Walmart Just Changed the Food Game: It Understands Food Customers Better Than Fast-Food Retailers Do

Steven Johnson, The Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® says Walmart’s next big food opportunity isn’t simply selling more groceries—it is capturing more of the consumer’s eating occasions.

There is a significant change underway in the American food marketplace, and Walmart deserves credit for recognizing it.

Walmart is moving beyond traditional grocery delivery and into something much bigger: bringing groceries, fresh prepared food, restaurant meals, snacks and beverages together in one delivery experience.

In June 2026, Walmart began allowing eligible customers to order Subway directly through Walmart’s app or Walmart.com, including the ability to combine Subway with a Walmart Express grocery delivery. Walmart subsequently announced an expansion with Dunkin', beginning with approximately 150 Dunkin' locations inside Walmart stores and ultimately expanding to thousands of standalone locations.

The significance isn't simply that Walmart is delivering restaurant food.

Walmart is recognizing how consumers increasingly want to eat.

The consumer doesn't necessarily care whether dinner came from a supermarket deli, a restaurant kitchen, a convenience store or their own oven.

They care about taste, freshness, convenience, speed, value and choice.

That shift is creating a much larger opportunity for Ready-to-Eat and Heat-N-Eat food.

 

Consumers Are Eating at Home—But Increasingly They're Not Cooking From Scratch

For decades, the food industry largely divided meals into two categories:

Grocery = food you prepare.

Restaurants = food somebody else prepares.

That distinction is becoming outdated.

A growing portion of the market is now food prepared somewhere else and consumed at home.

That includes:

·       Ready-to-Eat meals

·       Heat-N-Eat entrées

·       Prepared deli foods

·       Restaurant takeout and delivery

·       Fresh sandwiches

·       Rotisserie chicken

·       Prepared salads

·       Pizza

·       Breakfast sandwiches

·       Fresh snacks

·       Bakery products

·       Coffee and other beverages

This is the expanding Grocerant economy.

And the consumer data increasingly supports it.

 

2024: Convenience Became Part of “Value”

FMI research conducted with Circana and Oliver Wyman in 2024 found that consumers were redefining value beyond price, with convenience, health and ease of preparation becoming increasingly important.

FMI reported that 87% of morning eating occasions and 76% of midday eating occasions were sourced from home, while 65% of morning eating occasions were prepared in less than five minutes.

That is an important distinction:

Eating at home does not mean cooking from scratch.

FMI also reported in 2024 that shoppers were using semi-prepared and fully prepared retail foods to supplement—or replace—meals prepared from scratch. A growing number were using a hybrid approach, combining prepared foods with foods they prepared themselves.

That is exactly where grocery foodservice and restaurant delivery begin to overlap.

 

2025: Grocery Stores Became More Serious Restaurant Competitors

The trend became even clearer in 2025.

FMI's Power of Foodservice at Retail 2025 found that the percentage of consumers choosing deli-prepared food instead of restaurant meals had more than doubled—from 12% in 2017 to 28% in 2025.

FMI also found that 53% of Americans were using a hybrid approach to create meals, combining deli-prepared foods with items from their own kitchens.

Retail foodservice dollar sales reached $52.1 billion, according to FMI.

The implication is important:

The grocery store is no longer competing only for the grocery budget. It is competing for the meal.

That makes Walmart's strategy especially interesting.

Walmart already has the grocery customer.

Now it can increasingly offer that customer restaurant food without requiring a separate restaurant transaction.

 

Restaurant Customers Are Asking for More Convenience, Too

The restaurant industry is sending the same signal from the other direction.

The National Restaurant Association reported in its 2025 Off-Premises Restaurant Trends research that nearly 75% of restaurant traffic occurred off-premises, including takeout, delivery and drive-thru.

Among adults:

·       47% picked up takeout at least weekly.

·       42% used the drive-thru weekly.

·       37% ordered delivery weekly.

The same research found that 66% of consumers wanted more choices from restaurants offering takeout, while 61% wanted more delivery choices.

Consumers are clearly comfortable with restaurant food coming to them.

Walmart's opportunity is to add that restaurant choice to a shopping ecosystem consumers already use.

 

Walmart's Real Advantage: The One-Basket Food Customer

Consider a typical evening order:

Milk.

Eggs.

Bananas.

Dog food.

Paper towels.

