steven johnson

Selasa, 13 Desember 2011

The Food Price Conundrum Reset for 2012

The food price value equilibrium continues resetting in Restaurants, Grocery stores and Convenience stores, where is the bottom? We won’t know until the consumer stands still. Retail foodservice consumer discontinuity is the only constant. Consumers are looking for “better for you” products at a better for you price.

What is the price of breakfast? McDonalds is putting the US on notice that it does not plan any capitulation of breakfast market share! 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 in 2012:

Price + Quality + Service + Portability = Value

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

Successful retail food operators today need to utilize Foodservice Solutions® 5 P’s of Food Marketing: Product, Packaging, Placement, Portability and Price. Then leverage them too build strong sales with an integrated grocerant niche food program filled with distinctive differentiated food consumables as an entity with identity by day part.

Since 1991 retail food consultancy Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche for more on Foodservice Solutions® Bing or Google Grocerants or visit http://www.linkedin.com/in/grocerant, twitter.com/grocerant Email: grocerant@q.com

Senin, 12 Desember 2011

Safeway is out catering Au Bon Pain, Boston Market, and KFC for the Holidays.

When you’re ready for your next holiday office party, office celebration, birthday or retirement party, there is no need to order from a restaurant or catering company any longer. All you have to do is go on line to Safeway.com there you will find one page ordering, and if you order by 8:30 AM same day delivery.

The best part is for a limited time, when you visit Safeway.com your delivery is FREE. All you have to do is enter the Promo Code: BREAKROOM. (Note free delivery is valid for your first order only and with a minimum order of $49 in areas that they have delivery). Guaranteed deliver windows of 1 hour Safeway is going to be a very serious ready-2-eat player. Retail foodservice success is about garnering Share of Stomach and Safeway’s team of ready-2-eat brand managers is doing an excellent job integrating the messaging system wide and too the customers.

Tradition be dammed caterers and restaurants be forewarned. Safeway is a ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat grocerant niche power player. They have the Signature Café Chicken Snack Attack Tray, Love Those Veggies Tray, Primo Taglio Party Platter, Spiral Sliced Ham need I go on. Safeway will deliver beverage and food right into your BREAKROOM. So if your staff is working hard and they deserve a treat, I recommended Safeway.com this holiday season. Safeway is redefining grocerant food delivery options by integrating the 5 P’s of food marketing into all aspects of its business model.

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 ortwitter.com/grocerant.

Links:

www.Safeway.com, , www.aubonpain.com, www.BostonMarket.com www.KFC.com

Minggu, 11 Desember 2011

Food, Fresh or Prepared Fresh is better for business.

A grocerant is a result of the blurring of the line between restaurants and grocery stores aimed at the time-starved consumer with ready-2-eat or heat-N-eat food components that are “better for you”. These components can be bundled into a meal of the consumer choice.

Grocerant food refers to any retail food item that is ready-2-eat or heat-N-eat sold in a Grocery store, Convenience Store, Chain Drug Store or Restaurant for To-go or Take Away format. Most retail companies goal is to create a collection of branded private label entrée and side dishes that have niche leading identity.

Traditionally these items can be found in grocery stores in the deli / lifestyle section, C-stores in the prepared food area and prepackaged, ready to eat items and in restaurants under the To-go, takeout or take away or delivery section. If success leaves clues most retailers having success have developed a reputation for their unique flavor profiles, right sizing packaging and creating a halo of better for you around their offerings.

Around the world we are now seeing Grocerant sections in department’s stores and kiosk in malls in Europe / Asia and airports around the world. The items can range from entrees to side items and deserts. Some examples of items range from crab puff pastries 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. Grocerant prepared ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat foods contributes to making life just a little easier. For a Grocerant program assessment contact Steve Johnson at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions.

Sabtu, 10 Desember 2011

Dollar General to nudge Walgreens with a focus on food for growth.

With a base of over 9,200+ locations today Dollar General is set to add another 625 units over the next 12 months. Dollar General will be aggressively targeting food deserts in a rush to best Walgreens on locations and food options.

Both Walgreens and Dollar General offer a full range of package food, and Heat-N-eat prepared food. In addition each has or is trying its hand at Ready-2-Eat fresh and prepared food. Walgreens is winning currently but continues to test many products and concept formulas. Dollar General is testing Ready-2-Eat as well, they can’t be discounted.

