WHAT'S FOR DINNER?

AMY SUNG

With shoppers demanding ever more convenience, and with supermarkets facing growing competition from fast-food and full-service restaurants, many retailers are stepping up their game and finding new ways to help shoppers put healthy meals together to cook — or just eat — at home.

“People just don't have the time to think about [making dinner] themselves right now, so if it's right there where they buy stuff, great,” said Jim Wisner, president of Wisner Marketing Group in Libertyville, Ill.

“People are making decisions less on shopping, less and less on planning the week's meals and more on ‘what am I going to do in the next 20 minutes?’ than they ever were before, so that's a big change. We've done research with the Egg Board and others that the whole idea of a recipe, making it easy, putting the stuff together and giving ideas, is infinitely more important perhaps than it was even 10 years ago, when people were making more ingredient-based meals.”

From electronic information kiosks and recipe stations to do-it-yourself meal-assembly cooking sessions, retailers are finding that lending their harried shoppers a hand in the kitchen can present a real opportunity to increase sales and loyalty.

Notably, Publix, Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co. and Earth Fare have recently launched new meal-assembly programs at their stores, where customers will find kitchen stations outfitted with all the ingredients and equipment they need to produce a week or more of healthy entrees to take home and freeze for their families.

“We'd seen it become a trend in some of the larger cities, like New York, Atlanta, Charlotte, and we already had it here in Nashville. It obviously looked like there was a market for it, and we wanted to be able to offer that,” said Paul Cassara, food-service manager at Earth Fare's South Asheville, N.C., store. Earth Fare's headquarters are located approximately five miles away in Fletcher, N.C.

“We didn't want to miss out on the fact that if our customers wanted something like that, they would have to go somewhere else.”

PREP SCHOOL

Earth Fare began testing its pilot meal-assembly concept, Gourmet 2 Go, in mid-April of this year. Featuring entrees that use only all-natural and organic ingredients, Gourmet 2 Go chefs do all the meal planning, shopping and chopping for the program's customers, who can attend one of the many sessions offered weekly at the South Asheville location. Meal-design experts are on hand to walk them through the meal-assembly process. The meals are prepared in take-home, freezer-safe containers so customers can cook them at their leisure. Earth Fare also carries meals assembled and packaged by the chef in the freezer aisle in the event customers don't have the time to assemble the meals themselves. Entrees average about $6 per person.

“I think the portions that we offer are fairly reasonable at 6 to 8 ounces, and our margin is probably going to be a little lower, but we look at it as not only sales, but as marketing for Earth Fare and the all-natural foods that we offer,” said Cassara.

“We don't make quite as much money on it, but in the long run, it's worth it to us for people to taste that food, and if we can draw in some customers when they shop with Gourmet 2 Go, then I think we've done our job with it.”

Similarly, Charleston, S.C. -based Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co. last month opened a similar meal-assembly program through a partnership with Snohomish, Wash.-based Dream Dinners, the franchise that popularized the concept beginning in 2002.

“Consumers are excited about it, because it offers them another option,” said Piggly Wiggly spokeswoman Rita Postell.

“They're nutritious meals, it's a great experience, lots of options, and a fun night out. So in addition to everything that a traditional grocery store offers these days, which is a whole lot, now customers have a meal-assembly system in which they themselves can prepare these meals, and it's just been a great fit for us.”

Publix Super Markets, Lakeland, Fla., also offers meal-assembly programs in various formats, from prepared food offerings with its Deli Experience pilot program, which recently started in Lake Mary, Fla., to its Apron's program, which includes recipes, simple meals and cooking schools.

“We just have such an array across the board of the creation of food offerings that we hope will entice and satisfy the demand of every customer, whether it's a one-person professional, or a two-person family, four-person family or so on,” said Publix spokesman Dwaine Stevens.

“We're trying to address that need, because we're finding that more and more families are becoming time- pressed, and being in a service industry, we're trying to respond to that.”

The newest Publix Apron's Make-Ahead Meals extension was just launched last month, where customers can make an appointment to come in and assemble meals to freeze for later use. Customers can also call ahead for Publix assembly and then pick it up.

MERCHANDISED STATIONS

Also a part of Publix's Apron's program is a kiosk where chefs present cooking demonstrations, and all ingredients for the meal are merchandised there at the kiosk.

“You can go on our website and find the meal of the week, or go to visit our store and there's a featured meal of the week and the Apron's specialist will be demonstrating that throughout the day,” said Stevens. “Merchandised next to all the kiosks are all the ingredients in one place. All you have to do is grab it, along with the recipe card, and go home and cook it. Generally, these meals can be prepared in 20 minutes or less.”

Several retailers have found that simply grouping or cross-merchandising a variety of products needed to make a meal is a good way to offer convenience, boost sales and give shoppers ideas for what to cook at home.

For example, Salt Lake City-based Dan's Foods, a banner of Associated Food Stores, offers shoppers a weekly meal selection with its “Dan's to Go!” program, where everything needed for an easy-to-prepare meal can be found in a single refrigerated end case at the front of the store.

“They might have bagged salads, fruit, ground beef maybe, pasta and pasta sauce, so you have a complete spaghetti dinner in one location for someone who's in a hurry,” Kathy Hawk, marketing specialist for Associated Food Stores, explained to SN.

“They'll switch that out weekly and come up with new ideas each week for a full meal. It's refrigerated, so you can keep your meat at the bottom and have your produce in there and have sauces or salad dressings to go with it. And it's near the front of the store, so it's very convenient for someone who just wants to come in, grab dinner, go home and have it cooked in just a few minutes.”

