Foodservice Marketing

Foodservice Equipment & Supply’s 2010 Forecast Study showed that 91% of operators expect sales to remain stable or increase next year.   This same study showed that operators altered their purchasing behavior to include greater use of incentives like Foodservice Rewards.  Good News for all!

Tyler Aasness sent me this message today:

Your customers will probably expect you to act a certain way today. The same old greetings, the same service, the same old promises, etc. Maybe today you should surprise them. Answer the phone differently. Offer them something extra. Show them another side of you. Let yourself get carried away and swept up.

The inspiration offered by the article is fantastic. If you have a minute, check it out and read the rest of the post (its short).

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Price-driven loyalty is always the lowest form of loyalty. It means that we aren’t offering differentiated value to our customers, explains this fabulous article from the authors of the forthcoming book, Why Loyalty Matters. It reminds us that “But the simple solution to improving customer loyalty in a down market is to offer price deals. But that’s a bad loyalty strategy.” Read more…

What’s true at retail is coming to foodservice:

Nearly Three-Quarters of U.S. Consumers Agree Private Label Brands Are Good Alternatives to Name Brands, According to Nielsen. One-Third of Consumers Willing to Pay More for Private Label Brands.

Once considered a lower-price, lower-quality substitute for name brands, private label products, or store brands, are viewed positively by the majority of U.S. consumers, according to a new survey by Nielsen. Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of consumers believe store brands are good alternatives to name brands and 62 percent of consumers report they consider store brands to be as good as name brands, up three points since 2005. Private label products account for more than $81 billion in the U.S, up 10.2 percent over the past year.

Nielsen’s survey indicates that an improved sense of quality is likely a driving factor for consumers’ positive attitude toward private label products. Sixty-three percent of consumers believe that the private label brand quality is as good as name brands and one-third (33 percent) of consumers tell Nielsen they consider some store brands are higher quality than name brands.

“While private label products continue to follow the success of consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers’ name brand introductions, more CPG retailers are making private label a priority with messages on quality as strong as messages on value,” said Todd Hale, senior vice president, Consumer & Shopper Insights, The Nielsen Company.

A similar story broke this week in the Wall Street Journal. Failing to tackle this trend head-on is like vaccuming the bedroom while the house is on fire.

John Neuapuer contributes these insights from a “state of the economy” discussion string at our partner Foodservice.com to help marketers position their products to address operator concerns in tough economic times.

Operators are nervous and many are considering cutting their prices to keep customers coming back. This is a fabulous idea if operators want to get into a new line of business. The recommendations made in the discussion include:

Bottom line – customers will pay for high quality, tasty food; cheap, crappy food attracts cheap, crappy customers ; cheap, crappy food leads to cheap, crappy tips and chases away good servers leading the restaurant to hire cheap, crappy servers.

1. “Putting manufacturer brands in the back of the book”
2. “Reducing commissions on manufacturer brands to their DSR’s”
3. “Marketing their brands as the same as…“

Just three of the insights in this Strategic White Paper from The Hale Group – making it imperative that you know who your existing customers are, how much they are buying and how often, plus have the promotional levers Foodservice Rewards provides to retain them.