Trifecta Drives Growth at Choice Market

 

Mix and match meal component bundling is one of the hallmarks driving customer adoption of grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Johnson stated “Choice Market hit the trifecta when they focused on mix and match bunding of groceries, prepared foods, and beverages including beer and wine. Winning in the food space today is not brain surgery.  It requires focusing on the three consumer touchpoints with the most relevance. That is exactly what Choice Market is doing.”

So, in case you are not a regular reader of this blog, Choice Market, is an omnichannel convenience store operator based in Denver, has recently secured growth financing to help fuel its next phase of growth throughout the U.S.

Choice Market was founded in 2017, they are currently operating several convenience stores in the Denver metro area with an additional location opening by the end of the year. This round of financing is a portion of the overall capitalization and will fund the opening of additional locations, build out of the organization and deployment of Choice’s proprietary digital customer experience across new channels and formats.

With consumer touchpoints top of mind, Choice, whose mission is to make good food accessible and convenient for all, will be launching a new mobile app, e-commerce website, native delivery and loyalty program. As of Sept. 18, customers will be able to order any item from Choice’s diverse selection for contactless pickup or for “e-delivery” which leverages a fleet of electric vehicles and e-bikes. That is incremental customer relevance according to Johnson.

This new digital experience empowers customers, so they can shop for groceries, prepared foods, and alcohol by dietary lifestyle, local suppliers or recipe and will receive personalized offers based on their shopping history. Starting with its fourth location, Choice will offer a frictionless experience in which customers can use their mobile app to pre-order prepared food, scan a QR code upon arrival, grab their groceries and leave without ever checking out. What are you focusing on to drive top line sales and bottom-line profits?

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

The Fresh Market High-End Steakhouse Dinner Meals

Foodservice Solutions®, Grocerant Guru® Steven Johnson based in Tacoma, WA revealed Foodservice Solutions® recent Grocerant ScoreCards found 88.7% of consumers bought Grocerant niche / Ready-2-Eat or Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food because it was Fresh. With 86.4% of consumers saying they were seeking a specific Flavor, 82.6 % believe it is restaurant quality and 77.2% were buying because it was a Fast Meal. 

The fact of the matter is special occasion dinning is not dead.  Consumers are buying special occasion meals from new and different channels of distribution. They are eating those meals at home.  

Dan Portnoy, chief merchandising officer for The Fresh Market stated, “While these are unprecedented times, our guests still want to treat themselves to a special meal, whether they are celebrating a birthday, anniversary or even a Saturday night dinner socially distanced with some friends,”

Portnoy continued, “That is why we are launching The Fresh Market’s Ultimate Dinner Meals, which rival the quality of any fine-dining restaurant meal. We are kicking it off this week with the Ultimate Steakhouse Dinner Meal featuring our prime-grade steaks, premium appetizers and sides, as well as one of our signature desserts, a gourmet fresh fruit tart.” So here is what you get:

The Ultimate Steakhouse Dinner Meal feeds six, retails for $149.99 ($25 per person) and consists of two USDA Prime First-Cut New York strip steaks; two USDA Prime first-cut ribeye steaks; two USDA Prime Chateaubriand-cut filet mignon steaks; 2 pounds of ready-to-cook seasoned asparagus; six ready-to-heat loaded twice-baked potatoes; one caprese platter with fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil; and one 9-inch signature gourmet fruit tart made fresh in store with more than 1 pound of fruit.

Battle for Share of Stomach

Cooking and heating instructions come with the meal, in addition to suggested wine pairings.

Customers can order the meals two ways:

·         Curbside Pickup: Shoppers can scan the QR code with a smartphone camera or go on the grocer’s website to have their meal ready in as little as two hours.

·         In-Store Pickup: Shoppers can pre-order online by 2 p.m. to have their meal ready the next day.

The grocer’s other meal solutions include weekly ready-to-cook Little Big Meal entrées and sides, designed to feed a family of four for $25 or less, and one-skillet Market Meal Kits, which are ready in 20 minutes or less and feed two people.

The Fresh Market also recently introduced seasonal value meals for those seeking a high-quality offering that serves more people. This month, it’s a ready-to-cook Seafood Boil that feeds eight for just $7.50 per person, for a total cost is $59.99.

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 Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. Contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or 253-759-7869

Sheetz Delivery Partnership On-Target

Fresh food fast is the undercurrent driving adoption of food delivery, meal delivery, and meal component delivery according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. With over 162 million people, 64 percent of adults, spending on dining at least once a week, according to a recent ICSC survey is it any wonder during this COVED-19 pandemic delivery would not be important.

With an average weekly spend of $71, dining expenditure exceeds $602 billion a year. Almost 50 percent of adults say that dining out is an essential part of their lifestyle. Sheetz sells meals, meal components, and mix & match food & beverage items that can be bundled into the perfect meal.

