Healthy Lunch & Snack Ideas for Your Home-Schooled Kid

 

The holiday season is in full swing now and it is important they you remember that every minute with your family counts. Even when there are times you think that is not the case according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. That is why our Grocerant Guru® invited Olivia Chang from Yumble to be a guest blogger today.  Yumble understands kids and family dynamics we invite you to visit Yumble and think kids, kid’s meals, and fun family time this holiday season.

When your child is home-schooled, it’s essential that you have lots of healthy snacks and lunches that are easy to pull out at a moment’s notice. Busy parents know how important it is to keep a fully stocked fridge so that you don’t have to run out to the grocery store every day. 

If you’re feeling a creative block in the kitchen, we’ve whipped together some simple recipes below. Meal prep is the key to staying sane while you’re homeschooling. Some days call for an easy cold lunch that you can grab quickly and other days, you have more time to relax over a hot meal. Of course, for days when you don’t feel like cooking at all, you can always have healthy kid’s meals delivered!

 Hot Lunch Ideas

 Cauliflower Rice Burrito Bowls: Instead of full-blown burritos, these bowls are perfect as a healthy meal option on a day when your kid needs cheering up. Prep the chicken in the morning by putting it in the slow cooker with mild salsa and it’ll be ready by lunch. Cauliflower rice is a healthy substitute for white rice and your kid won’t know the difference. Add all the trimmings your little one craves, from avocado to cheese. 

Baked Potato Bar: A baked potato bar is another perfect lunch option for your hungry kid. It’s simple, easy to cook, and fills them up. Make lunchtime fun for your kids by letting them pick out the toppings for their baked potato. Bacon, cheese, broccoli, sour cream, and chives are just the tip of the iceberg.

 Cold Lunch Ideas

 Hummus and Avocado Bagel Sandwich: Think outside the PB&J with this healthy bagel sandwich both kids and parents will enjoy. Take your child’s favorite bagel and spread a dollop of hummus on one side and a half an avocado on the other. Sprinkle salt and a squeeze of lemon for freshness. You can always add tomato, greens, and cucumber if you so choose.

Turkey and Cheese Roll-Ups: If it’s rolled up, it’s likely your kid will find it appealing. The turkey and cheese roll-up is a classic that can’t be beat! You can roll them up on their own, or in a veggie tortilla. Serve with a bit of mustard and a side like carrot sticks or grapes.

 Easy Snack Ideas

 Creamy Fruit Salad: This tasty fruit salad makes for a sweet treat in the morning or afternoon. The best part is that you can use whatever fruit you have on hand and it will be delish no matter what. Mix up a large bowl and save it in the fridge for a couple days worth of snacking.

PB&J Apples: Remember when we said to think outside the PB&J? Here’s a fun twist on a snack that your child will love. You’ve probably tried peanut butter on apple, but you can also add jelly for a deliciously winning combo. You can even use almond butter if that is more to your child’s taste!

Success does leave clues. One clue that time and time again continues to resurface is “the consumer is dynamic not static”.  Regular readers of this blog know that is the common refrain of Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  Our Grocerant Guru® can help your company 253-759-7869.  Are you looking for Kids Meals? Yumble just might be for you.

Moe’s Southwest Grill Marketing Grocerant Meals

Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA Based Foodservice Solutions® stated the chain restaurant business model is broken. Legacy chain restaurant companies must adopt a new model that includes the success benchmarks of the grocerant niche if the want to garner incremental customer relevance, touchpoints and they must be interactive and participatory touchpoints.

One of the best proactive grocerant niche interactive and participatory touchpoints is a Kids eat free offer.  So, Moe’s Southwest Grill recently evolved it’s free kids entree with the purchase of any adult entree ordered in-store, on Moes.com or through the Moe’s app. Note: Drink and cookie not included with the kids meal.

Reinforcing grocerant niche interactive and participatory touchpoints Moe’s new Taco Kit: is Perfect for families at home together, the new Moe’s Build Your Own Taco Kit offers a full Southwest spread that serves 4-6 people. With 12 soft flour tortillas, your choice of 2 proteins, lettuce, shredded cheese, pico de gallo, rice, beans, sour cream, a bowl of queso, and chips and salsa, there’s enough for everyone to make their own masterpiece. The kit is available to order in-store, on Moes.com, and on the Moe’s app for $34.99 and through third party delivery partners for $39.99. 

