What’s for Dinner? More and More it’s Meal Kits

Tired of staying home and cooking from scratch, consumers are seeking and faster fresher way to get a full-flavored meal than cooking from scratch.  Today, consumers are seeking out meal components and meal kits to save time, money, while adding flavor to their menu according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

In case you did not know close to 66% of consumers purchase grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat prepared food meal or meal components items from a retail location at least three times a month. Let’s look at some more recent facts:

 

1.       Our new 2021 Grocerant ScoreCards found 82.3% of consumers don’t know what’s for dinner at Noon, and 61.1 don’t know what’ s for dinner at 4PM %.

2.       83.1% all dinners have at least 1 grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat meal component and 68.4% have two meal components.

3.       When asked if they wanted to cook dinner from scratch or assemble dinner from fresh meal components 90.4 % of Gen Z chose assemble from Fresh Prepared Meal Components and Millennials 82.7% chose meal components.

4.       Seventy-three percent of retail prepared food purchases are taken to go

5.       Prepared food purchases are frequently a planned purchase among 59% of shoppers, while 41% of shoppers said they buy prepared foods on impulse. Dinner has the highest amount of prepared food buys with 79% of respondents making purchases for that meal, while lunch comes in at 77% and breakfast at 62%.

6.       55% of consumers would like to try autonomous EV delivery

According to Nielsen research, the 52 weeks leading up to Jan. 4, 2020 only saw 0.6% growth of retail meal kit sales. During the 52 weeks leading up to Jan. 2, 2021, however, the meal kit category grew by 18.7%, totaling nearly $132 million more in sales year over year. Importantly, a vast majority—77%—of consumers say they expect to maintain or increase their frequency of meal kit purchases after the pandemic, according to Technomic’s May 2021 Industry Insights report.

It is at the intersection of lack of skill-set to cook or prepared many new international full-flavored menu entrees are side orders and What’s for Dinner. That we find consumers more than willing to keep purchasing meal kits, meal components or fully prepared meals.  By focusing on consumers’ current shopping habits and occasions, retailers can develop strategies to tailor their grab-and-go meal kit selection to perfectly suit their shoppers’ preferences.

Identifying shopping occasions that drive grocerant visits can also be a key consideration as retailers craft their grab-and-go meal kit selection. For example, here are some top occasions that Technomic’s team found that include:

·         After work and school: Around the evening rush hour, retailers can highlight family-sized meals with kid-friendly options for busy parents stopping by the store on their way home.

·         Entertaining: Near holidays, retailers can offer seasonal dishes in extra-large meal bundles for consumers feeding a crowd.

·         Daily visitors: With more shoppers purchasing prepared meals from the grocerant on a daily basis than in the prior year, offering variety on the menu is crucial.

Restaurant meal components, fresh prepared meals, and meal kits can be designed to be weeknight meal solutions or they can be picked up at the last minute and become a branded meal solution with craveability.

Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared continues to drive growth in every sector of food retail today.  Are you saving customer time? Money? Do you have craveable food that is full-flavored? Gen Z and Millennials are in search of food discovery and new avenues of distribution?  Where are you selling food?

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 us on our social media sites by clicking one of the following links: Facebook,  LinkedIn, or Twitter 

Albertsons Stumbles with Plated Just like Kroger Did with Home Chef

It took Albertsons two years after buying Plated to figure out what to do with it.  Then, clearly they did not know what to do with Plated, so they played the copycat marketing game and followed the lead of Kroger copying what Kroger did with Home Chef.

Simply put; Albertsons like Kroger stumbled, fumbled, and bumbled away an opportunity for growth instead they devalued an asset in the minds-eye of Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. That is transform the meal kit provided into a private label instore brand.  Why?

Both Home Chef and Plated were forward looking companies that garnered the attention of consumers.  Each was growing albeit they were unprofitable.  Most important they were both threats to the legacy grocery store business model. How do large legacy companies that are unwilling to evolve deal with threats?

Well, according to Johnson, they buy them and then ‘kill’ them.  In essence both Albertson and Kroger acquired these businesses and tried to turn them into old fashion CPG products that can simply sit on the shelf according to Johnson.  How well has that worked for the grocery industry?

