The
combined restaurant and grocery store sectors account for 1.13 Trillion in
annual sales. According to the National Restaurant Association, total estimated
restaurant prepared meal sales for 2010 was $580 billion and according to
Technomic they rose 0.07 percent in 2011. The restaurant industry employed 12.7
million people in 945,000 locations, about 220,000 of which were fast food
outlets. Restaurants’ share of the food dollar was 49%, with 1.6 million
dollars in sales on a typical day. The
Grocery industry food sales for 2011 as reported by Food Marketing Institute
were $ 584 Billion dollars, The supermarket industry employed 3.4 million
employees at 36,569 outlets.
A consistent trend in the food industry
has been the increasing demand for Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh and
prepared food. According to The New American Family, The more children there are in a household, the
more likely its members are to cook at home, and use pre-packaged convenience
foods.” In 2011 consumers continued to be time starved and convenience driven
with an ever expanding palate for multi-ethnic cuisine.
In American families today the evening meal is
assembled at home from multiple sources including Ready-2-Eat and Heat-Neat
fresh prepared food and divided between eating out or ordering pick up food
(FMI, 2010). Meal time flavor
profiles have expanded beyond the cooking mastery within the household. Most
interestingly more than nine in 10 parents serve ethnic foods at
home (Gallup). Thus an increase demand
for ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat fresh and prepared food across all age
groupings.
The
food retailing industry is presently highly fragmented. It consists largely of local business and
regional, national retail food chains including restaurants and grocery
stores. The ready-2-eat and heat-N-eat
fresh food marketplace has created new avenues of distribution including
Convenience Stores, Chain Drug Stores, Liquor Stores, farmers markets. This
creates an omnichannel food retail world where expanding points of fresh food
is increasing competition, elevating fresh food messaging and all the while
expanding consumer choice. If your
retail food brand is not expanding in this new grocerant environment then you
are fast capitulating market share. Are
you ready to enter or grow within the ready-2-eat fresh food niche?
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
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