Battle for Share of Stomach 

Once again adding relevance with interactive and participatory touchpoints all Moe’s 700-plus locations nationwide, is continuing to monitor all local and CDC alerts, making necessary updates in real time to abide by the protocols. This includes all locations offering curbside pick-up and delivery, but please make sure to call your local Moe’s for any specific updates.

Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideations look more like yesterday than tomorrow? 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.

Dickey's Barbecue Pit Tries Driving Customer Traffic with Kid’s Eat Free at What Cost?

January can be a very slow month for chain restaurants and most chain restaurants leverage price to drive customer back into the stores according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. Dickey’s Barbecue Pit is starting of a new decade by offering free delivery and extending its popular Kids Eat Free Sundays to every day during the month of January.

Laura Rea Dickey, CEO of Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants, stated “With these offers, families can enjoy an easy, delicious meal in our home or theirs throughout January, all while sticking to their budget.” Guests can receive free delivery when they order online or through the Dickey’s App. Kids Eat Free is available at participating locations with any $10 dine-in adult purchase.

So, one of the classic traffic drivers for restaurants is the Kids Eat FREE promotion. It used to be found mainly in family style restaurants such as the IHOPs and Denny’s of the world, but now as guest traffic is down across all categories, you see more and more types of restaurants running a Kids Eat Free promotion. The question is, "Does it work?" The easy answer is, yes it works to drive traffic, but the better question is, "Is it right for my business?"

Free is a very good price, and will always bring people in to get the free food. Look at the lines out the door each time a national chain has a free food giveaway promotion. The problem is, just getting people in the door no matter what it costs is not why you're in business. Sure, you need customers, but you need to make a profit on those customers. Your ultimate job is to make money for yourself and your investors, not just drive guest counts.

The typical Kids Eat Free promotion has some strings attached so you can be guaranteed to recoup your food costs. Some restaurants require the purchase of a kid’s beverage in order to receive the free meal. Others require the purchase of a regular priced adult meal in order to receive the free kid’s meals. These requirements protect you from going into a negative transaction territory where you're actually losing money on the deal. There's also often there a limit on the number of children allowed per adult, usually 2 kids per adult meal purchased, so you don't get a busload of kids from the local camp and only sell one adult meal to their leader while you give away 27 kids meals.

A price-based promotion like this does not build loyalty. It attracts customers who are price sensitive, and without the low-price incentive to come in, they won't continue to keep coming. It's akin to your coupon customers. If they have your coupon in hand this week, they'll visit you, but if they have your competitor's coupon in hand next week, they'll visit them. I was involved with a chain that offered Kids Eat Free on Saturday and Sunday nights, two very slow nights for this chain. While we promoted Kids Eat Free, guest counts grew quickly, but as soon as we took it away the counts went right back down to their previous levels.

The other factor to consider is the length of time you're willing to offer this promotion. Many owners roll out the kid’s promotion as an immediate fix to low guest counts on a certain day or daypart. Once that fix starts working, the increase in guest counts is like a drug and you want more and more. If it worked for Tuesday, let's also offer it on Thursday. And at some point, you've devalued your product in your customer's eyes.

Why should I pay $5 for this kid’s meal today when it's FREE tomorrow? And if you keep the promotion in place for any length of time, your customers grow to expect it. There may be a backlash of angry customers when you decide that it's time to stop offering the promotion.

So, should you rollout a Kids Eat FREE promotion? If you do, go into it with a plan. Know what it costs you. Know how much growth you need to offset the food costs. Prepare a marketing plan because you have to tell the world about it, otherwise you're just giving away money to current customers. And make an exit strategy. Offer it for the summer or a certain period of time, to keep customer expectations under control, create some urgency, and keep yourself out of the situation where customers expect to have their Kids Eat Free at your restaurant forever.

Are you looking a customer ahead?  Will your year over year customer counts be positive for January 2020? Success does leave clues.  Is your brand extending it value to more consumers in 2020?  Foodservice Solutions®, Grocerant Guru® has customer focused ideations you can leverage.

McDonald’s Rekindling Disney Partnership for Summer Success

Let’s face it families don’t see eye to eye on everything.  However, just like a family business partnerships have a way of straining at times, dividing at times, and rekindling at times which is the natural flow of things according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

No partnerships is ever perfect, however the undercurrent of mutual benefit that created a successful partnership includes consumers and the pull of the consumer is what will edify McDonald’s, Disney and consumers this summer according to Johnson it will create new electricity for both brands.  

