The Plant Café Organic Proven to be ‘Better for you”

The halo of ‘better-for-you’ has help drive dynamic growth of the grocerant niche according to Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru®, Steven Johnson.  The Plant Café’ Organic has now become the first Platinum REAL Certified Concept.  Is your concept inching closer too ‘better-for-you’?

The fast-casual organic pioneer, The Plant Café Organic, recently underwent “the Eat REAL Certified Audit and become the first in the nation to qualify for Platinum-level certification. This certification ushers in a new generation of REAL Certified restaurants and foodservice providers committed to making changes to their operations in order to raise the bar for foodservice operators nationwide.”

Matthew Guelke, cofounder and CEO of The Plant Café Organic stated “Since we opened our first restaurant twelve years ago, The Plant has been committed to 100 percent organic food sourced from loyal purveyors. Our sustainability and health mission has found a strong partner in Eat REAL,” .. “We are proud to have met the high standards for Platinum-level certification and together with Eat REAL, we hope to encourage other restaurants to prioritize nutrition, ethical sourcing, and organic foods.”

As Millennials seek authenticity this certification marks the rollout of Eat REAL’s updated certification standards, which incorporate, among other things, an increased focus on animal welfare, sustainable produce sourcing, and a tiered (Silver, Gold, and Platinum) system for scoring restaurants that go above and beyond to make changes to their operations and a place for Millennials to validate claims made by chain restaurants.

Becoming Platinum certified, means that The Plant Café is leading the highest ranking REAL Certified establishments—the goal of which is to represent the top 1 percent of nutrition and sustainability best practices nationwide. On top of the REAL Certified audit standards, Platinum restaurants must also meet the following prerequisites:

1.        A minimum score of 90 percent on the REAL Certified audit.

2.        100 percent of meat and poultry products are sourced from non-CAFO farms.

3.        100 percent of seafood must be “green” according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Consumer Guide.

4.        At least 50 percent of oils used in food preparation are non-GMO.

5.        100 percent of entrées contain at least one serving vegetables that is not juiced, deep-fried, or sweetened.

6.        None of the pre-packaged food items sold include ingredients from Eat REAL’s list of unacceptable ingredients.

Millennials are seeking discovery and have become comfortable with ‘better-for-you’ food.  If you are a retail foodservice purveyor do you understand all of the different attributes that resonate with Millennials when it comes to the halo around ‘better-for-you’?

Success does leave clues www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  is the global leader in grocerant niche business development.  We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities.  Has your company had a Grocerant ScoreCard completed a Grocerant Program Assessment, or new Grocerant niche product Ideation?  Want one?  Call 253-759-7869 Email: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us

Competitive Grocerant Marketing

More often than not the question of the day is ‘What’s for Dinner’ the first thing consumers do today is think about asking Google What’s for Dinner.  A recent Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® study found every day at noon in the United States 83% of consumers do not know what’s for dinner, and at 4 PM 69% of consumer still do not know ‘What’s for Dinner’ according to our Grocerant Guru® Steven Johnson.

A  recent study by Market Track, which surveyed 16 product categories, 80% of respondents said they would do online price comparisons in all categories before making a purchase in a physical location. "Even with consumers indicating their preference to purchase items in-store, the highly competitive online environment is impacting brick-and-mortar results. Decreases in profit margins can be attributed to shoppers being armed with more pricing and comparison information,” said Traci Gregorski, senior vice president of marketing at Market Track.

Our Grocerant Guru® found that consumers begin thinking about ‘What’s for Dinner’ seriously by 4 PM. The ability of consumers construct a family meal utilizing real-time menu’s, special of the day, pricing and other online information such as ratings, locations and reviews at their disposal the path to purchase in many cases today can be found in the ‘palm of the consumers hand’ within the smartphone’.

In fact Market Track found that for those aged 21 to 29, 47% primarily shop via mobile, 31% indicate they prefer online and 22% prefer to make a purchase in store.  So the question becomes can your brand compete with marketing communications from the likes of Google, Amazon, or Facebook? Will consumers start buying dinner from Amazon instead of going out to dinner? The team at Foodservice Solutions® thinks that could be the case.

Amazon’s Click and Collect just might work after reading this in the Market Track study “Of all respondents, 87% shop on Amazon and 1 in 3 do so at least once a week. The selection of products is the No. 1 reason for shopping the e-commerce giant.”  If dinner, meal kits, or grocerant Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food are available at Amazon can you brand compete?  How often do consumers visit your App, website, or brick & mortar store?  Do they visit once a week, twice a week, three times a week, or once every 21 days?

Do your restaurant, grocery, convenience stores or grocerant marketing communication tactics and look more like yesterday that tomorrow?  Visit www.FoodserviceSolutions.us 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