Over the past 12 years, there are now 50% fewer legacy grocery stores in the U.S.  The simple fact of the matter is the grocery business model is broken and buying competitive threats and trying to kill them is not the solution according to Johnson.

Meal Kits as Johnson decried are ‘training wheels for Millennials’. Meal Kits could be an asset for a floundering industry, a glimmer of positive hope for cooking at home, a solution to meal time malaise.  Yet what they have become is a legacy branded CPG product that looks more like yesterday than tomorrow.

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/

Making Money with Meal Kits Partnerships

Regular readers of this blog know that Steven Johnson the Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® called 2018 the year of foodservice partnerships. He also believes that there is plenty of room for growth in the meal kit sector moving forward given the proper partnerships.

Recently the CEO of Marley Spoon told Reuters he expects the Berlin based meal kit company to be profitable by the end of next year. Fabian Siegel said the company hopes to raise about $53 million when its stock starts trading July 2 on the Australian Securities Exchange.

Today Australia represents approximately 37% of Marley Spoon's revenue, according to TechCrunch, with the U.S. and Europe slightly behind that level. Siegel told TechCrunch the company has broken even in Australia and expects to hit profitability there in the second half of this year.

Marley Spoon is quite optimistic about its prospects through the upcoming IPO. It's been focused on innovations, including a Thanksgiving dinner partnership with Martha Stewart.  Regular readers of this blog know the team at Foodservice Solutions® was first to call this partnerships a success  Martha & Marley Spoon and Dinnerly, is a less-expensive meal kit option with fewer ingredients a set of differentiation points that are still relevant..

Partnerships are the new electricity driving retail foodservice success today according to Johnson. 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, grocerant consultants, urban farming (produce, seafood, etc.), autonomous delivery, voice and visceral mobile ordering, Geo-based 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. Let’s look at the meal kit sector as an example.

Blue Apron and Costco, have formed a partnership and both teamed with Airbnb, pop-ups and various advertising channels  to acquire and retain customers and boost its bottom line.  HelloFresh recently acquired Green Chef, an organic meal-kit company, and placed meal kits inside then formed a partnership with 600 Ahold Delhaize stores, to drive sales.

A 2017 Packaged Facts report noted the meal-kit market had hit $5 billion in sales, and Food Business News reported it could achieve $35 billion by 2025, so there's a lot to gain if retention, marketing and delivery problems can be overcome.

The team at Foodservice Solutions® believes that partnerships specifically non-traditional partnerships will drive incremental growth within all sectors of retail foodservice.  What is your new electricity? Do you need Outside-Eye’s to drive inside sales?

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 www.Facebook.com/StevenJohnson www.Linkedin.com/in/grocerant/  or www.twitter.com/grocerant

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Virtual Grocerants & Restaurants are the undercurrent of industry restaurant sector Disruption

Once again the restaurant sector is facing challenges from outside the restaurant sector and inside the sector just as pizza store fronts (delivery only) branded outlets displaced many Italian restaurants, they also replaced themselves 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 from companies the ilk of Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, Plated sure you have to prepare them at home but time and time again Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant ScoreCards indicate consumers consider them first to be ‘restaurant quality or better’ and second ‘a restaurant meal replacement’ and third ‘special occasion dinning’. Now for the undercurrents of disruption:

1.       HelloFresh said it more than doubled its number of active customers, meals delivered and orders in the U.S. in 2017. The number of active customers increased 105.7%, to 890,000; the number of orders rose 118.6%, to 3 million; and the number of meals delivered increased 114.4%, to 20.7 million.

2.       Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of the National Restaurant Association's research and knowledge group stated “There were 189.8 restaurants for every 100,000 Americans in 2016. In 2001, that number was 165.1”.

3.       According to the Nielsen report, in-store meal kits generated $154.6 million in sales in 2017, an increase of more than 26% over year-ago results.

4.       Hudson Riehle believes ‘Booze delivery is inevitable’ and this is why: “Half of all 21- to 34-year-olds would use it,” he said. “What the consumer wants comes to fruition.”

