Foodservice Packaging Evolving for Survival

 

Throughout history, foodservice packaging has played a critical role in shaping consumer behavior and the success of the food industry. From humble beginnings, where simplicity and function were the primary concerns, to the current demand for sustainability, convenience, and branding, packaging has evolved in response to societal needs, technological advances, and environmental pressures.

Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® believes that ‘packaging’s evolution’ has often been driven by crisis or opportunity, and its survival has mirrored the survival of the food industry itself. Here, we explore three dramatic examples where packaging innovation not only adapted but became essential for a brand's survival and growth.

Example 1: The Birth of Fast-Food Packaging – McDonald’s Transformation

In the early 1960s, fast food was experiencing explosive growth, yet McDonald’s faced a logistical nightmare—how to serve consistent meals quickly while maintaining quality. The solution lay in packaging. Their revolutionary switch to disposable packaging systems, including paper bags, wax-coated cartons, and paper cups, allowed them to streamline operations and reduce costs. This packaging pivot was crucial for McDonald’s ability to scale, eliminating the need for washing and reusing dishes. Beyond operational efficiency, the packaging itself became a branding tool, reinforcing the iconic golden arches and “speedee” service promise.

This transformation of fast-food packaging not only saved time and reduced overhead but also aligned with post-WWII American values of convenience and disposability. It became the blueprint for the industry and spurred the rapid rise of fast -food giants. Today, McDonald's packaging innovations of the 1960s are credited with enabling the birth of a global industry that thrives on speed and consistency.

Example 2: The Frozen Meal Revolution – Swanson’s TV Dinners

In the 1950s, Swanson introduced the now-famous TV dinner, which fundamentally changed the way Americans consumed meals. The packaging innovation was as critical as the frozen food itself. Swanson utilized compartmentalized aluminum trays to keep meal components separate while maintaining their flavor and texture during freezing and reheating. This move capitalized on the growing popularity of television and a culture increasingly driven by convenience and novelty.

The packaging's success wasn't just about keeping the food intact—it was about changing consumer habits. It created a new category of meals meant to be eaten quickly and with minimal cleanup. The compartmentalized tray became a symbol of modern domesticity, providing families with quick, balanced meals that mirrored the structure of home-cooked dinners but without the time investment. Without this innovation, the frozen food sector may never have achieved its pivotal role in American households.

Example 3: Eco-Friendly Push – Starbucks’ Shift to Sustainability

In more recent years, Starbucks has faced a different kind of packaging challenge, one driven by environmental sustainability. In response to growing consumer concerns over plastic waste and the company’s carbon footprint, Starbucks made a dramatic shift by introducing compostable straws, reusable cups, and recyclable packaging materials. While these changes may seem incremental, they represent a sea change in how a global brand with thousands of stores operates on a daily basis.

The shift, though essential, wasn’t without hurdles. Starbucks had to balance consumer convenience with environmental responsibility, all while maintaining the brand’s premium image. The introduction of reusable cups required changes to supply chains, store operations, and consumer education. While still evolving, this packaging initiative reflects the larger industry trend toward sustainability, a response to both consumer demand and regulatory pressures around the world. For Starbucks, the shift wasn't just about survival—it was about future-proofing the brand in an era where eco-consciousness defines consumer loyalty.

Packaging as a Lifeline

From McDonald’s disposable fast-food containers to Swanson’s aluminum TV dinner trays and Starbucks’ eco-conscious cups, packaging has consistently been at the forefront of foodservice innovation. These examples demonstrate that packaging isn’t just a peripheral concern; it is fundamental to foodservice survival. As we move further into the 21st century, foodservice packaging will continue to evolve, driven by technology, sustainability, and changing consumer demands. The next wave of packaging innovation will likely come from a similar mix of crisis and opportunity, as the industry adapts to new challenges.

For brands seeking to stay relevant, packaging must be viewed not just as a necessity, but as a tool for growth, customer engagement, and long-term survival.

Foodservice Solutions® team is here to help you drive top line sales and bottom-line profits. Are you looking a customer ahead? Visit GrocerantGuru.com 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.

