Earth Fare ‘Better for you’ is Relevant Today

At the intersection of the consumer and food sales today in the ‘halo’ of better for you according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. Johnson speaking about Earth Fare stated “they have a unique understanding that the ‘halo’ of better for you.  They understand that it extends into all aspects of the consumer touchpoints including technology, and digital menu boards are a large part of the consumer expectations and I (Johnson) has been telling the restaurant industry for years”.

Johnson continued saying if you want a sales lift while improving margins technology that is consumer facing, interactive, and participatory is a very good investment. The simple fact is that Earth Fare invested in digital signage which resulted sales lift.

So, earlier this year, Earth Fare piloted custom-designed digital displays from Mood Media in the café area of a store in Charlotte, N.C. Serving up a variety of information, marketing and entertainment content, the displays generated a 10% gain for the café’s eat-in food sales during a 60-day test.

Today, Earth Fare has Mood Media digital signage at 26 stores, including more than 180 screens and 400 media devices. Besides the café area, digital displays are located in such areas as the bakery, bar, seafood, deli, coffee/espresso, smoothie/juice, sushi, sandwich and pizza counters.

Mike Savage, senior vice president of merchandising at Earth Fare  stated “In addition to our commitment to provide clean and healthy food options for our shoppers, we are also dedicated to ensuring that our shoppers have enjoyable and memorable experiences…Mood Media helped us create a branded café environment that positively distinguishes us from other grocers. With new visual technologies and engaging, customized content, shoppers felt invited to eat, drink, lounge and relax.”

Here is how it started; for the pilot, launched in mid-2019, Earth Fare developed creative digital media content, which was displayed on five 55-inch, ultra-high-definition LCD screens, supplied and installed by Mood Media. Signage in the café included digital menu boards at the point of sale for food and beverages, Earth Fare branded content and targeted messaging promoting eat-in food options, live sportscasts (specifically for March Madness college basketball games) and local weather forecasts.

Mood Media noted that relevance was key to the digital content strategy for the pilot, given that Earth Fare customers tended to dwell longer in the café than other grocery departments. That my friends is how interactive participatory technology works elevating consumer touchpoints.

Authorized employees at Earth Fare manage the digital media content via Mood Media’s Mood Harmony platform. The tool’s interface lets them instantly change, edit and publish content for one or multiple screens across locations. They also can schedule content in advance, even down to the second, Mood Media said.

Bradlee Hicks, creative director at Earth Fare “With a clear layout and the ability to drag and drop, the CMS is straightforward and simple to use, and I know exactly where each of our hundreds of pieces of content will live, in this case the café area,” according to. “Within seconds, we can schedule content and push updates to several locations, a key factor for a retailer of our size.”

Earth Fare is also leveraging Mood Media’s partnership with DISH by occasionally airing live TV on screens in the Charlotte store’s café. Are you ready for a sales lift? 

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

Will Virtual Restaurants become food sector Disruptors?

Here we go again, the restaurant sector is facing challenges from outside the restaurant sector yet inside the food sector.  Back in the day pizza store fronts (delivery only) branded outlets displaced many Italian restaurants, they also replaced companies the ilk of Pizza Hut once had over 2,000 ‘red roof’ full-service restaurants.  According to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

All regular readers of this blog have driven by a virtual restaurant, Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Papa John’s and most of you have virtual restaurant meals delivered right to your door.  Then there are companies the ilk of Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, and Plated sure you have to prepare them at home, cook them, then do dishes. All the while with a virtual restaurant all you have to do is open the door and eat!

Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant ScoreCards indicate consumers consider new virtual restaurants first to be ‘restaurant quality or better’ and second ‘a restaurant meal replacement’ and third ‘special occasion dinning’. Now for the undercurrents of success driving virtual restaurants and disruption:

1.       Online Ordering

2.       Free Wi-Fi

3.       Digital Menus

4.       Digital Loyalty

5.       Mobile Ordering

Just as the lines between retail sectors have grown thinner so have storefronts.  Today a storefront and can include your neighbor’s kitchen, Pop-Up shipping-container-size kitchens, grocery stores, convenience stores, dollar stores, and restaurants the ilk of Red Robin, Carrabba’s Italian Grill.

In a world where meal component assembly has become the new form of meal preparation with 83.7% of family meals having at least one fresh prepared meal component, the facts are clear cooking from scratch is a bygone era.  Our question today is doe’s your food retail outlet look more like yesterday or tomorrow?

Interested in learning how Foodservice Solutions 5P’s of Food Marketing 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:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information

Grocerants: Why This Business Model Is Taking Over

The way consumers eat is changing. In the modern world, getting food is more convenient thanks to things like mobile ordering apps and meal delivery services such as Yumble. This makes it easier for those who do want to stay in to have a good meal without having to worry about cooking. (Today we have a Guest Blog post provided by Oliva Chang.)

But, according to a recent Nielsen study, Americans are choosing to dine out in greater numbers than ever before. This is one factor contributing to the increasing popularity of grocerants, which are essentially grocery stores offering both shopping and dining options.

This emerging business model offers several major benefits to consumers. Convenience is a major one. Although people are now more interested in dining out than they once were, they still need to buy groceries from time to time. Being able to do both in one location helps them save time. This is very helpful in an age where constant connectivity has resulted in busy lifestyles.

