The Grocery Store Perimeter is Simply Old School

Let’s just cut to the chase the perimeter of most legacy grocery stores look, more like yesterday or should we say more like 30 years ago than they should.  Why we ask?  Ok some new display cases and new lighting but the notion that consumers today want to spend all day filling a basket walking around a store is simply Ludacris. 

Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru®, Steven Johnson stated “for 20+ years legacy grocery stores have been acutely aware that consumers dislike going to the grocery store and spending 20 minutes just to pick up one or two items.” Consumers have options and saving time is at the top of most consumers shopping list according to Johnson.

What’s even worse most legacy grocery stores continue to utilize category managers whose sole job it is to ‘trick, fool, or confuse’ consumers into buying one product over the other depending of the profitability of the product.  News alert consumers have figured that out.  It is just another reason that consumers are migrating to new forms of fresh food distribution while avoiding legacy grocery stores according to Johnson. 

E-grocery sales are expected to swell from 11.2% of the overall U.S. grocery market in 2022 to a 13.6% share in 2027, according to the 2023 Brick Meets Click/Mercatus 5-Year Grocery Sales Forecast, released last Monday. The estimate reckons an 11.7% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for online grocery sales during the five-year period.

While that number is still small considering the size of the marketplace.  It is important to remember that the convenience store sector is growing at roughly 3% in new stores per year and c-stores have 3.5 times as many stores as there are grocery stores.

David Bishop, partner with Brick Meets Click, noted in a previous release “Increasing the number of households who have access to online grocery shopping services with home delivery or pickup could add almost two points to the percentage of U.S. households who buy groceries online.” The simple fact is consumers simply dislike spending so much time in a grocery store and then they still have to go home cook, and do dishes. 

Consumers want grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food. It saves them time and in most cased there are no dishes to do.  If you are a food retailer and your year over year customer counts are not going up its time to edify your grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food platform. Grocerant niche meals and meal components do not belong in the perimeter of your store.

Are you looking for a new partnership to drive sales? Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideations look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Interested in learning how www.FoodserviceSolutions.us 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:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information.