Meal Kits Elevate Family Meal Time

Meal kits invite family interactive participation from the very start as consumers choose what meal to order, and that elevates the meal kit from the very beginning.  Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru®, Steven Johnson based in Tacoma, WA stated “Meal Kits are training wheels for both Gen Z and Millennials”.  However, meal kits are much more than that they have become a platform for couples and families to bond with each other and while discovering new flavors and the joy of cooking a meal at home.

There are times that looking back, helps us look forward.  This is one of those times. In previous research we have learned that Meal kit sales continued to showed strength in 2018, according Nielsen. “There has been a massive shift to the in-store space in the last year,” said Meagan Nelson, Nielsen’s associate director for fresh growth and strategy, at the Annual Meat Conference recently

Nelson said “growth in meal kits has been fueled in part by online subscription companies partnering with brick-and-mortar groceries, supermarkets offering their own packaged options and even restaurant brands dipping their toes into the market. Retail food partnerships can drive new electricity in a category or for a banner.

The Nielsen data indicated meal kits had seen a 36% growth in just under a year. A survey of 43,000 consumers in late 2018 found 12% of consumers had purchased meal kits in the past six months and 23% of shoppers would consider trying a kit in the next six months, Nelson said.

A number of customers buy in both the online and in-store channels, Nelson noted, but in-store purchases accounted for 60% of the growth in meal kit sales.

Why food retailers should care; meal kit customers tended to be higher income and younger than typical shoppers, she said. Demographics indicate meal kit purchase growing among those in households with incomes of $100,000 or more. They also saw appeal, both online and in-store, among those aged 35 to 44, Nelson said.

In-store growth rate for meal kits was $93 million in 2018, up 51% from 2017, and 7.3 million units were sold, an increase of 42%.  About 87% of in-store meal kits included meat in 2018, with beef leading the way among animal proteins at 52%, followed by pork at 17% and chicken at 16%. The team at Foodservice Solutions® believes that kind of growth within the meal kit sector can be seen again.

Is your brand is searching for the new electricity to help drive the brand forward. So, just what is your brands new electricity? 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.”

Johnson stated “that in my minds-eye the new electricity must be very efficient for the supply and includes such things as fresh foods,  meal kits, beer, 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

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 Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant/ or twitter.com/grocerant