Grocerizing Foodservice

As different foodservice segments continue to borrow best practices and service styles from one another the lines of differentiation continue to blur considerably. This Melting Pot affect has opened for other, somewhat non-traditional, players to enter the battle for the consumers’ share of stomach. Grocers represent one of the more notable players making inroads into the foodservice sector.

Some grocers have such a variety of foodservice offerings that it feels as if you are walking into a food court instead of a grocery store. It is no longer enough to have an olive bar and a bunch of ready-to-heat pre-packaged goods, along with the typical pre-baked rotisserie chicken, the original forays into grocery foodservice. Many have clear separation between foodservice and other departments.

When observing the execution of foodservice in some grocery stores, I often find myself conflicted. On the one hand, I feel like a kid in a candy store, looking at all the offerings and the systems that go behind implementing these menus. On the other hand, I get somewhat frustrated watching these foodservice operators in action as it seems they are trying to “grocerize” foodservice.

I refer to “grocerizing” as the action to execute foodservice using grocery practices, instead of restaurant/foodservice ones. The primary one is displaying the food (live merchandizing), as compared to showing it with pictures. Live merchandizing is clearly a grocers’ strength as their business is predicated on placing items on the shelves for the customers to take. But to apply this universally to all foodservice items may not be the best idea.

Those grocery stores with foodservice departments can improve their execution by applying principles that other members of the very mature foodservice industry employ. The application of such principles should result in improvements in service, convenience and more importantly food quality, especially during the execution of “ready-to-eat” hot foods.

When looking at pre-packaged, “ready-to-heat” items, and even some pre-heated dishes, the live merchandising approach may be the best approach. Still, food only finds heat friendly when it is first cooked. Heat quickly becomes the enemy of food when holding product for extended periods of time, especially if the wrong holding equipment is used. The fact that grocery stores tend to have more sporadic traffic only serves to magnify this issue.

So how can groceries compete better in the foodservice arena? I would offer the following suggestions:

·         Be more selective when creating the menu

·         Apply more visual merchandizing tactics

·         Optimize the hot holding equipment

·         Develop flexible work stations

·         Implement flexible foodservice equipment platforms

·         Offer different service options

In my next post, I will examine each of these points in a little more detail.