QSR’s from Leading the Pack too Following Customers Don’t Count them Out.

Cleary for the past 50 years America’s Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) have set the preeminent example on how to grow a retail restaurant brand. Companies the ilk of McDonald’s, KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), Domino’s Pizza each have had enormous success within the QSR sector and the world.

Despite increased competition from imitators it has been the new non-traditional fresh food outlets selling fresh prepared branded food that has garnered the attention of customers particularly Millennials that seemly stumped, stifled, stilled customer count growth within the QSR and restaurant sector for some time.

Don’t count those legacy QSR leaders out.  Industry icon and global restaurant leader McDonald’s is expanding its burger customization testing.  The customization of burgers is an incremental step for McDonalds.  They previously found success in with customization within the beverage sector with McCafe’ they will find additional success with the burger test as well.

Convenience stores and grocery store delis are capturing a larger share of fast-casual dining occasions and many QSR dining occasions. Companies the ilk of Sheetz, Rutter’s QuickChek, Wegmans, HEB, and Whole Foods have found a way to imitate restaurants in menu options, better them in price, and provide equal food quality in the minds-eye of the consumer.  Yet, they have not been able to replace the halo of goodwill established by legacy QSR’s brands in the minds-eye of the consumer.

McDonald’s understands that the consumer is dynamic not static.  McDonald’s is dynamic as well.  The burger customization program will be a success, an incremental success.  Watch for more and more innovation in the form of Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food options from McDonald’s complementing the evolving consumer. With 14,000 locations McDonalds can never be counted out.

Is your brand evolving with consumers? Foodservice Solutions® specialty is the the Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat Fresh Prepared Food niche aka the Grocerant niche.  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities.  

QuickChek Drives Customer Satisfaction while Quick Meals

QuickChek’s fresh prepared Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat food has driven customer satisfaction numbers up year after year. The fresh prepared food offerings have been so successful that their Signature Subs and Wraps have created a platform for off premise catering success.

With a goal to continue to meet the demand of the fast evolving consumer QuickChek is introducing new snacking menu items.  The snacking menu includes a classic favorites some with a new twist including the new Cheeseburger Egg Roll to its fresh snacks menu. “The crispy egg-roll shell loaded with cheeseburger filling is designed to be a satisfying, flavorful, on-the-go option for the convenience store chain's customers.”

The other items on the retailer's fresh snacks menu include the Buffalo Style Jack n’ Blue Cheese Sticks, Apple Cinnamon Twist, Sweet Dough Pretzel Knots, Popcorn Chicken, Jalapeno Poppers, Mac & Cheese Wedges, Fresh Braided Pretzel, Pizza Stix and Buffalo Chicken Stix.

With 138 retail outlets QuickChek's now selling a full snack menu, lunch and dinner menu this non-traditional fresh food company is creating quite retail food competitive footprint.  Everything from Ready-2-Eat, Heat-N-Eat too catering QuickChek is doing things right.

Foodservice Solutions® specializes the Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat Fresh Prepared Food niche aka the Grocerant niche.  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities.  

McDonald's, Wawa, 7 Eleven Bundled Against Taco Bell in Breakfast Battle

Success does leave clues and East Coast regional convenience store chain Wawa has long established its self as an AM daypart food leader. Each year Wawa sells over 195 Million cups of coffee the vast majority during the AM daypart.  Wawa offers fresh prepared breakfast offerings and impulse seasonal breakfast snack offerings that consumers bundle into customized breakfast.  The menu components contribute to driving growing customer counts and incremental sales year over year at Wawa.  Yum brands Taco Bell will not diminish Wawa’s bundled meal offerings during the AM daypart for many years to come.

McDonald’s with more than 14,000 restaurants across the United States has for several years offered any size coffee for $1.00.  No other restaurant company in the world is better at offering bundled meal solutions day in and day out like McDonalds.  The ability of McDonald’s to bundled proven branded legacy offering meal components with coffee will create competitive price points that will stifle Yum Brands Taco Bell franchisee from realizing sustained incremental profits for at minimum three years.

