Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat Customers are your Friends.

Proactive food retailers are finding success with fresh prepared ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat food.  These grocerant niche foods can be found at Convenience stores, Grocery stores, Drug Stores, Restaurants, and Mobile trucks.  With 50% of US consumer over the age of 18 being single the opportunity in this niche is simply put HUGE.

Today consumers have been exposed to a plethora of international flavors and have not the time to master the skill of cooking each.  This growing trend is empowering the consumer to establish new customs traditions in eating better, more flavorful food.  A big part of that is buying fresh ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat meal components  from all of above mentions retail sectors, then mix and matching meal components.  The Grocerant niche is about convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization.

The National Restaurant Association found in a new study that customization is vital to “Effective Marketing and Business Growth.”   Here are some of the key findings:

1.      87 percent of consumers would go to or order from a restaurant if provided with a savings offer.

2.      95 percent of operators perceive savings offers to be an effective marketing tool.

3.  Consumers would go to or order from a restaurant if they received customized marketing messages that referenced past restaurant patronage (68 percent), allowed them to make reservations (66 percent), and identified them by name (64 percent).
4. Consumers perceive the least effective efforts to entice them to go to a restaurant include online advertisements (58 percent), social media (56 percent), and radio ads (56 percent).
5. 69 percent of consumers said an email from a daily deal provider would motivate them to go to the restaurant featured in the daily deal

Success does leave clues and in food retailing if you can personalize your message electronically with a focus on convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization you will grow your brand and top line while making a friend.

Steven Johnson is Grocerant Guru at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions, with extensive experience as a multi-unit restaurant operator, consultant, brand / product positioning expert and public speaking. Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant or twitter.com/grocerant