McDonald’s Defines Industry Leadership with Interactive Participatory Marketing

 

When it comes to defining industry leadership, McDonald’s has consistently proven that it’s not just about serving food—it’s about creating experiences that resonate across generations. One of the most powerful ways the Golden Arches has done this is through its collectible cups, a symbol of McDonald’s innovative approach to interactive participatory marketing according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. With the recent introduction of their new collectible cup series, McDonald’s is once again demonstrating why they lead the industry in creating emotional connections with their customers.

The Origins of McDonald’s Collectibles: A Nostalgic Journey

McDonald’s journey with collectibles began decades ago, tapping into a simple yet effective concept: making meals more than just a transaction. The idea was to transform a simple visit to McDonald’s into an experience, a memory, and ultimately, a tradition. The launch of collectible items like the iconic McDonald’s glasses in the 1970s set the stage for a long-standing tradition of combining food with fun. These cups, adorned with beloved characters like Ronald McDonald and the Hamburglar, quickly became more than just containers—they were keepsakes, conversation starters, and, for many, a cherished part of childhood.

A Legacy of Collectible Cups: From Cowpoke McNugget Buddy to the Grimace Glass

Fast forward to 2024, and McDonald’s continues to build on this legacy with the introduction of their latest Collector’s Meal, featuring six new collectible cups. Each cup in this series is a nod to past favorites, reimagined for a new generation of fans. From the whimsical Cowpoke McNugget Buddy of 1988 to the vibrant Grimace Glass, these cups are steeped in nostalgia, yet fresh and relevant for today’s collectors.

McDonald’s has always understood the power of nostalgia in branding. These cups are not just about reliving the past; they are about creating new memories, forging connections between generations. Whether it’s the Barbie & Hot Wheels cup that reignites the joy of childhood imagination or the Shrek, Jurassic Park & Minions cup that brings beloved film franchises to life, each design tells a story, evoking the emotions and excitement of the original collectibles.

Building Share of Stomach

For Years to Come Collecting Works 

Interactive Participatory Marketing: A Blueprint for Success

What sets McDonald’s apart in the fast-food industry is its mastery of interactive participatory marketing. The new collectible cups are not just a static product; they are part of a dynamic experience that extends beyond the restaurant. By incorporating augmented reality (AR) through Snapchat, McDonald’s allows customers to dive into the world of their collectibles, adding a modern twist to a classic marketing strategy. This blend of physical and digital interaction enhances the customer experience, making it more engaging and memorable.

Moreover, McDonald’s isn’t just content with creating digital experiences. They are taking it a step further by hosting IRL (In Real Life) collector events, such as the upcoming Collector’s Club Poolside Paradise at Santa Monica Pier and the Coney Island extravaganza. These events transform a simple meal purchase into an immersive experience, where fans can celebrate their love for McDonald’s in a community setting, solidifying their emotional connection to the brand.

A Proven Strategy with Global Impact

The introduction of these new collectible cups is more than just a marketing campaign; it’s a continuation of a strategy that has defined McDonald’s as a global leader. By merging nostalgia with modern technology and community events, McDonald’s is not only appealing to longtime fans but also capturing the attention of a new generation. The brand’s ability to stay relevant through the years, while staying true to its roots, is a testament to its innovative spirit.

As McDonald’s rolls out its Collector’s Meal, the fast-food giant is reminding the world of its unparalleled ability to blend food, fun, and memories into a seamless experience. This campaign is not just about selling meals; it’s about reinforcing McDonald’s position as an industry leader in creating interactive, participatory marketing that resonates on a deeply personal level. And in doing so, McDonald’s continues to define what it means to be a leader in the ever-evolving world of fast food

Don’t over reach. Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideations look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Interested in learning how Foodservice Solutions® 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 us on our social media sites by clicking the following links: Facebook,  LinkedIn, or Twitter

 

At Starbucks Sustainability Matters to Consumers

 

Building a brand with the ‘halo’ of better-4-you requires a focus on consumers unmet needs or expectations and that requires looking a customer ahead.  According to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® consumers want companies to help show the way to a ‘more sustainable future’.

