Virtual Grocerants & Restaurants are the undercurrent of industry restaurant sector Disruption

Once again the restaurant sector is facing challenges from outside the restaurant sector and inside the sector just as pizza store fronts (delivery only) branded outlets displaced many Italian restaurants, they also replaced themselves companies the ilk of Pizza Hut once had over 2,000 ‘red roof’ full-service restaurants.  According to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

All regular readers of this blog have driven by a virtual restaurant, Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Papa John’s and most of you have virtual restaurant meals delivered right to your door from companies the ilk of Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, Plated sure you have to prepare them at home but time and time again Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant ScoreCards indicate consumers consider them first to be ‘restaurant quality or better’ and second ‘a restaurant meal replacement’ and third ‘special occasion dinning’. Now for the undercurrents of disruption:

1.       HelloFresh said it more than doubled its number of active customers, meals delivered and orders in the U.S. in 2017. The number of active customers increased 105.7%, to 890,000; the number of orders rose 118.6%, to 3 million; and the number of meals delivered increased 114.4%, to 20.7 million.

2.       Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of the National Restaurant Association's research and knowledge group stated “There were 189.8 restaurants for every 100,000 Americans in 2016. In 2001, that number was 165.1”.

3.       According to the Nielsen report, in-store meal kits generated $154.6 million in sales in 2017, an increase of more than 26% over year-ago results.

4.       Hudson Riehle believes ‘Booze delivery is inevitable’ and this is why: “Half of all 21- to 34-year-olds would use it,” he said. “What the consumer wants comes to fruition.”

5.       The market for meal kits is not very saturated as companies the ilk of UberEATS, DoorDash and Postmates continue to delivery from new non-traditional fresh meal delivery companies like Whole Foods, IKEA, McDonald’s, Chipotle, Taco Bell, etc.

Just as the lines between retail sectors have grown thinner so have storefronts.  Today a storefront and can include your neighbor’s kitchen, Pop-Up shipping-container-size kitchens, grocery stores, convenience stores, dollar stores, and restaurants the ilk of Red Robin, Carrabba’s Italian Grill.

In a world where meal component assembly has become the new form of meal preparation with 83.7% of family meals having at least one fresh prepared meal component, the facts are clear cooking from scratch is a bygone era.  Our question today is does your food retail outlet look more like yesterday or tomorrow?

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? Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information.

Foodservice Solutions® Steven Johnson identified, quantified, qualified, and named the Grocerant Niche.  Our teams global efforts have been noted around the world.  We now know what’s happening in this niche next do you?  Are you prepared for success?