared food items from a retail location at least three times a month.
3. 79.6% all dinners have at least 1 grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat meal component and 66.6% have two meal components.
4. When asked if they wanted to cook dinner from scratch or assemble dinner from fresh meal components 91.3 % of Gen Z chose assemble from Fresh Prepared Meal Components and Millennials 83.4% chose meal components.
5. Seventy-three percent of retail prepared food purchases are taken to go
6. Prepared food purchases are frequently a planned purchase among 61.2% of shoppers, while 40.9% of shoppers said they buy prepared foods on impulse. Dinner has the highest amount of prepared food buys with 81.7% of respondents making purchases for that meal, while lunch comes in at 76.9% and breakfast at 61.4%.
7. 57.8% of consumers would like to add Alcohol to a dinner order

 

Gen Z and Millennials have a desire for food and beverage discovery, but they also want exciting new brands and line extensions aka they will try anything new.  So, give them a choice.

Beer, wine and liquor are standards however have you considered selling with both hard seltzer and ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails: Consumers want old favorites, but they also want exciting new brands and line extensions. Grocerant niche mix and match meal component bundling is a hallmark driving grocerant niche adoption.

So, let’s take a look as some of IRI numbers for the 52 weeks ending Dec. 26, 2021, show the hard seltzer category at c-stores with sales of more than $2.1 billion, an increase of 25.9% year to year. 

Within that category, White Claw was the leading brand, with sales just topping $1 billion, up 9.6%. Truly followed at nearly $529,000, a 56.2% gain. Bud Light Seltzer recorded sales of just over $199 million, a jump of 13.5%. Corona Hard Seltzer notched sales of almost $53 million, a decline of 16.8%. 

Bump Williams, the founder, president and CEO of Bump Williams Consulting in Shelton, Conn., stated, “Single-serve cans will explode in volume this year,”. Key for growth will be a balance of what he called big, successful legacy brands like White Claw. Remember that when you are bundling meals and beverages these products travel well and can be kept cold.

Now, according to NielsenIQ, Total U.S. Convenience data for the 52 weeks ending Jan. 15, 2022, showed total spirits sales were $3.04 billion, up 9.8%. Within that category, prepared-cocktail sales were slightly over $167 million, a dramatic 62.4% rise. Yes, cocktails in a can are going to be hot.  So, if you want to drive top line sales and bottom-line profits while edifying your relationship with your consumer; start bundling them for takeout.

“I’m seeing increases in our stores in both hard seltzer and ready-to-drink cocktails,” said Thelma Seguin, director of store operations for Fabulous Freddy’s Car Wash, which owns and operates five convenience stores in Las Vegas.

There is no doubt that Gen Z and Millennials appreciate the flavor profiles of some of the newer RTD cocktails.  They are fruity. It’s almost like everything is fruity and sweet, this is all part of food and beverage discovery.  If you are selling meals for takeout then you should be selling Ready-2-Drink cocktails and Hard seltzers.

Don’t over reach. 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