Want Continuity in Brand Messaging Online Ordering is your Best Option

 

Food retailers striving for a consistent brand message too edify their relationship with the consumers can find that empowering consumers to utilize their digital platform for online ordering is more effective than in person experience according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.   

That said, it doesn’t matter if you’re a quick-service restaurant chain with hundreds of franchises across the nation or if you’re opening your first restaurant, if you want to survive online ordering is a “must have.” Gen Z and Millennials both are digital natives and reaching them is key to any brands future growth according to Johnson.

In a recent report by DoorDash, they found that 80 percent of American diners believe that they order online the same or more than they did last year. Additionally, the same report found that almost a fifth of consumers actively seek out restaurants they’ve never tried before when ordering online. Tie this with recent findings from the Paytronix 2023 Online Ordering Report, which found digital orders consistently made up 25–30 percent of all orders, as opposed to less than 10 percent in late 2019, and you have a recipe for urgency. If you aren’t part of every notable ordering platform, you’re simply cutting yourself out of the market. Plain and simple. Let’s see what Ray Gibson a product developer at Paytronix Systems (www.Paytronix.com), found and has to say:

“Eager to launch their own digital ordering, many restaurants start off working with the big third-party delivery apps: DoorDash, UberEats, and GrubHub. On paper, it makes sense—that’s where the most people are aggregated. But they quickly find out that outsourcing online ordering to third-party apps is expensive and it essentially hands over their hard-won customer relationships to someone else.

Consequently, many mid-sized brands—restaurants with anywhere from 10 to 100 locations—are creating and implementing their own online ordering systems. In the process, they are discovering that digital ordering is so much more than a way for customers to place orders.

In fact, digital ordering is an essential part of an ongoing conversation between a brand and its guests. By enabling direct, one-to-one communications, digital ordering also introduces things like customer reviews. A brand experiences a profound shift in guest behavior when reviews receive a response, even when the response was generated by artificial intelligence. When guests hear back, even those who leave negative feedback order 23 percent more and leave higher ratings.

Paytronix data shows just how first-party ordering customers differ from their third-party counterparts. They order more, higher-value items more frequently than third-party customers; tend to tip larger amounts; and are more likely to be part of a brand’s loyalty program.

Want to Build a 

Larger

Share of Stomach

Online Ordering Helps 

Adding a Loyalty Program

With a digital ordering system in place, quick-service restaurants also begin to accumulate information on their customers. Since digital customers can also be the most loyal customers, adding a loyalty program to expand those relationships makes sense.

At face value, a loyalty program will generate a consistent 18–30 percent lift in visits and spend across industries, brands, segments, and business models. Additionally, the data collected through these programs—from member demographics to visit frequency to most-popular menu items—is invaluable to any brand seeking to understand its guests better. This information can be leveraged to make strategic business decisions and market more effectively.

Once a loyalty program is up and running, a brand needs to build its membership. After all, the more customers they can enroll, the greater participation will be. Paytronix data reveals that restaurant loyalty members not only visit more per month.  They also consistently spend more—with 5 percent larger checks than non-loyalty members. The opportunity looks even stronger for quick-serves operating in the convenience market. Convenience store loyalty programs deliver an even greater lift in check sizes, the most of any segment with loyalty member checks 12 percent higher.

Once the loyalty program is up and running, it becomes a direct marketing conduit to all customers via email or text. Brands can implement initiatives, such as a lapsed customer campaign or birthday offers to encourage guests to visit and spend more. 

The Importance of Mobile Apps

Mobile apps add another dimension to an active customer engagement platform by creating a compelling personal experience that meets customers where they live—on their smartphone. They enable customers to order, make payments, and access their loyalty program account while simultaneously providing the brand with a constant marketing opportunity.

White label apps can be customized so that a brand can get up and running quickly with mobile communications. Once in place, that app delivers true 1:1 marketing by sending targeted offers and incentives (push, pull, SMS, geofenced) to specific customers.

Don’t Forget Third-Party Apps

With a first-party online ordering system, loyalty program and a mobile app up and running, a brand can reprioritize its third-party app from expensive necessity to helpful acquisition tool. The goal transitions into migrating those third-party customers onto the primary guest engagement system.

Brands do this in a variety of ways. For starters, many brands will mark up orders to third-party customers via separate more limited menus. They then send their first-party menus out with those orders. One pizza brand even has specific boxes for third-party orders with “Order direct, save dough” on them. The goal is to drive those customers to order directly from the brand web site or mobile app and to induct them into the loyalty program.

Guest Engagement Surround Sound

How disruptive is it to make these upgrades? Pulling it all together—or just pieces—and a guest engagement platform will make a big impact on a quick-serve’s bottom line.

