BLUMENTHAL: GRAB-AND-GO TO GRAB MORE SHARE

ROSEANNE HARPER

ATLANTA -- The meals business in supermarkets and other food-service-related businesses will gravitate toward grab-and-go products to be eaten later, probably at home, predicts Ira Blumenthal, president of Co-Opportunities, a consulting and marketing firm based here.

In an interview with SN, Blumenthal emphasized that consumers' lifestyles are increasingly hectic, that they want to eat quality food at home but don't have time to cook and that a growing variety of formats -- some very new -- are vying for the consumer's home-meal replacement business.

"There are three categories [of product] that could help consumers with their dinner dilemma -- ready-to-eat, ready-to-heat and ready-to-cook -- but the big numbers in the future will be in the ready-to-heat category.

"This is not about immediate consumption. Nobody's ever going to say, 'Let's go to Kroger's for dinner.' The opportunities lie in restaurant-quality food to take home," Blumenthal said.

"Home is in. Kids are back. People want to eat good food at home with the family; they just don't want to cook."

He stressed though that consumers are demanding quality. "The food should meet restaurant quality standards, be restaurant-style, and maybe even a restaurant brand."

All types of marketers are converging on the time-hungry, meal-seeking population, he said. For example, large manufacturing companies such as Motorola and Coca-Cola are keeping their cafeterias open until later in the evening and offering packaged items for their employees to grab quickly and take home for dinner.

In addition, sit-down restaurants are putting in separate takeout operations, Blumenthal noted, adding that restaurant chain Olive Garden is one that has found this to be a profitable venture.

Blumenthal said all sorts of factors are lining up to create a meals-to-take-home market that will grow by leaps and bounds. Of particular importance is the willingness of the next generation of parents to serve their children already-cooked home-meal components, he theorized.

Blumenthal said his wife still feels a twinge of guilt about bringing in a lot of prepared, ready-to-eat food for the family's dinner. But more importantly, his daughters, who have their own apartments, decidedly do not feel that guilt.

"My daughters -- Sharon, who's a teacher, and Julie, a student at Indiana U. -- do not relate to the kitchen. They've rarely experienced significant time in front of a stove. They were raised on computer technology and they're very comfortable with any food or beverage product promoted as 'instant.'

"They believe a good meal comes from a menu, not a recipe. In fact, words like 'menu' and 'recipe' are looked upon by my daughters as words associated with their computers, not with the kitchen," Blumenthal said.

He pointed out that his daughters exemplify what's happening today when it comes to getting a meal on the table. Young people are memorizing food delivery telephone numbers; they're just not cooking, he said. All this means the time is ripe for supermarkets to get into the takeout, ready-to-heat food business, Blumenthal advised. The impetus is consumers' increasing awareness of their time poverty, which is being felt throughout the food industry.

"Everybody is having to adapt and adjust," he said, and supermarkets are no exception. "When the paradigm shifts, everybody starts at zero."

Blumenthal characterized food service as a completely new business in the supermarket.

"The big challenge for supermarkets is that they're rarely thought of as a place to buy meals." That essential credibility can best be built by offering a top-quality product the customer wants, he said.

"The prerequisites for success are restaurant-type quality and restaurant-type marketing, but it's not about hiring a chef. It's about developing a new plan," he said.

The plan could include making strategic alliances with a manufacturer or hiring a third-party provider of services such as a contract feeder company, he said.

"There's even a place for quality frozen product as well as fresh and shelf-stable in the food-service program. The opposite of fresh isn't frozen," Blumenthal said. He advised retailers to link up with manufacturers and to keep the customer in mind.

"The traditional buyer-seller relationship is dead. Retailers' new creed should be: 'I will work hard to be perceived as an unpaid member of my customers' staff,' " Blumenthal said.

He told SN that the majority of questions posed to him by retailers when he makes presentations at industry events are variations on one theme: "How do I get started in food service in-store?"

His answer: Get educated on food service first and then write a fairly detailed business plan.

"I tell them they need to understand food-service culture, policy, standards, procedures, margin requirements, packaging, distribution, everything about how restaurants operate and market, because they are the competition," Blumenthal said.

"They need to know everything from portion size to price points to effective marketing, and the first step is clearly not to go hire a chef. It would be better to hire a food-service operations or management person or a food-service marketing person or all of the above," Blumenthal said.

He also advised getting as much information from conferences and publications as possible. Next, he suggested writing a food-service business plan "that's not just a vision, but a plan with objectives, a time line, a budget and a system of checks and balances along the way.

"Remember, this isn't just a promotional strategy. It's a whole new business," Blumenthal said.