At QuickChek Food is “Fresh to Go”

Dust off your old ideas on what a convenience store should look like.  According Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® stated QuickChek has set a perfect example with a new store where more than 50% of the store dedicated to fresh food and beverages.

QuickChek says that it’s new store offers an innovative “Fresh to Go” design, that’s only half of it, the focus on Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food and all of the important consumer touchpoints are a clear indication that QuickChek is planning to look more like tomorrows convenience store than yesterdays.

QuickChek CEO Dean Durling stated, “We serve busy people on the go with products and services that are made for immediate consumption,” … “Today’s consumer, especially young professionals, families and health-conscious people, want fresh.”

Durling continues “So we have dedicated more than half of the store to food service and fresh beverages, including our guaranteed fresh brewed hot and iced coffees. We meet your need for what you need now, whether its food, the best cup of coffee in America, or fuel.” Let’s look at some of the food:

1.       Sleek, open-concept layout with earth tone colors, clean sightlines and spacious stand-alone food displays with consumer-friendly expansive aisles for added convenience when customizing food and beverages

2.       Extensive display of freshly made QuickChek grab-and-go food and market items

3.       Large stand-alone soup station offering a daily rotation of freshly prepared, never frozen QuickChek soups which have become a meal replacement as consumers’ dining habits continue to change

4.       Handcrafted 6-inch subs and 12-inch premium original recipe QuickChek sub sandwiches served on fresh bakery sub rolls; all subs are custom-made with the finest ingredients and freshest quality meats and cheeses

5.       A wide selection of healthy baked snacks, fresh cut fruit and seasonal fruit salads perfect for snacking anytime

6.       Fresh QuickChek baked goods made in-store

7.       Embracing the dining habits of today’s millennial consumer, indoor seating counters offer phone and laptop charging stations and free WiFi

The menu features seasonal selections include Chicken Salad with Real Cranberry Relish and Crispy Chicken with Real Cranberry Relish. Snack items include Cubano Egg Rolls and Southwestern Chicken Egg Rolls. Does your retail food outlet look more like yesterday than tomorrow?

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

Did you Watch NFL or College Football this Weekend

Food Marketing success has a lot to do with timing and the bigger the chain the better they are about planning promotional tie-ins that are also consumer hot-button touchpoints according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Well, if you did watch College Football on Saturday or NFL on Sunday there is a good chance you saw an ad for Kentucky Fried Chicken, chicken wings. Yes, just in time for those who prefer to stay home and watch the ‘game’ on their “65 Inch HDTV”.

The Kentucky Fried Wings, are available in a “classic” un-sauced version or in Nashville Hot, Buffalo or honey barbecue sauces. They’re priced starting around $5 for 6 wings, $9.99 for 12, $18.99 for 24 and $36.99 for 48 and most locations now have delivery.

KFC is offering free delivery on orders of $12 or more for customers who order through kfc.com, grubhub.com or Grubhub’s New York City brand, seamless.com. That offer is available through Nov. 24.

Get this, chicken wings have become part of the football experience for many Americans. The chicken industry’s trade association, the National Chicken Council, projected that Americans would eat around 1.4 billion wings during Super Bowl weekend alone.

But get this, KFC offered a 10-week “Seasoned Tickets” that give the buyer 48 chicken wings delivered to their home every week. On the 10th week, they get an extra 48 wings. Yes, that’s 528 wings valued at about $400, but at a cost of $75. The deal was apparently so good that the tickets sold out in less than two hours.

KFC’s Andrea Zahumensky stated “You would be hard pressed to find hot and fresh wings without the wait anywhere else,” … “Whether you are Team Nashville Hot or Team Honey BBQ, our Kentucky Fried Wings are available on demand, revolutionizing your gameday dining experience.”

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

Grocery Delivery Growth is Troublesome for Restaurants

While growing one sector of your grocery business is a good thing it may not be the best thing overall for your business but in this case it’s even worse for the restaurant sector according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma WA based Foodservice Solutions®. 

Edison Trends recently reported that during September, Publix accounted for a 37% estimated market share of Instacart orders, followed by Costco at 24%, Kroger at 16%, Wegmans at 12% and H-E-B at 11%. A year earlier, Whole Foods Market (20%) was second behind Publix (34%) and ahead of Costco (18%), H-E-B (15%) and Kroger (13%).  So, what this tells us is that consumers across the country are eager to embrace both technology, delivery, and grocerant niche fresh food fast according to Johnson.

Edison made note that Wegmans has moved into the top five following Instacart’s wind-down of its service with Whole Foods Market stores earlier this year. In December 2018, Instacart founder and CEO Apoorva Mehta said the company was phasing out its partnership with Whole Foods, which under the ownership of e-tail giant Amazon has been ramping up online grocery delivery via the Prime Now service. Ok, no news their Amazon has been great for Whole Foods and Amazon will do the delivery of Whole Foods fresh food and more, just watch.

Grocery delivery is still just a minnow in the ocean of grocery food options today according to Johnson, yet its delivery that is helping upend legacy restaurant year over year customer counts. Sept. 30, 2019, the top five grocery retailers by Instacart orders were Publix, Whole Foods, Kroger, H-E-B and Costco, according to Edison’s analysis, which was based on more than 50,000 transactions. Data was scaled so that the highest monthly number of orders was set to 100.

The fact is the restaurant sector owned MEAL CONVENIENCE from the 1950’s through the 2,000’s.  The restaurant sector was innovative beginning with fast food restaurants, the drive-thru, and delivery only restaurants where once pizza was the king.  The restaurant sector has capitulated innovation for copycat menus, marketing, and meal bundles according to Johnson.

Today, the only thing innovative within the restaurant sector is their justification for price increase. If success leaves clues and it does competitive pricing, meal bundling differentiation, and new avenues of distribution will resonate with consumer over price hikes.

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