A prepared salad.

Dinner.

A snack.

Coffee for tomorrow morning.

Historically, those purchases might require multiple decisions and potentially multiple transactions.

Walmart can potentially combine them.

One customer. One digital basket. Multiple food occasions.

That is where Walmart's strategy becomes strategically different from traditional restaurant delivery.

A restaurant delivery platform typically begins with:

“What restaurant do you want?”

Walmart can begin with:

“What do you need?”

That difference matters because Walmart already has a broad grocery and household shopping relationship with millions of consumers.

Walmart also says its stores are within 10 miles of approximately 90% of the U.S. population, giving the company an extensive physical footprint for its delivery strategy.

 

2026: Grocery Foodservice Is Moving Forward

The opportunity isn't limited to Walmart.

FMI's 2026 industry research reports that 77% of food retailers plan to increase the space allocated to foodservice, including fresh-prepared grab-and-go offerings.

FMI also reported that 94% of shoppers purchased groceries both online and in-store during 2025, reinforcing how thoroughly food shopping has become omnichannel.

Meanwhile, Circana continues to identify convenience and delivery as important components of the evolving foodservice marketplace.

Put those trends together and the direction is clear:

Consumers want more food prepared for them, more convenient ways to get it and more choices about where it comes from.

That creates an enormous opportunity for Ready-to-Eat and Heat-N-Eat food across grocery, restaurants and convenience stores.

 

Walmart Isn't Becoming a Restaurant—It's Becoming a Food Occasion Aggregator

This is where I believe Walmart deserves real credit.

Walmart doesn't have to become McDonald's, Subway or Dunkin'.

It can let those brands remain what they are.

Instead, Walmart can potentially become the platform through which consumers access multiple food choices while simultaneously buying their groceries and household necessities.

Dinner can come from a restaurant.

Breakfast can come from Dunkin'.

Lunch can come from the grocery deli.

Snacks can come from the supermarket aisle.

Tomorrow's ingredients can come from the same order.

That is food-channel convergence.

And it changes the competitive equation.

The question isn't simply whether Walmart can deliver restaurant food.

The more important question is whether Walmart can capture more of the consumer's food spending by making the entire food-shopping experience easier.

 

The Fast-Food Industry Should Be Paying Attention

Traditional restaurant operators have historically measured competition primarily against other restaurants.

That isn't enough anymore.

A consumer deciding what to eat has increasingly more alternatives:

Cook it.

Heat it.

Grab it from the deli.

Pick it up at a restaurant.

Order it for delivery.

Buy it from a convenience store.

The winning operator will be the one that best answers the consumer's fundamental question:

“What can I eat right now with the least amount of effort?”

Walmart's emerging strategy is built around answering that question with a very broad assortment.

 

Three Insights From the Grocerant Guru®

1. The real competitor isn't always another restaurant.

It may be the consumer's kitchen.

Every restaurant should be asking:

What makes our food easier, faster, better or more desirable than preparing something at home?

The answer has to go beyond price.

2. Walmart is turning convenience into an ecosystem.

Restaurants generally sell convenience one meal at a time.

Walmart has the opportunity to combine groceries, prepared foods, restaurant meals, snacks and beverages into one digital basket.

That can increase both convenience for the consumer and the number of food occasions Walmart participates in.

3. The future of food competition is about owning the occasion—not the channel.

Consumers don't think:

“I need a grocery-store meal.”

They think:

“I'm hungry.”

They don't think:

“I need a restaurant.”

They think:

“What's for dinner?”

That is why Walmart's strategy matters.

The Grocerant Guru® bottom line:

Walmart isn't just delivering restaurant food. It is removing the traditional walls between grocery, restaurant, convenience and foodservice.

The retailers and restaurant operators that understand this shift—and make Ready-to-Eat and Heat-N-Eat food easier to discover, purchase and consume—will be positioned to capture more of the consumer's most valuable asset:

Their next eating occasion.

Elevate Your Brand with Expert Insights

For corporate presentations, regional chain strategies, educational forums, or keynote speaking, Steven Johnson, the Grocerant Guru®, delivers actionable insights that fuel success.

With deep experience in restaurant operations, brand positioning, and strategic consulting, Steven provides valuable takeaways that inspire and drive results.

Visit GrocerantGuru.com or FoodserviceSolutions.US Call 1-253-759-7869