Joe Sheetz and his team are great retail foodservice operators according to Johnson who stated ‘Sheetz ability to integrated both consumer relevance with new brand electricity while driving top line sales and bottom-line profits is their platform of success.”

So, when Sheetz announced a new partnership with Grubhub to provide delivery through Grubhub’s online and mobile food-ordering platform the team at Foodservice Solutions® knew that grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared would be elevated once again.

Adding consumer relevance for the safety of its customers and drivers, Grubhub offers customers a contact-free delivery at checkout. Drivers can call and/or text the customers when they arrive and drop off their orders on the doorstep, in the lobby or in another area designated by the customer. This option is available at Grubhub.com and on the mobile app.

“Grubhub delivery allows Sheetz to continue to give customers what they want, when they want it but from the safety and comfort of their homes,” said Travis Sheetz, President and COO of Sheetz Inc. “We will continue to innovate to serve our customers in these uncertain times as we all join together to prevent the spread of COVID-19.” How are you driving new electricity into you brand and at what cost?

Driving new electricity into a legacy brand with a partnership is a good move and will accelerate the marketing messaging for all companies involved according to Johnson. Just now is your company positioning to grow your brand, the top, and bottom line?  

Johnson stated “that in my minds-eye the new electricity must be very efficient for the supply chain and includes such things as fresh foods, online ordering, delivery, plant based foods,  sampling, toy’s, beer, developing brands,  grocerant positioning, fresh food messaging, autonomous delivery, cashier-less retail, plates, glasses, cash-less payments, digital hand-held marketing.

All food and beverage retailers to survive the next generation of retail must embrace the artificial intelligence revolution while simultaneously embracing fresh food and beverages that are portable, fresh, with differentiation that is familiar not different.  Does your retail path forward look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Why? This new partnership does all of that.

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 Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. Contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or 253-759-7869

Customer Facing Technology too Speed Throughput at Wawa

Wawa excels at understanding customer relevance according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  So last week when all of us learned that an 11-Year-Old Hacked Into a U.S. Voting System Replica in 10 Minutes we all instantly understood what Gen Z and Millennials have been telling us; without technology our companies will not be moving forward they expect it and are better with it than we are.

Wawa Inc. recently rolled out a pilot of checkout kiosks at its Broad and Walnut streets c-store in Philadelphia. The separate checkout counter on wheels accepts card payment only.  Set on rolling swivel casters, the moveable setup consists of a small counter to place drinks, food or other purchases while customers are being rung up. It is outfitted with a barcode scanner, a credit card reader and a plastic bagging station all within a total footprint no bigger than a mailbox.

The Broad and Walnut streets c-store is the only one in the City of Brotherly Love currently testing the mobile registers, in addition to a few of the busier stores at the Jersey Shore.

Lori Bruce, corporate spokesperson for Wawa, confirmed to Billy Penn that the company is officially giving the checkout alternative a try. "We are always testing new ways to improve convenience and the customer experience," she wrote in an email. "[A]t this time, we don't have a lot of details available."

How are you garnering respect from tomorrow’s customers today?  Are your meeting today’s customer’s expectations or does your company look more like yesterday than tomorrow?  When an 11 year old can ‘hack’ into our election system in 10 minutes what expectations do you think they have for your service system, technology or food delivery platform?

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

Grocerant Meal Component Bundling Works

Alice May Brock said: “Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian, wine and tarragon make it French, sour cream makes it Russian, lemon and cinnamon make it Greek, soy sauce makes it Chinese, garlic makes it good.”

Convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization; are each hallmarks of Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food niche according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. 

Meal components allow customers to select from Italian, American, French, Russian, Greek or any combination of flavor profiles and utilize the components at home any way they like.  The new American meal can be a composite of any prepared food components that the individual may want and they can mix and pair them any way as well. 

Johnson continued “The United States is a melting pot of people from all over the world, with different cultures, traditions and flavor preferences.  The new American meal is a melting pot of flavor and choice.  Meal components that can be mix and matched for home consumption are integral to retail success.”

Fresh prepared and portable Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat foods are now available for all consumers and can be found at Convenience stores, Drug stores, Grocery stores, Restaurants, Mobile trucks all just waiting for the taking.  When developing new menu items do you consider where the food will be consumed?

Today, consumers have been exposed to a plethora of flavors and have not the time to master the skill-set to even think about cooking each.  The rapidly growing grocerant trend is empowering the consumer to establish new customs and traditions in eating better, more flavorful food.  The Grocerant niche is about convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization.

Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced business development. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities. The Grocerant niche is about convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization  visit: www.FoodserviceSolutions.us or Email: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us