So, in the case of Starbucks, starting August 14, they expanded their 100 percent reusable format to 12 stores in Napa and Petaluma, California. That means every beverage made at these stores will be prepared in either a personal cup or in a Starbucks reusable Borrow A Cup that customers can take with them and return in smart return bins.

Starbucks big vision for the future is that every Starbucks beverage could be served in a reusable cup. A future where every time our customers visit Starbucks, they’re welcome to bring their own personal reusable cup, or Starbucks will provide them with a reusable cup. This way it’s easy to reuse wherever they’re enjoying their favorite Starbucks beverage. 

Just how will it work? Here’s how the 100 percent Reusables Operating Model works:   

·         Order your drink as usual at a participating Starbucks, in the café, drive-thru or via mobile order and pay.  

·         Your hot or cold beverage will be served in a personal cup or a ‘borrowed’ cup, which you can take with you at these 12 stores from August 14 – October 22.  

·         If you are using a borrowed cup, when done with your beverage, return the cup by scanning and dropping the cup into a participating store’s contactless return bin. The cup will be professionally washed and sanitized, ready to be used again. 

·         Customers who bring their own personal cup will receive the standard benefit of $0.10 off and Starbucks Rewards members will receive 25 bonus stars.   

·         When customers return their borrowed cup, they will also have the option to register online with TURN to earn points for every Borrow a Cup return and prizes through TURN (a leading reuse platform designed for scale - through a fully circular system, TURN offers integrated solutions to end single-use plastic.) 

·         In case you did not know Starbucks has been testing the 100% reusables model in several markets including three cities in the US (including the Starbucks café located in Starbucks headquarters in Seattle), as well as globally in Japan, Singapore, London, and South Korea since 2021. 

·         After a successful 3-month test, now customers can bring their personal cup through drive-thru going forward at 192 stores across Colorado. 

·         In support of the company’s goal to reduce waste by 50 percent by 2030, Starbucks is shifting away from single-use plastics, championing the use of recycled content, and promoting reusability, driven by a broader shift towards a circular economy. 

·         The biggest thing to learn from these tests as we prepare to bring this model to more stores, is how to offer customers a way to shift away from single use cups toward a reusable to-go-coffee experience, in a way that is convenient, easy, and enjoyable.   Are you looking a customer ahead? What do your customer want?

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

Does your Restaurant App Suck Your Customers Think So

There is no doubt that year over year customer count declines within the restaurant sector are caused by many things including the ilk of slow service, cold food not cold, hot food not hot, delivery orders going out the front door as a customer’s waits, waits, and waits at a table for their food.  Ok, we could go on and on.

Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®, stated, “technology for online or inline ordering that is not as ‘good’ as McDonald’s is simply not good enough.”

Technomic recently found that “if you are experiencing declines in your customer satisfaction scores, you are not alone. Shifts in digital ordering behaviors and new customer acquisition may be to blame. But the general mood of the market is not helping matters. When you combine digital ordering behaviors with a general decline in national mood, we see satisfaction levels dipping and most often during online ordering occasions. The good news is that there are signs that a good in-person interaction can overcome that negative mood.   

Something is going on in the delivery market that is driving satisfaction levels down from 55% of consumers rating their experience as excellent in Q2 2020 during delivery orders to 49% today. One thing we know about consumers is that they tend not to be “wowed” by their first restaurant visit. More often their satisfaction with a restaurant goes up with experience. They come to know the brand first and then their satisfaction levels increase, as does their loyalty.

he best way to build this type of ongoing, reciprocal trust between a customer and a restaurant is in a face-to-face transaction. In fact, we tend to see higher levels of satisfaction on orders that originate with an employee than other order modes.  On average there is a 2 ppt advantage to an in-person order. It is very hard to build trust with a customer online.

At the start of the pandemic, I held hope this would finally be the event that brought communities together, allowed people to disagree with each other respectfully and helped build trust among diverse people. That hope lasted approximately one hour. That was the moment I opened an article about the delayed NBA season and found a festering pool of anger in the comments section. Displays of common decency were eventually drowned-out by this pool and other similar pools. But there were many common displays of decency and many efforts to make do.  