Food Manufactures this is a perfect opportunity to push your new products. These are two of the most successful retailers in the US. They both understand that the grocerant niche filled with ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat fresh and prepared meal bundled options has been the sole driver of retail foodservice for the past three years and there is no sign of things changing. I believe both can win in this space.

Jumat, 09 Desember 2011

Online grocery food orders for Christmas will set record sales in 2011, thanks Amazon Fresh

December is the single busiest month for Great Britain’s supermarket food delivery business. Most companies have been accepting “pre-orders” for Christmas deliver for weeks. At Waitrose alone they have “Fifteen miles of conveyor belts, 3.7 million packets of stuffing and thousands of 'pickers'” for food most is ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat fresh and prepared food.

At Tesco, they began accepting orders for deliver Christmas week in October. Sainsbury's is much the same story. Here are some numbers this year in London alone they expect delivery of “40,000 Christmas puddings, more than a million mince pies and 35 million calories worth of brandy butter zipping around the country”. In the US the “dotcom” grocery business went. However look at these numbers, it will be back.

"At Tesco, the figures are even more eye-watering. Over the next few weeks, it expects to sell a staggering (and slightly nauseating) 2,200 tons of turkey, 3,200 tons of sprouts and 3.7 million packets of sausage meat and stuffing. Chocolate coins? Two million packs. Clementines? One million nets. Given that last year saw roughly £45m worth of its business being done online, that adds up to an awful lot of food flying through cyberspace. It sees party food – cakes, platters, meat selections – increase by more than 1,000 per cent…’

The online Christmas boom is big business for food retailers. Amazon Fresh is in the middle of the mix. I don’t think that with the smashing success of food delivery in Great Britain that the US will let the “dotcom” bust garner any dust. Food Delivery is back.

Kamis, 08 Desember 2011

What is a family meal today? Send us your definition of a family meal.

One thing we know from US Census information is that 50% of adults over the age of 18 are single. How do they define a family meal? How often do they have a family meal? We are in search of examples, stories, or case studies on what is a family meal. How do you “defined” a family meal today?

We think that Grocerant prepared food components, are the foods that binds the family, can be assembled fast, and pleases everyone at the table.

What a quagmire we find ourselves in today trying to understand: what is a family meal? This year while looking for answers from some of the food industry leading research companies I learned that each has a series of benchmark studies all “best in class” yet none seems to answer or categorize: What is a family meal. Nor did any address what we found, have witnessed or have been hearing about for three years the “new family meal paradigm”. Here are three examples of that shifting meal paradigm.

1. Family dinner occasions with meal components from McDonalds & Taco Time for children 14 & 12 years olds and dinner for adults from Whole Foods prepared meal section. This is dinner, is it a family meal. We say yes; since they all eat together just not the same food.

2. During a recent visit to NYC after a client meeting we went to a business associates home ordered food-in. His wife, myself and my client we ordered from three separate companies (Italian Chinese, Greek) one was pickup next door. I was assured this was not unusual in their household, this is a family dinner again.

3. Studies on Take & Bake pizza show it is the sole food item only 60% of the time. Generally complemented with prepared food from other outlets, the ilk of Wawa, Sheetz, Safeway. Not food prepared from scratch. This again is a family meal.

Please submit your example to grocerant@q.com or leave your example below. We think that Grocerant prepared food components, are the foods that binds the family, can be assembled fast, and pleases everyone at the table.

Rabu, 07 Desember 2011

Famous Dave's when you’re ready-2-eat or want heat-N-eat fresh food.

Nothing new in the race to garner share of stomach, all food retailers are entering the grocerant niche or wishing that they had. The grocerant niche filled with fresh prepared ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat fresh prepared food niche is the only sector in food retail that is showing positive year over year sales and profit gains.

Famous Dave’s based in Minneapolis opened “Famous Dave’s BBQ Shack” prototype Monday in Eden Prairie, Minn. Here is what is new in this BBQ Shack unit, the location includes counter service and a pick-up window. The focus is READY-2-EAT and HEAT-N-EAT fresh prepared food. Regular followers of this blog know, that is the main-stay of the grocerant niche and a consumer focused success clue.

This new BBQ Shack prototype also will focus on phone-ahead orders with a pick-up window, which is squarely at the center of the emerging grocerant niche and will complement Famous Dave’s carryout and catering business if properly positioned and marketed.

Restaurants, grocery stores, C-stores, drug store (Duane Reade aka Walgreens), and now Dollar General stores are all rushing into the fresh prepared ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat grocerant niche. This is going to be a battle for share of stomach and is in the process of changing food retailing for years to come.