Convenience Stores an Evolving Fresh Food Competitive Threat.

Once straddled with a troubled brand identity, high prices, and no fresh food, C-stores today are garnering customers to their units focusing on fresh ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat prepared food.  Restaurants and grocery stores are looking around and finding their customers eating, a hoagie from Wawa, Made to Order fresh food from Sheetz and pizza delivered by Casey’s General Store.

If you continue to Harkin back you can remember when the emphasis was on selling gasoline, beer, and packs of cigarettes at convenience stores.  With consumer focus changing C-stores have changed as well.  Today Wawa describes itself as selling FAST CASUAL FOOD TO-GO  and Sheetz describes itself as a restaurant and won an prestigious award while being honored at Nation’s Restaurant News MUFSO event in 2012.

While most restaurants still don’t consider Convenience stores a threat.  That should know that by leveraging social media and in-store promotions, the ilk of chain restaurants consumers are migrating driving top line sales and bottom line profits within the C-store sector. Grocery stores are beginning to feel the pinch as well. Many grocery store chains are now starting branded convenience stores themselves.  Consumers like the smaller footprint and fast service combined placing value on the greater mix and match meal bundling options available at c-stores.

Focusing on fresh prepared ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat food the convenience store sector is evolving with the consumer faster than any other retail food sector today.  In fact 50 % of 7 Elevens new units do not offer gasoline at all.  All of 7 Elevens new units are offering expanded fresh food offerings.  Did you know 7 Eleven has over 50,564 units around the world?  How many do you have?

C-stores are promoting “fresh” food with POP in windows, at the pump, on the radio and TV.  Many offer free products samples and some offer free product days. C-stores abandoned products and financial models of the past focusing on the consumer of today and tomorrow. Evolving with the consumer is paying dividends for convenience store garnering market share in the fresh food space from restaurants, grocery stores.

Focusing on consumers today C-stores are embracing the hallmarks of the grocerant niche from more flavorful food to creating a platform for convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization.   

Outside eyes can deliver top line sales and bottom line profits.  Invite Foodservice Solutions® to provide brand and product positioning assistance or a grocerant program assessment. Visit: www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more or Steven Johnson and Foodservice Solutions® visit http://www.linkedin.com/in/grocerant or twitter.com/grocerant 

Maggiano’s Little Italy Evolving with Consumers

Americans love affair with Italian has not dissipated.  Italian food was at one time the leading ethnic food in America.  Today Italian is close to mainstream food not crowed out by Thai, Mexican, Brazilian, or Peruvian but rather considered a family planning meal staple, something everyone likes and eats.

Maggiano’s Little Italy specializes in serving homemade, classic Italian-American cuisine and portions in classic restaurants that are comfortable, contemporized, compelling in authenticity. What Maggiano’s does better than most as a chain restaurants is finding success as it evolves with consumers.

While consumer have been migrating to the grocerant niche filled with ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat fresh prepared food. Maggiano’s has as well.  They offer many classic pasta’s all from a selection for handmade pasta’s and baked specialties to enjoy in the restaurant, and then choose a second dish to take home and enjoy later. Pasta today and pasta tomorrow, success does leave clues and no other restaurant chain does ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat fresh prepared food as well as Maggiano’s.

In addition Maggiano’s has a “Marco’s Meal for Two” it is a three-course meal for two that include the guests’ choice of an appetizer, flatbread, or two side salads; two classic pastas, plus two classic pastas to take home; and one dessert.  Few chain restaurants have evolved with consumer contemporized relevance as Maggiano’s.  Outside Eyes can provided inside results call Foodservice Solutions®.

Some legacy restaurants keep using the “Four Wall Theory” while Maggiano’s thinks about your kitchen table, TV Room and office. Maggiano’s offers both Take-Away and Delivery service as well as inside seating.  The grocerant niche continues to boom, companies the ilk of Maggiano’s Little Italy that evolve with it will continue to grow top line sales and bottom line profits. 

Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced business development. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities or a brand leveraging integration strategy.  Foodservice Solutions of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche visit Facebook.com/StevenJohnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant or twitter.com/grocerant

What is for Dinner? Time Saving Ready-2-Eat Grocerant Food.

Its 4 PM: your customers are just beginning to think about what's for dinner. 81% of American consumers are unsure about what's for dinner. Time Starved Consumers are looking for high quality ready-2-eat foods and heat-N-eat meals. Today's time starved consumer wants to purchase meal components that they can bundle into a customized family meal that will please everyone without spending time cooking.

Examples of Grocerants

Restaurant examples are McDonalds, Pret A Manger Burger King, Pizza Hut, Papa Murphy's and Starbucks, each having a fresh ready-2-eat or heat-N-eat food menu. You may not think of Walgreens as a food destination yet Walgreens sells fresh soft-serve yogurt, coffee and sushi at selected stores, so they are technically grocerants. In the Casual Dining sector Maggiano's Little Italy offers a buy one take a 2^nd home for free in their Classic Pastas menu section.

Convenience Store examples are 7 Eleven, Wawa, Sheetz and QuickChek, all of which sell fresh and prepared sandwiches, salads, beverages.