Continuing to add more layers over time—online ordering, loyalty, a mobile app, and third-party ordering—may take time. The end goal is always to have everything on one platform that is tightly integrated with the POS and third-party apps. Once it’s up and running, the guest engagement platform is key to keeping customers engaged. Back it up with social media marketing and in-store marketing.

Ideally, each piece will be tightly integrated with the POS to ensure each order extends from the guest’s fingertips all the way to the kitchen. Food pictures and menu items should update in unison from the website menu to the third-party apps so that it’s easy to do markups and make changes on the fly.

Brands with a vibrant customer engagement platform find it easy to get and stay close to their customers. It’s also attractive to the franchisees who are so important to expanding the reach of a brand.”

For international corporate presentations, regional chain presentations, educational forums, or keynotes contact: Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions.  His extensive experience as a multi-unit restaurant operator, consultant, brand / product positioning expert, and public speaking will leave success clues for all. For more information visit GrocerantGuru.com, FoodserviceSolutions.US or call 1-253-759-7869

Digital Natives are Drawn too Frictionless Foodservice

 

Are you giving your customers what they want?  If your brand wants to be around in 10 years you had better be focusing on what digital natives like, want, and expect from their brands.  According to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® when it comes to foodservice Gen Z and Millennials have discovered self-checkout and frictionless menu and meal planning and they want it. Once again in a new study commissioned by Avery Dennison shows that most consumers have tried self-checkout.

According to the new Avery Dennison study, Gen Z consumers don’t just like frictionless shopping – they’ll switch stores if they can't get it. A survey commissioned by digital solutions company Avery Dennison found that 52% of consumers born after 1996 would likely buy groceries at another store that offers DIY checkout. 

The data went on to show that 49% of this young cohort of shoppers tends to spend more money with retailers offering an automated or connected checkout experience. Additionally, 52% agreed that connected stores would make them more loyal to a particular retail brand.

While Gen Z may be leading the way, but shoppers across demographic groups appreciate the convenience of self-checkout. Two-thirds of survey respondents said they would choose retailers that offer self-scanning at the end of their grocery shopping trip, while 59% said the same about the ability to scan items as they shop. 

When consumer fell time starved, speed is the main reason why shoppers gravitate towards frictionless buying. More than a third – 34% – of those polled also noted they don't like to stand in line for regular checkout and 33% said that they appreciate less interaction with people.

Life is not perfect, there are some drawbacks of self-checkout, most respondents cited the difficulty in getting help from a store employee if there was an issue with their transaction. Only 18% responded that there is no benefit to this form of in-store purchasing.

Francisco Melo, president, solutions group, at Avery Dennison, stated, “Considering that most people haven’t yet had the opportunity to try a full check-out free store, our research shows a high percentage would be more likely to switch retailers for the experience, which demonstrates a clear shift in consumer expectations. At the same time, a growing number of leading retailers are turning to digital ID solutions to truly transform the customer experience.”

Looking for success clues of your own? Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced food marketing and business development ideations. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities, technology, or a new menu product segment.  Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche visit us on our social media sites by clicking one of the following links: Facebook,  LinkedIn, or Twitter

Food Channel Blurring is Hogwash

 

Where do you sell your food?  Having spent all of my career in the foodservice niche, never have I seen a study that says there is any channel blurring.  Simply put channel blurring is a myth. All studies on the contrary see more advantages than disadvantages too selling branded food in multi-channels according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Brand protectionism is a relic of brand marketers of the 1980’s, 1990’s according to Johnson. Does your sales building strategy look more like 1980 than tomorrow’s strategy?  The real question brand marketers should be asking is not how to protect the brand or isolate the brand but how to best bridge the challenge of established customer deferred buying.

Consumers are dynamic not static brands must be as well if not they will slowly capitulate customers until they get to the point they cannot survive according to Johnson.  Do you believe that if the consumer is in a different channel of foodservice, then should your brand be available as an option? This includes retailers that are selling grocerant Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared, portable foods in new non-traditional avenues of distribution.

We continue to call this the “brand experience gap”, that is to say the gap in time between customers visiting their restaurants and enjoying a great meal within the four walls. Restaurants today need to strongly consider entering new food channels with branded product which includes some legacy products revisited, revived, and renewed if cultivating brand relevance is important to them according to Johnson.

