Enjoy Memorial Day, a holiday here in the US.

In Flanders Fields

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Retail foodservice is the new normal grocerant ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat.

What’s for dinner? If your cooking for an at home family meal for two, four, or five family members, chances are very good your buying several ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat foods. Grocery stores, convenience stores and restaurants are all bundling fresh prepared meal components for the home cook. The home cook is responding buying individualized components.

Foodservice branded and private label food manufactures are all vying for your attention. Ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat foods from Swiss steak, meatloaf, baked salmon, rotisserie chicken, pizza and lasagna fresh prepared, portioned and portable in portions for 1,2, or 5 are not available at most foodservice retail location.

Most exciting is the opportunity for new start-up’s and regional manufactures to produce sustainable business built on local, fresh and unique flavor profiles. Legacy national brand manufactures are experiencing an increased consolidation and acquisition activities. They have taken there eye off the customer and increasing new points of distribution.

Consumer are responding buying meal components in new food channels, experiencing new flavor profiles all the while individualizing the family meal. The foodservice industry is evolving with the consumer. Those companies looking for opportunity for growth times have never been better.

Foodservice Solutions of Tacoma, WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche providing ready-to-eat and ready-to-eat program assessments. For more read this article: http://www.anything4restaurants.com/blog/index.php/2009/07/restaurant-consumer-discontinuity-the-consumer-moved-first/

Fresh food sales and new locations are driving growth in the Convenience store sector.

Casey’s General stores an and 7 Eleven are fighting it out in the mid-west looking for new locations or offering to buy up or buy out small competitors. While all that is playing out Casey’s may soon face a hostile takeover itself. With more and more fresh prepared ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat food sales in the Convenience store sector the opportunity for top line growth and bottom line profits continues to expand.

The industry leader 7 Eleven continues testing contemporize fresh prepared food components that can be Mix and Matched by the consumer in to a custom made meal for one or fifty! With fresh food driving sales and frequency, there is no end in sight for the growth and profitability of this sector.

Sheetz is now settling into North Carolina and continues to build new stores there; they also have units now in Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. QuikTrip is fun to watch they are building right in the back yard of 7 Eleven and now have 76 units in the Dallas metroplex.

We were the first to call for this consolidation in early January and it is clear that the growth and process of consolidation is well under way. Here is the link to the article we published in January. If success leaves clues; we have pick them up. Invite Foodservice Solutions to provide brand and product positioning assistance. Social media is not new but good companies like, The National Networker Weekly Newsletter understand how to create "site" and industry "buzz" vist them on the web for more.

http://www.foodservice.com/articles/show.cfm?contentid=7513&title=Convenience store sector: the stage is set for consolidation in 2010.

Outside eyes can deliver top line insights and bottom line profits. Invite Foodservice Solutions to provide brand and product positioning assistance. Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche for more on Steven A. Johnson and Foodservice Solutions visit http://www.linkedin.com/in/grocerant or on Facebook at Steven Johnson

Whataburger will survive in Dallas but who will fail?

In & Out Burger is planning on opening new units in the Dallas metroplex. The competition for customers in the Quick Service Burger category is heating up! This time around someone is going to lose. I will say that it will not be Whataburger. Whataburger has established itself as a “Texas” original and Texans will rally around it over time.

What about Sonic and Jack in the Box; have their menus created a point of differentiation to resonate long term with the consumer? Five Guy’s is picking up steam and now competing for sites with In & Out will the franchisee be able to compete with a solid well backed company like In & Out?

McDonalds owns a place in the hearts and minds of all American burger lovers! One on one they can take a short term hit but they will be just fine. National advertising will carry the day.

Wendy’s & Arby’s with 650 million in new debt; franchisee’s who have been over looked while the parent company “reorganized themselves. Well they will have to battle Burger King for the remaining consumers? It looks right now to be a toss up! Does the King know where it is $7.95 ribs or burgers for a $1:00?

One thing is very clear In & Out will have to open 30 plus unit to garner solid market share and if they do, they will disrupt the national landscape in the burger category. If success leaves clues, In & Out Burgers entrance into Texas will cast a shadow that some will never be able to come out from under

Outside eyes can deliver top line insights and bottom line profits. Invite Foodservice Solutions to provide brand and product positioning assistance. Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche for more on Steven A. Johnson and Foodservice Solutions visit http://www.linkedin.com/in/grocerant or on Facebook at Steven Johnson

Bandwagon marketing can drive sales while establishing contemporary relevance.

Menu maven and President of the Kruse Company Nancy Kruse speaking at the 2010 National Restaurant Show explained to operators how to create contemporary consumer relevance while following the pack. Notice how many of these items fit into the grocerant niche of fresh prepared food that can be portable. Yes, ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat can be comfort food.

Nancy Kruse understand that differentiation in retail foodservice does not mean different it means familiar. During her presentation she highlighted the current trend in the United States of comfort foods dominating menus here are the top five that she identified:

1. New age stroganoff

In regard to comfort foods, new age stroganoffs are leading the category with menu items such as Noodle's & Company’s Mushroom Stroganoff, Hale & Hearty's Beef Stroganoff Soup and TGI Friday's Prime Rib Stroganoff.