One area where those common displays of decency thrived was the support shown to restaurants. Our business was all hands on the Zoom deck. Trade groups formed, legislation was passed and when the doors were reopened customers were grateful, save for those occasional folks who wandered out of their anger pool to harass our staff. On average, the goodwill for this industry overshadowed the negativity. The result was unprecedented levels of satisfaction. In total, the proportion of consumers who had rated their last visit to the top restaurant chains in the industry as excellent was as high as it’s been in quite a few years. Restaurants were being given credit for trying. Some were excelling, even.

Since that time, however, we’ve seen a collective erosion of goodwill that is largely driven by this growing pessimism among online orders. Customer satisfaction levels have dropped from a peak in the third quarter of 2020 to this year’s third quarter. The drop-off was particularly large for Quick Service Restaurants.

At its most recent peak, 51.5% of visitors to the fast-food chain space rated their visit as “excellent”. That number was about as close as QSR has been too fast-casual levels of satisfaction in the history of our tracker. Satisfaction levels have dropped 4 percentage points to 47.4%. Fast-Casual restaurants did not see the immediate pandemic boost in satisfaction ratings but have also seen their scores drop as well.

Interestingly, we are seeing a different trend among casual dining restaurants where in-person orders have been recovering and satisfaction levels increased over last year. Midscale satisfaction is also up compared to 2019 levels but has started to come back to earth.

The question is, what is missing from our online ordering experiences that is not translating into satisfaction? This is a question we are setting out to answer in a new off-premise channel study we are launching. My hypothesis is that the missing element is the trust-building power of a smiling face and a warm greeting. If I’m right, then the question become how best to replicate that online. At the very least, we know that is not happening presently in our market.  It needs to be.” In short, the team at Foodservice Solutions® agrees with Technomic.

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 

McDonald's Positivity Wins the Day

 

Once again, success does leave clues.  Industry leading companies understand that there is an increased unmet need that consumers are expressing when it comes to their everyday life and food, meals, and beverages.  That unmet need is being express in the form of more ‘sustainable’ food and beverage products that according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® “includes living, being happy, healthy, and hopefully vaccinated.

Sometimes companies are asked to step up and lead. McDonald's leadership is showing as it is partnering with the federal government to provide COVID-19 vaccine information on billboards, coffee cups and package seals.  That branded messaging is better for you, better for me, and better for everyone around the world. 

McDonald’s said that its role in the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s “We Can Do This” campaign would begin later in May with third-party COVID-19 vaccine information posted on the McDonald's billboard in New York City’s Times Square.

It takes time to produce the millions of cups and seal stickers, then get the items through the supply chain and into the stores. Then, starting in July, McDonald's hot McCafé cups and McDelivery seal stickers will promote vaccines.gov information and its locator for finding vaccine appointments. The website is sponsored by HHS, Boston Children’s Hospital and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

So, the McDonald’s new packaging and ads will feature art from the national “We Can Do This” campaign, setting the campaign's slogan against a map of the United States.

The press release from McDonald’s, stated, “McDonald's is committed to making helpful information accessible to our customers, who are encouraged to share the campaign using #WeCanDoThis to inspire others to learn more about what they can do to help end the pandemic,”.

Then Genna Gent, McDonald's USA vice president for global public policy and government relations, stated, “We all want to protect ourselves and our loved ones and be together with our communities again. McDonald's is excited to be doing our part for the people we serve, providing them with simple information that can help keep them safe.”

Gent continued saying the program would reach customers in the 14,000 U.S. communities it serves. Xavier Becerra, secretary of Health and Human Services, stated, "Thanks to McDonalds, people will now be able to get trusted information about vaccines when they grab a cup of coffee or order a meal.”…“Ending this pandemic requires all of us working together to do our part, including encouraging our friends and family to get vaccinated. This effort will help more people make informed decisions about their health and learn about steps they can take to protect themselves and their communities."

The team at Foodservice Solutions® simply wants to say, THANK YOU, McDonalds.

Are you looking for a new partnership to drive sales? Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing tactics look more like yesterday that tomorrow?  Visit GrocerantGuru.com for more information or contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us Remember success does leave clues and we just may have the clue you need to propel your continued success.