Chick-fil-A Measure Twice Cut Once

Foodservice Solutions® Five P’s of Food Marketing were perfected, developed and tested over time utilizing the Grocerant Guru’s time-tested formula: Build, Measure, Learn, Repeat. Steven Johnson, our Grocerant Guru® who first identified, quantified, and qualified the FIVE P’s of Food Marketing that is the undercurrent driving fresh food growth globally stated “ Chick-fil-A understands the relevant undercurrents and that why they continue to find success.

Regular readers of this blog remember that Chick-fil-A was one of the first QSR’s to offer Meal Kits when it tested the concept exclusively in Atlanta in 2018. The goal at the with was “provide customers with a convenient meal solution that can be easily made right at home, Chick-fil-A”

So, back to Foodservice Solutions® time tested marketing template Build, Measure, Learn, Repeat; Chick-fil-A will now offer Chicken Parmesan Meal Kits at participating restaurants nationwide.

Yes, Foodservice Solutions® build, measure, learn, and repeat can edify the relevant consumer attributes and touchpoints; here they are consumer interactive and Participatory, Portability, and Price.   The make-it-yourself kit features pre-measured and Ready-2-Heat ingredients and an easy, step-by-step recipe that allows Chick-fil-A guests to have a delicious, homemade meal on the table in less than 30 minutes.

The price starts at $14.99, for each Chicken Parmesan Meal Kit serves two adults and comes with two seasoned, breaded, and pressure-cooked Original Chick-fil-A Chicken filets, marinara sauce, Italian-style cheeses, and creamy garlic and lemon pasta; customers can customize their kit upon request by substituting the Original Chicken filets for Grilled or Spicy filets. Meal Kits can be purchased at participating Chick-fil-A restaurants in the drive-thru, via the Chick-fil-A App, or through one of Chick-fil-A’s delivery partners, including DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub.

Ben Bolling, menu and packaging program lead at Chick-fil-A  stated “Our guests are currently experiencing unique challenges, which is why we’re proud to offer the Chicken Parmesan Meal Kit as an easy way for them to enjoy a delicious meal from the safety and comfort of home,”  “Our easy-to-prepare, dinnertime solution provides Chick-fil-A customers with all the ingredients needed for a homecooked meal, and all they have to do is simply visit a Chick‑fil-A drive-thru or have a Chicken Parmesan Meal Kit delivered right to their front door.”

Stuart Tracy, senior culinary lead at Chick-fil-A  stated “After receiving such a positive response about our Chicken Parmesan Meal Kit during our 2018 test, we’re thrilled to offer it with great enhancements at participating restaurants nationwide during a time when our guests need convenient mealtime options,” says. “We hope that providing a dinner option for guests who are ordering lunch with us will help make mealtime decisions easier. The goal is to deliver the joy of cooking without added stress, and the recipe is simple enough that even the kids can help!”

What have you learned lately? Build, Measure, Learn, Repeat is one clue that time and time again continues to resurface as a platform for success.  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.  

Yumble a Direct-to-Consumer Healthy Kids' Meals Brand

Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food options that are ‘better-for-you’ continue to drive the growth and excitement within foodservice today according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Many of our regular readers have not heard of Yumble but you will be soon. Success does leave clues and Yumble must have collected plenty of the right clues as it is a skyrocketing home-delivery kids' food brand that has raised $8.5MM. By shipping kid-friendly lunches, dinners, and snacks straight to homes each week, Yumble takes stress off parents' plates and gives them back time in their day.

After facing the challenge of getting real food on the table for her three kids every day, Yumble founder Joanna Parker knew what had to change. Yumble is on a mission to help parents shape positive, healthy children's eating habits – no cooking required!

Yumble's ethos is to produce and deliver only the best: Sourcing is seasonal, local, and organic whenever possible, and meals include a wide variety of nutrient-dense vegetables, grains, proteins, fats, herbs, and spices that support developing minds and bodies.

"As a mom, I know we're solving a truly painful problem for parents: wanting to put healthy and tasty food in front of our kids but having no time to actually do it," said Joanna Parker. "So, it's no surprise to me that parents are finding value in our service. What's surprised me so far is how big of an impact we've had in just one year and with only a team of seven people!