2. Meatballs

Citing The Meatball Shop in New York City, The menu item is gaining in singular focus and encourages several ethnic spin-offs.

3. Bread Bowls

Not new to the comfort food trend are bread bowls. Used by restaurants across all segments of the industry, images of the menu item convey a message of abundance and comfort, Kruse said. There also is the opportunity for bowls to extend beyond bread, such as Uno Chicago Grill's offering of Golden Pumpkin Soup served in a squash bowl.

4. Melted sandwiches

Next to center-of-the-plate, sandwiches remain the "hot" category on the menu. And culinary innovations in regard to hot sandwich offerings are keeping chains on the cutting edge.

5. Oatmeal

The oatmeal wars are heating up as Starbucks, Jamba Juice, Caribou Coffee and several others are starting to provide this early-morning staple.

Every operator, chain restaurant is different. Nancy Kruse encouraged each to put there own spin on items that are familiar but with a twist to distinguish their menu from everyone else.

I suggest she is right on! Creating or identifying distinctive differentiated food consumable’s as an entity with identity by day part in an area I can excel at. Understanding the unique balance between palate, price, pleasure and the consumer’s drive for qualitative distinctive differentiated new food consumables places me in a select industry grouping. The food value proposition equilibrium for the consumer today balances; better for you, flavor, and traditional products all blended into something with a twist.

Outside eyes can deliver top line insights and bottom line profits. Invite Foodservice Solutions to provide brand and product positioning assistance. Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche for more on Steven A. Johnson and Foodservice Solutions visit http://www.linkedin.com/in/grocerant or on Facebook at Steven Johnson

Complacency is not a strategy that will work any longer in retail foodservice.

The food price value equilibrium continues it’s resetting for prepared food retailers in every channel of distribution. Where is the bottom in pricing? Just who and where is your competition coming from?  There is no greater gift than customers that love your food, and will pay for it-but at what price? Here is my formula for establishing customer focused price:

Price + Quality + Service + Portability = Value

Incremental Value = Constantly Changing Menu (Seasonally / Sustainability with creditability).

Added value = New Product Innovation and or introduction or less salt, less fat, less calories

Now look at what has happened at different companies recently. While Subway started the focus on the $5 foot-long propelling double digit sales gains two years in a row. The picture is changing again.

1. Taco Bell now is offering a meal bundle at $2.00

2. T.G. I. Fridays announced it will offer Jack Daniel's® Burgers and Jack Daniel's® Chicken Sandwiches for $5 and will offer $5 off all Jack Daniel's® Grill entrees for a limited time at approximately 600 US based participating restaurants.

3. Steve Davis, Arby’s CMO said $5 has become a magic number for fast food.

4. Shane’s Rib Shack has a family meal (feeds 4) for $20.

5. Popeye’s now as value meals from $1.99 & $2.99

6. McDonalds has three mini meals for under $3.00

7. McDonalds had introduced 5 $ 1.00 breakfast items.

Brand marketers must be aware of the new product and price points that non-traditional competitive channels will introduce. Including attractive packaging, new product bundling options which in turn will contribute to establishing new long term price value models going forward.

With new channels of distribution in fresh prepared food coming into the marketplace specifically retail drugstores Walgreens and CVS, and dozen’s of new mobile food trucks companies expanding rapidly.

Grocery stores, Convenience Stores, Restaurants those new companies are zeroing in on the grocerant prepared food ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat food niche and it is booming. How are you staying relevant with your consumers in the fresh prepared retail food space?

Outside eyes can deliver top line insights and bottom line profits. Invite Foodservice Solutions to provide brand and product positioning assistance. Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche for more on Steven A. Johnson and Foodservice Solutions visit http://www.linkedin.com/in/grocerant or on Facebook at Steven Johnson

How America Eats: Hand Held Foods for immediate / ease of consumption.

Versatile, convenient, made to order, sandwiches, burgers and wraps encapsulate fresh, personalization, and portability. That by the way just happens to be the heart and sole of the grocerant niche; personalization, portability and portion size.

Recently Bonnie Riggs, of market research company, The NPD Group recently stated: "Sandwiches, burgers and wraps was the most resilient food category in this economic downturn… The reason is it's one of the few categories that has mass appeal. Sandwiches, burgers and wraps are accessible, customizable, affordable, portable, and can be dressed up gourmet-style or dressed down."

Both quick service and full service restaurants experienced growth in this category all the while the overall restaurant industry traffic experienced consecutive quarterly declines. Safeway’s Lifestyle stores and Kroger have joined in the fresh “sandwich” game and are seeing solid results.

Convenience stores fresh prepared grocerant food leaders Wawa and Sheetz have for years exploited this area to build top line revenue and grow bottom line profits. Now they are adding the Mix & Match combo options and building customers frequency and loyalty.

This is a lesson learned we are now seeing at Morton’s, The Capital Grill and Flemming’s all have added convenient hand held food options within their four walls. This is just part of the grocerant niche, but an important part for more visit this blog or contact us for a grocerant niche assessment.

Join me here on my blog for insights, information and inspiration. Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche for more on Steven A. Johnson and Foodservice Solutions visit http://www.linkedin.com/in/grocerant or on Facebook at Steven Johnson