Disney’s The Lion King is returning to the big screen in a whole new way on July 19, they’ll also be return to McDonald’s Happy Meals as featured toys for the first time in 15 years. Happy summer days are here again as McDonald’s rolls out Lion King exclusive toys and packaging inspired by the film at participating McDonald’s nationwide in its Happy Meals.

So, for a limited time, with each purchase of a Happy Meal will include one of 10 different toys representing characters from the movie, including Mufasa, Simba, Nala, Timon, Pumbaa and more.  Get this; the toys have the capability to connect with one another, so fans can combine the pieces to re-create three separate iconic scenes from the film—the Pride Rock opening scene of Rafiki lifting up Simba, the grasslands scene where Simba sings “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” and the log scene where Simba, Timon and Pumbaa belt out “Hakuna Matata.”

It’s Disney for there is more; McDonald’s is also continuing a summer-long giveaway in which families have a chance to win the ultimate memorable experience—a family trip for four to Walt Disney World Resort. From July 16—August 19 customers can instantly win the family trip by scanning codes on game pieces that come with each Disney’s The Lion King Happy Meal toy in the McDonald’s U.S. App. No purchase is necessary to enter, entrants must be a resident of the U.S. or D.C. and be 18 years or older to be eligible, registration is required, and official rules are available at MagicAtMcd.com. The codes also provide millions of opportunities for families to win Happy Meals or other food prizes through our app throughout the season.

 According to Johnson, “Brand relevance is in part driven with innovation in new menu related 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, plant based  foods,  Movies, toy’s, beer, developing brands, TV Shows, grocerant positioning, Fresh food messaging, autonomous delivery, cashier-less retail, Pop-Up stores, 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.

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

McDonald’s Old Partnerships Make for New Electricity

Looking A Customer Ahead McDonald’s renews a successful platform.  Differentiation does not mean different it means familiar but with a twist as according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  There are very few foodservice companies that understand that as well as McDonald’s according to Johnson.

Success does leave clues and McDonald’s has in the past had outstanding success with a partnership with Disney the team at Foodservice Solutions® believes that this renewed relationship / partnership will be the new electricity  that will fuel incremental growth at McDonalds.

Happy customers equals Happy Meals and this renewed Happy Meal Deal with Disney  clearly creates new electricity to drive sales for both Disney and McDonald’s with a focus on customer relevance.

In the minds-eye of Johnson, there is one dominate element that will power success within retail and foodservice over the coming years and that is partnerships. Johnson calls it the new electricity that is partnerships specifically strategic partnerships.   

The new electricity must be very efficient for the supply and includes such things as fresh food, grocerant Mix & Match bundling, foodservice consultants, urban farming (produce, seafood, etc.), autonomous delivery, cashier-less retail, cash-less payments, digital hand held marketing.

Retailers the ilk of McDonald’s to survive the next generation of retail must embrace the artificial intelligence revolution while simultaneously embracing fresh food that is portable in some form.  That will require brands to embrace new fresh food partnerships more now than ever before according to Johnson.

This new multiyear agreement enables McDonald’s to promote movies on its meals, starting with "Incredibles 2."  The multiyear, “non-exclusive” deal enables McDonald’s to cross-promote Disney movies on its Happy Meals.

The deal will start with the Pixar Animations Studios movie “Incredibles 2,” which debuts in theaters on June 15. That will be followed by the Disney movie “Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2,” which debuts on Nov. 21.

This agreement is important as it has improved the nutritional content and lower the calories in its Happy Meals it is those changes that paved the way for the chain’s first marketing relationship in more than a decade with a focus on kids.

McDonald’s U.S. Chief Marketing Officer Morgan Flatley stated  “This relationship combines the ingenuity in food and entertainment to encourage more balanced meal selections in our Happy Meals and inspire families in fun and innovative ways,” McDonald’s and Disney had co-promotional deals for years, with movies such as “The Little Mermaid” and “Finding Nemo” on the burger chain’s Happy Meals. But Disney ended the relationship in 2006 over nutrition concerns.

Success does leave clues the consumer is dynamic not static according to Johnson.  How has your company evolved?  Who should you be partnering with to find your new electricity? Have you evolved to the point you need new partners or should you be rekindling previous relationships? 

Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing tactics look more like yesterday that tomorrow?  Visit www.FoodserviceSolutions.us 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.