Additionally, statistics indicate traditional restaurant menu prices have been rising, while grocery prices have not. Grocery stores that allow shoppers to purchase items and dine right there in the store may therefore save consumers money.

The following trends help to further explain why and how the grocerant model has become popular in recent years:

Spending Habits

Unlike previous generations, the vast majority of millennials would rather spend money on experiences instead of products. The grocerant model simply caters to their preferences. This trend is likely to continue, given that studies confirm having experiences makes people happier than owning possessions.

Social Media

Social media has given the average consumer greater opportunities than ever to share their opinions on the food they eat. Going to a restaurant or your local grocery store and sharing a picture of a meal (along with a brief review) on Instagram allows anyone to indulge their inner food critic.

Social Awareness

A recent study indicates consumers now prefer to connect with brands that prioritize sustainability. On top of that, the number of farmers markets in the United States has risen substantially in recent years.

Consumers no longer feel satisfied heading to grocery stores to buy products without knowing anything about their origins, the manufacturing process, the supply chain, and various other factors that impact how sustainable a product may be. They’d rather dine at spots where they can learn about how their food reached their plate.

A traditional grocery store typically won’t offer this information, while a grocerant often can and will. It’s also worth noting that dining out can produce less waste than buying groceries, which often use up substantial resources for packaging.

On-Demand Services

It’s clear to see the ways in which on-demand food delivery apps have changed the way consumers eat. Instead of cooking their own meals, people want meals delivered straight to them. A grocerant can offer this service.

These are merely a few reasons people have begun embracing grocerants in record numbers. Traditional grocery stores should take notice. In order to stay competitive, they’ll have to shift their business models to meet changing consumer expectations.

If you would like to be a guest blogger feel free to reach out to the team at www.FoodserviceSolutions.us or Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us

Invite Foodservice Solutions® to complete a Grocerant Program Assessment, Grocerant ScoreCard, or for product positioning or placement assistance, or call our Grocerant Guru®.  Since 1991 www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. Contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or 253-759-7869

Wings Delivered Too Drive Sales at Wingstop

Wingstop in an effort to captivate customer attention in the competitive ‘hot wing’ sector is going to increase its personalized convenience-driven messaging as it kicks off plans to rollout delivery nationwide according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. So, how are you edifying you branded relevance with consumers?

Recently, Wingstop announced rollout national delivery.  That rollout began by launching delivery in the Los Angeles and Houston markets through Wingstop’s exclusive national delivery partner, DoorDash. The national rollout builds upon the successful delivery tests conducted in Las Vegas, Chicago, Austin, and Denver. In retail foodservice today, partnerships work according to Johnson.

New partnerships can drive sales in foodservice today as 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, 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 familiar not different. 

The Wingstop and DoorDash partnership kickoff is offering free delivery in Los Angeles through Sunday, December 2. In Houston, delivery launched on November 28, and Wingstop and DoorDash are offering free delivery for an entire week beginning, Monday, December 10 through Sunday, December 16. For free delivery of Wingstop’s made-fresh, hand-sauced and tossed wings, and our famous fries and sides, hungry fans must utilize the Wingstop or DoorDash websites or mobile apps.

Stacy Peterson, chief experience officer of Wingstop stated “The future of dining is delivery. “And we believe that the national partnership with DoorDash is the best way for us to deliver Wingstop flavor to the doors of our fans. So, we are excited to begin the official national delivery rollout in two of our largest markets, Los Angeles and Houston. We plan to rollout delivery to 80 percent of our system by the end of 2019.” Is your brand looking for a new electricity or a new partnership to drive sales?

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

Is the Starbucks & Alibaba Partnership a Global F&B Play

Success does leave clues and when Starbucks Coffee Company and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. announced a deep, strategic “New Retail” partnership the team at Foodservice Solutions® took notice.  Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® stated that this partnership may be the most significant foodservice /technology partnership of 2018.

Johnson noted that both Starbucks and Alibaba are continually looking a customer ahead and that this partnership as it evolves will be the platform for growth that each of these companies is looking for it will become the new electricity that enables a seamless Starbucks Experience and transform the coffee industry in China.

This partnerships is more than delivery according to Johnson.  It is a relationship that will help Starbucks deliver coffee in China but most important it is a relationship about reciprocal technology sharing.  Alibaba Group plans to grow sales in the ‘West’ and Starbuck’s proprietary software might just the be tool to speed up that expansion according to Johnson.

Daniel Zhang, Chief Executive Officer of the Alibaba Group, believes that this partnership is again a testament to the success of our New Retail strategy. So is your company looking a customer ahead?

What is the new electricity that is driving your top line sales and bottom line profits?  Are your customer counts growing?  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, urban clothing, grocerant consultants, coins /currency, autonomous delivery, cashier-less retail, cash-less payments, digital hand held marketing. This program has all of that.

Foodservice 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 familiar not different.  That will require brands to embrace new fresh food partnerships more now than ever before according to Johnson.

Are you trapped doing what you have always done and doing it the same way?  Where is your new electricity?  Interested in learning how www.FoodserviceSolutions.us 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:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information.