Grocery Stores Selling Meals Garner Restaurant Customers

 

Menus matter and the price of a meal matters even more. According to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®, “what is even more important today is where consumers are getting meals”.

There is no doubt that the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a long-term realignment of consumption occasions. The at-home segment will play a more important role going forward than before, necessitating an adjustment in foodservice strategy. Here is the question.  Is there a new avenue of fresh food distribution? Now some facts:

1.       20% of restaurant consumers are familiar with The Metaverse

2.       34% of Millennials and 27% of Gen Z have already participated in The Metaverse

3.       38% of consumers who already participate in the metaverse would be willing to integrate restaurant purchases into this environment

Don’t get the team at Foodservice Solutions® wrong. The Metaverse is not a viable option today nor will it be in three years.  However, if you are a restaurant you need to look and see just how the grocery sector is stealing back your customers.

Americans are eating fewer meals out with friends and co-workers and more meals at home than they were three years ago, though how they're sourcing and preparing those at-home meals has changed from two years ago.

New research from FMI titled U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends Report examines consumers’ views on planning and preparing meals and looks at where meals take place and with whom they are shared.

So, regular readers of this blog know that "More people have been cooking, or at least assembling, at home," but this new report edifies the team at Foodservice Solutions® work; "the trends of more eating at home and with other household members continue despite some shoppers missing the social aspects of eating out and gathering with friends" according to the FMI report.

Today grocery prices continue rising and pandemic-prompted cooking enthusiasm waning, shoppers "are more flexible in buying what they need" as they look both for deals and convenient, easy-to-prepare meal solutions. This can mean sourcing groceries and meals from a wider variety of stores and channels, with preference going toward those offering the best prices and/or the best quality on shoppers' top-priority items, according to FMI; it can also mean grabbing more fresh-prepared and ready-to-prep options from grocers for a convenient but appealing family meal. 

Changed weekday routines resulted in respondents reporting that they "eat together with others" less than they used to, and even at home, lunch and midday snacks often are consumed solo, FMI reported. Also, "challenges in inspiration, inconsistent schedules and other resource constraints create friction to family dinners," according to FMI. While the pandemic brought more people into the kitchen, trying new cooking trends, experimenting with new appliances and learning new cooking skills, the share of those who said they love to cook dropped from 23% of consumers in 2021 to 19% of consumers this year.

Garnering A Larger Share of Stomach

Think Foodservice Solutions

The Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat platform continues to garner customer migration from the restaurant industry. Consumers still are planning meals more now than they were prepandemic, but they're spending less time preparing main meals. More than half of consumers plan meals in advance (46% do so early in the day; 30% said they do so days in advance). FMI's polling also found that meal preparation is “getting quicker,” and that “three-quarters (74%) say it takes less than one hour to prepare their meals” (30% say they spend 30 minutes or less preparing meals).

Consumers' need for speed—and affordability—in getting dinner on the table will create challenges for retailers through 2022 despite higher (and inflation-boosted) consumer spending, FMI concluded. Grocery retailers are likely to find themselves "serving a smaller share of shopper needs as shoppers increasingly split their purchases among trips, channels and methods,"

Consumers are time starved and price sensitive.  Are you looking ahead and helping solve the pain point when it comes to What’s for Dinner?  

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