7 Eleven’s fresh prepared food offerings have fueled both new stores sales growth and same store sales growth. Always competitively priced 7 Eleven has found success with Millennials in trial and positive discovery of breakfast and meal component offerings.  Here again 7 Eleven has twice as many locations in the United Sates as does Taco Bell.  Pricing and continued Millennial trial and discovery will benefit 7 Eleven while diminishing the long term financial stability of Taco Bell’s breakfast. 

Taco Bells franchisee will harbor the long term cost of Yum Brands, Taco Bell nationwide breakfast rollout.  Yum Brands will see incremental sales bump from the trial and garner incremental franchisee revenue. The Waffle Taco and the Crunchwrap will have a hard go against McDonald’s Wawa, and 7 Eleven.

Foodservice Solutions® specializes the Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat Fresh Prepared Food niche aka the Grocerant niche. Visit: www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  if you are 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  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us

Popeye’s Catering too Family Fuels Long Term Success

When Alvin C. Copland Sr. opened “Chicken On the Run” forty years ago with poor sales, then rebranded it and named it after Popeye Doyle in the popular movie “The Fresh Connection”  Popeye’s  would anyone in the food industry think that Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen as it is known today would have all other chicken brands On the Run. 

If success leaves clues Popeye’s continued evolving year after year today it is growing faster with better margins and positive customers counts in both international markets and domestic markets.  Nations Restaurant News tracking of recent Same Store Sales reports Popeye’s both domestic and international growth at 5.1 percent.

Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru credits much of Popeye’s success on that continues brand evolution. Specifically the introduction of it’s Whole Deep Fried Turkey Dinner focus for holidays back in 1999 thru 2001.  The Better for You Halo of “Holiday”, “Traditions” and Family combined to garner extended brand value.

What Popeye’s is doing seemingly better than i’s competitors is creating integrating new menu products with messaging that is Understandable, Memorable, and Emotionally connected with consumers.  The Whole Turkey Holiday promotion is just one example.

Much like that old cheerleader song 2, 4, 6, 8 who do we appreciate. Popeye’s catering 20, 40, 60, 80 family, friends, reunions, and office parties is extending the Halo of the brand once again. Combine that with successful full flavored new menu items like Rip’n Chick’n and Dip’n Chick’n  and everyone can understand the continued success.

Popeye’s chicken has carved out a great position within the grocerant niche.  Don’t cook tonight, call catering or order your next holiday meal.  No cooking, no clean-up, no problem.  Popeye’s is

Understandable, Memorable connecting Emotionally with customers.

Visit: www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  if you are 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  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us

Shifting Gears Restaurants Out with the Young in with the Old.

If you build it they will come.  Chain restaurant after chain restaurant for the past 30 years have targeted 18 to 34 year old's who in the past were the most frequent guest and most eligible to become brand loyal.

Times they have changed.    The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that “unemployment has hit younger people hard: Younger adults are more than twice as likely as those 55 and older to be unemployed”. Without a steady flow of disposal income it becomes difficult to frequent restaurants.

The NPD Group found in a recent study that in U.S. ,”people older than 49 are eating out more than younger diners” makes sense much more consistent flow of disposal income. The same study confirmed with the Bureau of Labor Statistic found that “unemployment has hit younger people hard”.

The NPD study found since 2008 there has been a 12 percent dip in the number of nights that younger consumers are eating out a year. On the other hand older baby boomers and "mature traditionalists," the generation ahead of the boomers, upped their restaurant visits by about 6 percent”.

The Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food sector has been attracting all age groups seeking time saving alternative or money saving alternative. Many restaurants have begun selling Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared meal component options that can be bundled and sold so customers can go home a customize a family meal. In fact today The National Restaurant Association says boomers and older diners make excellent regulars.

www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  specializes in outsourced business development. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment and product opportunities. Do you need a marketing integration strategy session?  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us   of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche since 1991

Chain Restaurants is your Brand Looking More Like Yesterday than Tomorrow?