Yumble NEVER serves ingredients like high fructose corn syrup; artificial preservatives, sweeteners, or colors; hydrogenated fats; MSG; horomone or antibiotic filled meats; or peanuts or nuts of any kind (except coconut). There are plenty of gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free, and vegetarian choices each week too. Weekly deliveries start at $6.99 per meal (free delivery). Order at www.yumblekids.com .

Millennial parents like their parents before them are time starve and looking for ‘better-for-you’ options for their kids.  Yumble is a perfect solution.  How is your brand edifying Millennial parents?

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, www.Linkedin.com/in/grocerant/ or www.twitter.com/grocerant/

Chick-fil-A Edifies Customer Relevance with Meal Kits

Menus, meal kits, and marketing Chick-fil-A extends their brand into the home building a deeper relationship with the consumer.  Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® described this brand extension as an example of industry leadership at the intersection customer understanding and building a new food sales platform to drive incremental growth. 

Successful restaurant chains must evolve with the consumer and Chick-fil-A is doing just that by evolving its business model into the grocerant niche with its own meal kit brand, Mealtime Kits, at 150 locations in its home city starting Aug. 27, 2018. If success does leave clues and it does the restaurant business model will be forever changed according to Johnson.

Convenience stores, grocery stores and legacy meal kit companies will be watching this move closer than many restaurant chain executives. However, if successful in this ideation or the next ideation the retail food-space is forever changed according to Johnson.

It is now clear that Chick-fil-A’s insights from ethnographic research, industry syndicated studies, and internal data indicate that customer migration into the grocerant niche will continue and that they are not going to sit back and capitulate customers or the opportunity for growth. Chick-fil-A is first major quick-service chain to offer meal kits according to Johnson.

With a full understanding of consumers fresh food desires Chick-fil-A is edifying consumer’s desires for a non-subscription service.  By limiting the options of five meals with premeasured ingredients that customers can pick up in the drive thru-or at the front counter they eliminate the paradox of choice overload.

Chick-fil-A understands that driving incremental year over year same store customer counts requires doing something different. The c-level team at Chick-fil-A also understand that differentiation does not mean different it means familiar but with a twist.  Meal Kit’s available for pick-up at the drive thru is a fresh fast food option that consumers have been looking for according to Johnson.

This just might be the new electricity to drive the entire fast food sector to new highs over the next ten years according to Johnson. 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, meal kits, urban clothing, grocerant consultants, urban farming (produce, seafood, etc.), 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.

Michael Patrick, an innovation program lead at Chick-fil-A who is leading the Mealtime Kits effort stated “We know our guests are busier than ever and need a variety of convenient dinner options,”... “We designed our offering so our guests don’t have to order ahead, subscribe to a service or make an extra stop at the grocery store. They simply pick up a Mealtime Kit at one of our restaurants at their convenience.”

Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced food marketing and business development ideations. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities.  Are you looking for a new menu product, food segment, brand, or menu integration strategy?  Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche since 1991

Grocerant Guru’s Meal Kits Success Clues

Competition within the Meal Kit sector is not a disruptive, nor are incremental points of fresh food meal kits distribution curtailing growth among current meal kit companies in the battle for share of stomach according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma WA, based Foodservice Solutions®.  

Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant ScoreCards have revealed four consumer points of irritation with meal kit offering today.  In addition the ScoreCards revealed five attributes the team at Foodservice Solutions® is convinced will propel success within the Meal Kit sector for those that evolve with consumers desires.

One of the first ways to evolve with consumers is to stop doing with irritates consumers so that’s what we will focus on in this blog today.  The top four points of customer irritation with meal kits are:

1.       Subscription

2.       Price

3.       Pre-Ordering To Far in Advance

4.       No Deserts

The one item that was not a surprise to us was that every age group was disappointed that meal kits did don’t come with desert.  Overall deserts was the most commented item listed  on the ScoreCards yet never  rated number one or two.  So what were the top five request attributes?

1.       Regular ‘food’ (not special occasion meals)

2.       Deserts

3.       Local availability at stores: Grocery, C-store, Drug stores

4.       Family Size meals

5.       Kids Meals

Some food axioms are true others defy data one such fact is Millennials have surpassed baby boomers as the largest living generation in the United States and their grocery store habits are destined to have a marked effect on future food demand. 

Data and big data tell’s us Millennials are looking to buy healthier and fresher food than their predecessors but far Millennials tell us that they want desert with their meal kits. Regular readers of this blog know what consumers say and what they do are too very different things when it comes to food retail.

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