Understanding how Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared portable branded food sales can edify your customer base, drive top line sales and bottom-line profits might just require a grocerant opportunity assessment. http://www.FoodserviceSolutions.usof Tacoma, WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche providing Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat Grocerant ScoreCards. 1-253-759-7869

FreshTake will Extend and Expand Mitchell Grocery

 

Interactive and participatory a new foodservice concept, FreshTake, will feature several foodservice concepts, extensive seating, and multiple entertainment options to entice consumers to stay longer, come back more frequently, and spend more according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Here is a little background, Jackson Mitchell, is a fourth-generation member of the family that owns wholesale distributor Mitchell Grocery, is planning to open an upscale, 42,000-square foot supermarket in Augusta, Ga., next summer that will include a sports bar, a five-hole putting green and several foodservice concepts.

FreshTake, which will take over the space previously occupied by a Whole Foods that closed in 2017, will also incorporate a pharmacy, that will be a first for Mitchell’s company, Jackson Mitchell Holdings, which also owns the five-store Little Giant Farmers Market grocery chain in Georgia.

“This store represents the culmination of my career and a deep love for the grocery business,” said Mitchell, CEO of Jackson Mitchell Holdings. “Our goal is to create a space that not only offers top-quality groceries but also becomes a hub for the community, where people can come together to enjoy great food, entertainment, and convenience.”

Jackson, described the store as a “seamless integration of shopping and leisure activities.” It will include seating for 130, two outdoor balconies, and a mezzanine seating area above the in-store cafe. Other features include an outdoor firepit and a five-hole putting green.

Foodservice concepts

About 12,000 square feet of the store’s area will be dedicated to foodservice and entertainment, a spokesperson for Jackson Mitchell Holdings.

So, among the planned foodservice concepts will be a walk-up barbecue smokehouse on the outdoor patio, a sushi bar, a pizza-and-pasta station, a sandwich concept, a hot food bar, a fresh juice and smoothie station, and grab-and-go prepared foods. Customers will also be able to have fresh cuts of meat prepared in-store through a “grill while you shop” option, and the seafood department will offer steaming for fish purchases.

Yes, there is more, the store also plans a beer-and-wine sports bar concept called Jackson’s that will feature 13 TV screens and 10 beers on tap, along with a menu of bar food items. FreshTake will also include a Starbucks café inside the store, the spokesperson said.

Delivery and other features

Other planned offerings at the new FreshTake store include:

·         A partnership with Instacart for grocery pickup and delivery

·         Prepared-foods delivery through DoorDash and Uber Eats

·         Catering services

·         A refrigerated beer cave called the “Ice Box”

·         A selection of imported cheeses

·         An in-store bakery

Jackson Mitchell was director of store development at Mitchell Grocery Corp. for five years before he acquired the five-store Little Giant Farmers Market chain in 2019, operating it as a wholly owned subsidiary of Jackson Mitchell Holdings while developing the FreshTake concept.

“This will be the first FreshTake of many, and Jackson is scouting locations to expand to in the future,” the spokesperson said. Mitchell is also open to opportunities to expand Little Giant, the spokesperson said. Of course Mitchell Grocery Corp., based in Albertville, Ala., which supplies more than 200 independent supermarkets in the Southeast, will also supply FreshTake.

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 us on our social media sites by clicking one of the following links: Facebook,  LinkedIn, or Twitter

Do You Want to Grow

A Larger Share of Stomach

A Larger Share of Wallet

Call the 

What Is a Grocerant Here is the Definition and some Examples of a Grocerant

 

A grocerant is a hybrid of grocery store and restaurant. Grocerants offer freshly prepared, ready-2-eat, or Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food for takeout or for inside a store setting. For example, a grocerant can be the fast-casual cafe, a fast food restaurant with a drive-thru, a grocery store deli or a grocery prepared meal section filled with meal kits or prepared meal components, or the freshly made, grab-and-go offerings of a convenience store.

There is a blurring the line between restaurants and grocery stores in the minds-eye of the consumer today. However, grocerants offer the appeal of freshly prepared foods in a convenient setting. A grocerant is an opportunity to pick up a meal you don't have to cook yourself, and therefore is an attractive option for a lot of people. In fact, three in four consumers would rather dine out with family and friends than stay in and cook, according to the National Restaurant Association. Let’s look at some additional facts:

1.       Recent Grocerant ScoreCards found 81.1% of consumers don’t know what’s for dinner at Noon, and 61.1 don’t know what’ s for dinner at 4PM %.