Restaurant customer migration continues to eat away at top line growth and bottom line profits for chain restaurants. Since 2009 the economic turmoil, malaise, or quagmire has been to blame if one were to listen to earnings conference calls conducted by many major chains.

The truth is consumers are not eating any less today than they did in 2009. They are in fact eating somewhere else. The restaurant industry overall has been stagnating since even before the recession, according to Harry Balzer of The NPD Group.  In 2000, the average American ate out 215 times a year. Last year, that number shrank to 192 visits a year as reported by NPD.

Many chain leaders justified, and rationalize why they are not adapting to the consumers shifting preferences quicker, blaming missteps on a slow global recovery, the weather. Of late they are the same ones claiming victory when in fact price increases provided top line growth all the while year over year customer counts were down or continue trending down.

Might it be that the customer has changed?  Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru favorite saying is the “consumers are dynamic not static” simple enough, but why.   Brands must be dynamic, reposition or risk becoming non-relevant to consumers. Even worse some brands could become extinct.

Think about Sbarro. Last week Sbarro announced they were closing 155 units.  We know that mall traffic has been declined for the past five years.  This past Christmas it was reported that mall traffic was down 15%.  If you are a restaurant on a pad outside a mall how did you fare? If you’re restaurant was in the food court how did you fare? Now after thinking about Sbarro, think Burger Chef.  How are you evolving?

Is your restaurant chain still selling the same food in the same way?  Maybe you should consider product mix adjustments, brand repositioning, or new products all together. Who are your customers and where else are they eating.  Consumers are not eating any less.  They are eating somewhere else. The consumer is on the move. Is your brand?

How are consumers evolving?  Here are three key’s we think are important:

1.       The U.S Census reports that 50% of U.S. adults over the age of 18 are single

2.       The Brookings Institute has reported that Americans are moving into cities at a prodigious rate not seen in over a century.  Urbanization changes shopping habits –consumers buy fewer items, more and often.  Further, these urbanites find hyper-local, smaller footprint retailers convenient and appealing.

3.       The Pew Foundation reports that since 1970, every year has set a new record LOW for marriages. Consider how we have changed in the last 50 years.  In 1960, nearly 60% of young adults (ages 18-29) were married, compared to only 20% today.

When a chain restaurant brand is not Understandable, not Memorable or not connected Emotionally with consumers today, that’s when you know your brand is more like yesterday than tomorrow. Is your brand evolving with consumers?  Does your company, brand, or franchisor need outside eye’s to drive inside profits?

Visit: www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  if you are 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 or learn more at Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant or twitter.com/grocerant

Private Label Food Products A Growing Success

National brands continue to advertise their value all the while paying slotting fee’ to their competitors? Is it just me or does that sound like a business model in need of repair? Today Grocery store shoppers can save up 38% buying store brands a new study found. If we all harkin back to the days when grocery stores introduced private label products we can remember the poor quality, poor packaging and pricing that drove trial.  That was it.  Ah how times have changed.

The recent economic malaise may have been one of the driving factors in trial of new private label products. The other might have been positive consumer response to Trader Joe’s unique private label products and industry leading sales per square foot $1,750+.

In a new study grocery store prices by Private Label Manufacturers Association (PLMA) reveals “shoppers on average could save 38% off their grocery bill by filling their winter shopping cart with the retailer’s store brands instead of their national brand counterparts.”

Trader Joe’s changed my mind on private label products.  When Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru conducted recent research on Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared products they found 74% of consumer could name a specific companies proprietary fresh prepared food by entity and specific identity if the retailer had branded fresh food products as well. 

Today it appears that price, quality and branding issues are lessening for private label product both CPG and fresh prepared.  What was once considered private label aka Trader Joe’s and i’s ilk is now consider branded in the minds-eye of the consumer.  The battle it appears to be for share of stomach of fresh vs canned.  Private label branding of fresh prepared food works.  How many of you have had a 7 Eleven Slurpee?  That’s branded fresh food success since 1965!

www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  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 since 1991