5.       The market for meal kits is not very saturated as companies the ilk of UberEATS, DoorDash and Postmates continue to delivery from new non-traditional fresh meal delivery companies like Whole Foods, IKEA, McDonald’s, Chipotle, Taco Bell, etc.

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 does 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.

Foodservice Solutions® Steven Johnson identified, quantified, qualified, and named the Grocerant Niche.  Our teams global efforts have been noted around the world.  We now know what’s happening in this niche next do you?  Are you prepared for success?

Kid’s Meals Grocer H-E-B aims to Win back Families

In an effort to win back family business once the mainstay of the grocery business Texas, based H-E-B took a direct shot at chain restaurants when the company's Central Market location in San Antonio, Texas, has launched family focused meal kits for kids. The kid-friendly entree choices the ilk of spaghetti and meatballs and chicken quesadillas are designed to appeal to and feed only kids.

The meal kit are priced at $6.99 to compete with fast food restaurants and feed two kids. The meals come with pre-portioned ingredients and require some cooking, Ok we know that at fast food restaurants now cooking is required but you can serve a meal they like at home and your kids will know you cooked for them.  That just might be more important than you think.

H-E-B is the only grocer at this time targeting kids with specific kits designed to appeal to the younger palate. Scrumpt, Nurture Life and some other companies do offer subscription based meal kits for kids, and the "kid meal kit" space seems to be exploding accord to new reports.

1.        A new target consumer has emerged in the fast-growing meal kit industry – kids. H-E-B has launched meal kits for kids at its San Antonio Central Market store, according to Retail Leader. The new line features entrees such as spaghetti and meatballs and chicken quesadillas. Each kit costs $6.99 and feeds two.

2. H-E-B joins Yumble, Scrumpt and Nurture Life in the children’s prepared meals space. HelloFresh co-founder Dan Treiman helped launch Yumble last summer and it is now available in 26 states with expansion planned this year.
3. The home meal kit category has grown to $5 billion, according to Packaged Facts. Although online players like Blue Apron and HelloFresh dominate the market, grocers like Kroger, Albertsons, and now Walmart, have steadily grown sales. According to Nielsen, sales of in-store meal kits grew 26.5% last year, to $154.6 million.

McDonald’s Happy Meal just might be under attack as both H-E-B and Yumble have promised “fun” in their offerings, and Yumble’s boxes include activity sheets and trivia cards. It will also take some promotional pushes to get the word out that these targeted kits exist. H-E-B will need to promote the new offerings in store circulars and online, and, if they haven't already, position the kits next to their grown-up counterparts. H-E-B currently offers dinner-for-two meal kits ranging in price from $14 to $18. Think about it fun for mom, dad, and kids. 

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 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

Family Meals Made Easy Dinnerly

Success does leave clues and meal kits are one new retail food product that has struck a chord with consumers according to Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru®, Steven Johnson. One person that seemingly always finds success is Martha Stewart with meal kits she stared with Martha & Marley Spoon.  Now Martha & Marley Spoon have developed Dinnerly with meals that cost less than the average Meal Kit.

Dinnerly offers meal kits that are packed with flavor and value and that are easy to prepare for around $ 5 dollars per serving. In short Dinnerly is a discounted meal kit option with plans on expanding meal kit option to more homes. Each kit contains only one or two ingredients that need to be chopped, with a total of only six ingredients per packages.

Each meal kit recipe is designed to require 30 minutes or less of prep work and cooking time and they are advertised as ‘picky-eater approved” each is available in either two or four servings sizes. Stewart’s team first tested the Dinnerly kits on the west coast and is now offering them nationwide.

Most meal kit companies the ilk of Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, and Plated focus on the high-end cooking experiences, elevated menu selections rather than cost.  Dinnerly is addressing the cost factor right up front.

CEO Fabian Siegel focused on keeping the overhead low in order to offer a more affordable product several steps were taken to ‘simplify’ the kits; including ‘physical recipe cards are not shipped with the meals but are only available digitally and can be printed.  Delivery is not free either, unless you buy from Amazon and are a Prime member. 

Siegel stated “that he would rather cut down on those amenities than compromise the quality of the food. Take all of the luxuries out that people don’t want to pay for and don’t need but keep the core value.  The quality of food is the same it’s just a bit simpler’.

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