2. Roughly 63.7% of consumers purchase prepared food items from a retail location at least three times a month.
3. 79.6% all dinners have at least 1 grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat meal component and 66.6% have two meal components.
4. When asked if they wanted to cook dinner from scratch or assemble dinner from fresh meal components 91.3 % of Gen Z chose assemble from Fresh Prepared Meal Components and Millennials 83.4% chose meal components.
5. Seventy-three percent of retail prepared food purchases are taken to go
6. Prepared food purchases are frequently a planned purchase among 61.2% of shoppers, while 40.9% of shoppers said they buy prepared foods on impulse. Dinner has the highest amount of prepared food buys with 81.7% of respondents making purchases for that meal, while lunch comes in at 76.9% and breakfast at 61.4%.
7. 57.8% of consumers would like to add Alcohol to a dinner order

In a Battle for Share of Stomach

Customer Relevance Matters

Grocerants are a fresh fast meal solution that can be customized for any family. Frequently, a grocerant is a dedicated area inside a grocery store that sells prepared meals. These meals might be designed for take-out, to be eaten off-premises, or there may be a seating area inside the store. There may be limited table service, too, or it may be self-serve.

A grocerant may take stocked items and use them to create meals in Ready-2-Eat or Heat-N-Eat packaging, or it may create meals from a separate store of ingredients.

Many typical grocery stores sell grab-and-go prepared foods. Companies the ilk of Central Market, Safeway, Giant Eagle, Publix, and Kroger, for example, all sell freshly prepared rotisserie chickens, salads, and sandwiches, and most also offer sushi and beverages, too.

Convenience stores are now excelling at selling fresh Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat meal components or meals; such as 7-Eleven, Wawa, Sheetz, and QuickChek also sell fresh and prepared sandwiches, salads, and beverages, and some locations offer dine-in seating.

Many grocerants include alcohol sales in their business model, including a selection of wine, beer, and cocktails as an added draw.

Whole Foods, typically known for its groceries, provides "Grab-and-Gourmet" prepared meals in addition to rotisserie chickens and catering platters. But at some locations, you'll find food courts, or food halls, featuring local beer and a variety of dine-in or take-out options, many showcasing local "Friends of Whole Foods" chefs. Visitors to its flagship food hall and cocktail bar at its Tyson's Corners, Virginia, location might find counter service, seating, and self-serve wine in addition to a specialty donut maker, Japanese pub, and superfood smoothie bar.

Independent restaurants you can find grocerants inside a variety of retailers, from large chain grocery stores to independent food stores to convenience stores and more. Many legacy chain restaurants and cafes also offer Ready-2-Eat bundled meals via the drive-thru or meals that can be purchased inside and taken home. For instance, at Starbucks, coffee customers can also pick up pre-packaged salads, wraps, and sandwiches.

There are also sections in department stores and kiosks in malls that offer ready-to-eat and heat-and-eat options, including entrees, soups, sides, or faster options like pizza and hot dogs. Generally, these items can be picked up or delivered.

Not only is there variety as to where to find a grocerant, but the grocerants themselves may have different themes. The grocery chain Wegmans offers its Market Café as a spot to pick up quick bites such as sushi, pizza, sandwiches, and salads. But it offers additional restaurants, too. Next Door by Wegmans offers healthy, chef-prepared foods using organic and sustainable ingredients from their store, while Amore by Wegmans provides classic Italian dishes and wine. The Burger Bar by Wegmans sells burgers and fries for take-out or delivery.

Further blending grocery stores and restaurants are premade meal delivery services such as Freshly or Daily Harvest. These businesses provide subscription plans that deliver prepared meals to your door; all you need to do is heat and eat. Other business models provide the ingredients and recipe cards for you to make your own meals. Blue Apron, for example, ships you the ingredients for the meal you choose, and you prepare it.

Grocerants are a hybrid of grocery store and restaurant aka any food retailer that sells fresh prepared meals and meal components that can be mixed and matched into a perfect family meal without the need for cooking from scratch. They typically sell grab-and-go meals or sometimes even offer sit-down dining and table service.

The word Grocerant is a result of the blurring of the line between restaurants and grocery stores created, defined, and first published as an Op-Ed article titled: Call Them Grocerants in August 1996 in FoodService Director and again in Nation’s Restaurant News authored by our own Steven Johnson to describe the undercurrents of food industry consumer changing eating a buying pattern.

On a side note; Johnson and Foodservice Solutions® received a US Trademark for the word Grocerant in 1998, subsequently gave it up to become the ‘Grocerant Guru®’. Today Foodservice Solutions® retail consultancy is the global leader within the grocerant niche.

Simply put today a grocerant is anywhere a consumer can find fresh prepared food positioned, placed, and priced for the time-starved consumer with Ready-2-Eat or Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared meals or meal components that can be bundled into a meal and or packaged for Take-Out, Take-Away, or To-Go.

For international corporate presentations, regional chain presentations, educational forums, or keynotes contact: Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions.  His extensive experience as a multi-unit restaurant operator, consultant, brand / product positioning expert, and public speaking will leave success clues for all. For more information visit GrocerantGuru.com, FoodserviceSolutions.US or call 1-253-759-7869