Supermarket examples are Whole Foods, Central Market, Safeway and Kroger… all sell fresh prepared chicken, salads, sandwiches and most offer sushi and beverages.

The retail supermarket and convenience store sector have unique grocerant challenges. Presentation of the ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat food is important. When you get a meal at a restaurant, the plate and the food look great… let's call this "food for now". Retailers are primarily selling "food for later" or take-out and unless an item is a sandwich, the looks of ready-2-eat meals and snacks must begin to change.

Why is it so hard to package food to go? In the Hot food section of the grocery store the food in most cases does not look appealing so our expectations drop when we get it for Take-Away. In convenience stores like Wawa, the ready-2-eat food looks great in the to-go containers. Why? Because Wawa puts the entire package together. They exert more control on the look and feel of "food for later".

Around the world we are now seeing sections in department's stores and kiosk in malls in Europe and Asia and airports around the world. The items can range from entrees to side items and deserts. Some examples of items range from fried chicken, mash potatoes, cream spinach, to liver and onions, pizza, hot dogs, steak, prime rib, various casseroles (hot-dish) to salads, side salads pie, cake and any single proportioned deserts. They can be picked up at the specific unit, or delivered.

Consumers have been exposed to a plethora of flavors and have not the time to master the skill of cooking each.  The rapidly growing grocerant trend is empowering the consumer to establish new customs and traditions in eating better, more flavorful food.  The Grocerant niche is about convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization.

At Foodservice Solutions® we can help you identify, quantify, and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities or a brand leveraging integration strategy.  Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche 253-759-7869 visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant or twitter.com/grocerant, www.FoodserviceSolutions.us

Starbucks Stellar Same Store Sales

Do you monitor restaurant, grocery, or any retail food sales numbers?  If so you know that on July 25 2013, Starbucks delivered its numbers and that they reported double revenue and profit beating the street estimates.   That is very impressive.  Now consider that Starbucks is 42 years old.  How old is your company?  What are you’re year over year sales numbers?

With worldwide comparable sales (comps) of +8% and +9% comparable sales in the US Starbucks leads all other restaurant companies.  That is what happens when in an Omni-channel food retail world a company’s focus is on the consumer first. Foodservice Solutions® clients and regular readers of this blog understand that Starbucks is a Food Merchant not just a restaurant selling coffee and coffee products.

Howard Schultz is a merchant first, food retailer second that edifies the Starbucks brand with consumer relevance.  There were no excuses, justifications on or for the economy the past three years from Schultz.  His focus is, was and continues to be on the evolving consumer and his desire to evolve with the consumer.

The grocerant niche filled with ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat fresh and fresh prepared food continues to drive top line sales and bottom line profits in every sector of retail foodservice today.  Brand viability requires that contemporized relevance be maintained. In an Omni-channel retail world no company needs to look further than Starbucks when looking for an example of success.  Success does leave clues.  Starbucks is one clue.

Outside eyes can bring new light and assist in your successful growth by creating a platform of insights for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization. Don’t wake up one day and find that you or your company slept; while consumers were on the move.

Interested in learning how the 5P’s of Food Marketing can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization contact us via Email us at: grocerant@q.com or visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant or twitter.com/grocerant

Walgreens Fresh Prepared Food with Portability Finding Customers

Walgreens fresh foods focus on busy moms and urban customers. Distinctive differentiated foods are segmented by day part for both the office worker for lunch and meal components for them to take home for dinner.

  

Do you have time to eat, time for dinner or even time for cooking at home today?

If you are "ready-2-eat" there is a very good chance you are looking for fresh prepared multi-flavor, multi-ethnic Grocerant meal components. Heat-N-eat and ready-2eat fresh prepared food with portability is driving retail food success in 2012. Where are you shopping for you food today is not the same place your mother was nor is the meal prepared the same way.

As long as multi-generational family's gather for meals together, the demand for more divergent flavors continues to permeate. Grocerant mix and match bundled meal component offerings allow for increased family integration, understanding and acceptance in less time without a required cook from scratch skill set.

In the 1940's cooking from scratch was the normal. The average home cooked meal took 150 minutes to prepare. Everyone sat down at the table and enjoyed it or not but they all ate the same thing. Today's "home cooked meal" takes on average less than 30 minutes to prepared. In most cases at least two different entrées are served.

The average time spent inside a McDonalds in the 2,000 was 11 minutes. Today 65+ percent of all McDonald's food is sold via the drive-thru. U.S. fast-food chains are increasingly remodeling restaurants in an effort to garner additional drive-thru customers inside and increase sales, simple because the drive-thru can't hold all the cars.

According to the New York Times Magazine - McDonalds Came Back Bigger Than Ever McDonald's Corp. saw a 50% increase in sales during the first quarter of 2012 after opening a remodeled restaurant in Riverside, California, that features a new décor, solar panels on the carport, and ceiling panels that contain L.E.D. lights. During the first 12 months, sales at this restaurant increased 20% overall.

