Foodservice in retail continues to gain momentum, with usage frequency up over a year ago. Cost-conscious consumers are looking for convenient, freshly-prepared food at a savings versus restaurants, and grocery retailers are meeting their needs by enhancing the quality and variety of their offerings.
While rotisserie chicken remains a staple of retail foodservice, the category’s most frequent users are looking for greater variety and turning to retail foodservice for occasions beyond family dinners. Breakfast, lunch on the go, and even snacking represent opportunities for retailers to make prepared foods a more essential part of consumers’ everyday lives.
In addition to expanding the menu, retailers can make foodservice a more compelling solution by integrating them more tightly with the rest of the store, catering to the category’s most frequent users, who often pair prepared foods with items they cook themselves. Grocers also have an opportunity to optimize the pace of retail foodservice, not only by speeding up the process when convenience is at a premium but also slowing it down for shoppers who want to linger and enjoy the experience.
Foodservice in retail continues to gain momentum as cost-conscious consumers look for convenient, freshly-prepared food at a savings versus restaurants.
John Owen, Associate Director – Food and Retail
This Report explores consumer attitudes/behaviors surrounding foodservice concepts in retail, specifically grocery retailing. “Foodservice concepts in retail” refers to any restaurants located in a store, including grocery-owned restaurants as well as partnerships with existing brands such as a Subway located in a Walmart, or any meals sold on-site that are created by store employees (ie not shipped in from a manufacturer). Hot soups, prepared sushi, rotisserie chicken, hot and cold food bars and on-site alcohol bars are all examples of foodservice concepts in retail.
Foodservice in retail also refers to prepared packaged foods (eg packaged employee-made sandwiches) as well as MTO foods available at a station located in the store, where customers can have a meal made to order (eg a burger station). Throughout this Report the phrase “prepared food” refers to both prepared packaged and MTO food.
This Report segments prepared food purchasers into three user groups to help illuminate the behaviors and attitudes of different types of prepared food customers throughout:
Heavy Users purchase prepared foods at least once a week.
Moderate Users purchase a few times a month to once a month.
Light Users purchase once every two to three months to a few times a year.
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