Another meal-assembly offering Associated Food Stores uses is called the Fresh Ideas Recipes Center. The in-store program includes a month-long ad that will feature more recipes and information than it does items, Hawk said. Each ad will have at least six to eight recipes and ideas in it, as well as a “Just For Kids” section with activities for children.

“The Fresh Ideas Recipe Center has a space for the fresh ideas as well as the weekly ad in it, and then it has 16 recipes that are in little clear cases on the front, so a guest that's coming in can pull a variety of recipes that sound good to them, get the ingredients and go home and cook it,” said Hawk.

“We go through so many recipes, you wouldn't believe it. I am constantly sending recipes out to the stores, so they seem to be very popular. We change the recipes out seasonally, so there's a good variety, and so guests that come in don't always see the same recipes.”

ASSEMBLING HEALTH

Retailers are addressing convenience needs as far as all aspects of meal assembly goes, from prep sessions to cross-merchandised meal stations, cooking demos and recipe cards, but health is also key to the appeal of these programs, retailers say.

“The whole fact that we're doing all-natural and organic just adds to the effect,” said Cassara.

“People want the Gourmet 2 Go, but there's also going to be a number of people who don't want the additives and preservatives you can't guarantee in many of these meal-assembly programs.”

In fact, health and wellness information, along with meal help, is important to consumers, Wisner said. According to a Wisner Marketing study due out this summer, well over 80% of customers interviewed indicated that finding nutrition information or having some sort of product-labeling program is either important or extremely important to them as a part of their shopping trip.

“Giving shoppers quick solutions to their meal planning dilemmas while they shop drives service, loyalty and sales, and health and wellness is a huge area,” said Jon Picard, spokesman for Buffalo, N.Y.-based ShoptoCook, a provider of meal solution content delivered through customer-facing interactive technologies in the food retail industry.

“Fresh market can be a cornerstone of a retailer's health and wellness strategy, and this can be a terrific tool to help make that connection. Part of the health and wellness offers include recipes based on lifestyle and dietary needs, and then the other part is sort of a comprehensive encyclopedia of health and wellness.”

ShoptoCook Answers software includes health and wellness features, as well as an item finder, price check, meal planning and wine-pairing features. Consumers can also go online to the retailer's website to add to their recipe boxes or shopping lists, and then go and print those recipes or shopping lists out at the kiosk by accessing their account.

“Initially, they're best placed sort of on the perimeter, in produce, or in meat, or in between meat and seafood,” Picard said.

“On the produce front, there's also comprehensive product information available on that kiosk speaking to the attributes of the product, and you can go in and search for recipes from there, or you can punch in a PLU and search for recipes for that particular produce item, which offers really terrific promotional capacity to tie in products. You can tie coupons into your promotions as well.”

Picard used the Super Bowl as an example, to promote avocados via recipes and merchandising avocados there next to the kiosk.

Giant, Tops and Martin's of Ahold tested ShoptoCook Answers in four stores during 2004 and rolled it out chainwide to 205 stores in 2005. Bloom (Delhaize America) tested ShoptoCook Answers in four stores during 2005, and rolled out eight kiosks per store across all 50 stores during 2006-2007.

“At this point, we have pilots across the country from Maine to California with retailers and independents, so a lot of people are exploring it,” Picard said.

Carving Board is Associated Food Stores' newest program, which this spring began to offer customers a healthier option for lunch or dinner. It has proved to be fairly popular, according to Hawk.

“It doesn't include any fried food; they will have a meat item featured for each day, and the guests will come in and pick that item, maybe it's one or two slices of pork roast. They'll order two side dishes that go with that and a dessert for a set price,” said Hawk.

Along with the Carving Board program, there are new training tools in the deli departments. A poster gives deli teams different ways to handle the Carving Board program, with suggested meat items, good tie-ins and desserts.

FORWARD THINKING

Piggly Wiggly is considering other Dream Dinners locations for the future, Postell told SN. Earth Fare also plans to roll its Gourmet 2 Go program in two new stores opening in Charlotte, N.C., and Augusta, Ga., after running the program for three to four months at the South Asheville store. Because the South Asheville unit is five miles from headquarters, it is used for a lot of rollouts and test programs, according to Cassara.

“We try a lot of different things here, new equipment and so on, so this is just one of many things,” Cassara said.

“We're working on a new catering program for Earth Fare in general, but we're doing it here.”

Although the meal-assembly concept may be considered a little on the niche side, supermarkets are an ideal venue to carry out these types of programs, according to Wisner.

“Supermarkets certainly may be even better equipped than those little specialty places that are doing it now, but it's a matter of who wants to invest in that and who has made being that kind of retailer part of their overall strategic approach,” Wisner said.

“The idea that you can do it in conjunction with a supermarket is just really smart and really easy, but somebody's got to just go and do it, and that's a lot of time, thought and energy that's all outside the mainstream of what you do everyday to run a store. So that requires some dedicated thought, dedicated investment, and that's not necessarily what supermarkets are real good at.”

Cassara agreed that each store is different, depending on its clientele. However, the retailer plans to take its Gourmet 2 Go program even further.

“The next phase of the Gourmet 2 Go program is going to be for us to do the grocery shopping for them as well, while they're making that food,” he said.

“We're really excited about having the customers do it themselves, because with the time they spend in the store, we're going to be able to do other things for them. They're going to be able to add to our baskets.”