Walgreens is creating and bundling distinctive differentiated food consumable's as an entity with identity by day part in a mix and match meal component format in select urban setting targeted at both the office worker for lunch and meal components for them to take home for the family dinner. It is a successful program. With over 7,550 units operating in the United States Walgreens has the potential to become the most disruptive force in food retailing in 50 years. Walgreens with its modular mid-sized foot-print is garnering customers from both restaurants and grocery stores.

Consumers Want Easy to Prepare Meals

The grocerant niche continues to grow with companies like Central Market, Whole Foods, Wegmans and 7 Eleven entering the fresh prepared better for you space. Meal time is now becoming a time of convenient meal participation, with differentiation and individualization for the entire family. Safeway with its lifestyle stores are heading in the right direction however the stores are so large consumers are forced to spend more time in them than they want.

More often than not the multi-generational family today is multi-ethnic as well. Creating a demand for more varied flavors and additional cooking skill set that is simply not there. Grocery stores, Convenience Stores, Restaurants and Chain Drug Stores are all selling ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat fresh prepared food. Is your focus family dinning? Are you selling meals or meal components for Take-Out, delivery or Take-Away?

Lacking the skill set to prepared fresh prepared multi-ethnic meal components at home coupled with the time it takes to prepared a home cooked meal it is clear the buying habits of consumers will continue to evolve. Bundling mix and match meal components into a meal is one key driver within the grocerant niche. Given that most American family are comprised of multi-cultural background. The fight for share of stomach will only intensify.

Restaurants menu's at one time were very narrow in focus and have moved more upscale with offerings such as Oriental; Chicken Salad, Southwest Chicken Salad, along with a chef salads. Grocery stores on the other hand are expected to sell complete lines of reay-2-eat multi-ethnic food. That places higher expectations on grocers than restaurants or a company like Walgreens. Walgreens might just be in the perfect spot to expand fresh prepared food offerings capturing customers from both restaurants and supermarkets. Would you like more information? Ready to enter the Grocerant Niche?

Contact: Foodservice Solutions® at 253-759-7869 a Tacoma, WA based retail foodservice consultancy that has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche since 1991. For product or brand positioning assistance contact Steven  Johnson or the Grocerant LinkedIn page or on Facebook at Steven Johnson, BING / GOOGLE: Steven Johnson Grocerants or Grocerant on Twitter

More People, Means More People Eating, But Where?

May 2012 through May 2013 restaurant traffic was FLAT. The NPD Group's latest CREST report, which tracks daily consumer use of commercial restaurants and non-commercial foodservice outlets daily; found “total restaurant traffic was flat for the year ending May 2013, compared to the same period last year. U.S. consumers made 61 billion restaurant visits during the period, which is 1.73 billion less than the visits volumes in year ending May 2009”

Are consumers migrating to grocerant niche ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat food faster than even Foodservice Solutions® bullish grocerant guru Steven Johnson has predicted? In NPD's recently released A Look Into the Future of Foodservice report forecasts a four percent growth in restaurant supper visits through 2022, which is less than half a percent a year. Cleary new non-traditional points of fresh prepared food distribution are evolving with the consumer faster than the restaurant industry as a whole.

Competition for share of stomach has heated up.  The grocerant niche filled with ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat fresh food continues to attract more and more consumers.  Mix and Match meal component bundling now offered at grocery stores, convenience stores, drug stores, liquor stores, food trucks, and mobile kiosk are garnering top line sales and bottom line profits as they grow in numbers expanding points of fresh food distribution around the world.

Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced business development. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities or a brand leveraging 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

The Grocerant Niche Expanding Retail Channel Blurring within the Food Space.

Food that can be found at the intersection of cook from scratch at home and retailer prepared fresh food sold as a meal component is Grocerant niche food.  The Grocerant niche targets the time-starved consumers, not with ingredients rather with ready-2-eat or heat-N-eat fresh prepared food components that can be bundled into a meal.

Think about how you shop for most meal preparation needs. You might buy a rotisserie chicken, pick up something at the salad bar and maybe an appetizer at the deli service case. Those are components vs. buying uncooked chicken, a head of lettuce and then having to clean, cut, season and then assemble and/or cook.

Steven Johnson, the Grocerant Guru  at Tacoma, Washington based Foodservice Solutions says this "Grocerant means any retail food item that is ready-2-eat or ready to heat while prepared fresh. Traditionally these items can be found in grocery stores in the deli / lifestyle section, C-stores in the prepared food area and prepackaged, ready-2-eat items and in restaurants under the To-go, takeout or take-away, or delivery section of the menu or on the website."

When Johnson says retailer, it is broadly defining supermarkets, mass drug merchants, C-Stores (convenience stores) and fast food or fast casual restaurants.  For the consumers it is about ease of meal preparation, quality and family meal customization vs. time, cooking skill set.  If you’re company does not think they are in the grocerant niche it might be time to consider it.  Share of stomach trumps legacy positioning.  Consumers do not care where dinner comes from they do care that everyone in the family eats and is happy.

Invite Foodservice Solutions® to complete a Migration Marketing assessment, grocerant program

Assessment, or brand, product placement, menu positioning assistance simply call Foodservice Solutions®253-759-7869.  Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant or twitter.com/grocerant