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28/ APRIL 2018 / PRODUCE BUSINESS
“Chefs love a good story, like where and how something is grown and the grower behind it. They are happy to pass this story onto their customers and likely amplify and build on it by highlighting the ingredient in a special way.” — Jacquelyn Chi, Culinary Institute of America
employed at Wegmans and Whole Foods, and other retailers from the East Coast to Hawaii are attending our job fairs. This gives a good indication of where retail and food- service are headed.”
The Culinary Institute launched its Appetites + Innovation forum in 2016 to boost innovation in retail foodservice and prepared foods, especially when it comes to the recruitment and training of culinary talent. Chi remarks that more supermarket retailers are attending this event each year. The next will be held August 20-21 at the Copia campus.
Hiring chefs is definitely a good way to bring more shoppers into retail. Specifi- cally, last year’s Deli Experience research from the Culinary Visions Panel, a Chica- go-based food-focused research and trend-forecasting firm, indicated that restaurant quality is the gold standard, with 72 percent of consumers saying they like a deli where the prepared foods are compa- rable in quality to their favorite restaurant. Forty-four percent responded their local deli could become their go-to eatery if the deli had a chef creating the menu.
“Oftentimes, the goal is that the chef will elevate prepared foods offerings,” says Olson Communications’ Snyder. “Implica- tions include bringing more interest and attention to the produce available in the store after featuring specific vegetables or seasonal produce in their prepared foods, on catering menus or in holiday promotions.”
Produce industry partnerships with retail-based chefs offer the chance to tell the story about fruits and vegetables, adds Chi. “Chefs love a good story, like where and how something is grown and the grower behind it. They are happy to pass this story onto their customers and likely amplify and build on it by highlighting the ingredient in a special way. To do this, growers could invite retail chefs to tour their operations.”
To make professionally trained chefs feel at home in retail, it’s important for super- markets to pay attention to the mind and motives of the chef, according to Drescher. “To make sense as a resume-building career
move, chefs need to be supported. Look at college dining. It was a culinary wasteland 30 years ago. They knew they needed to step up their game, and to do this they brought in chefs to innovate. Consumers today want to eat seasonal, local, vegetarian, healthy, organic, Italian, Korean and more, much of it plant-forward and produce-centric, and to do so every day. It takes strong culinary leader- ship to make this operationally achievable at the retail-store level.”
2. Market beyond the weekly circular.
Social media is still relatively foreign as a marketing tool for supermarkets,says Wade Hanson, principal at Technomic. “However, it’s something that can be used beyond the customary weekly circular to get new customers in, old customers in more and convert them into a full basket shopper who buys from grocery and prepared foods.”
Beyond this is ecommerce marketing. For example, Amazon has pushed Walmart, Kroger and most of the large regional chains to step up their ecommerce game by offering Click and Collect options and home delivery, explains Kelly Jacob, vice president of retail and emerging channels at Pro*Act, based in Monterey, CA. “All of these things play to the current consumer expectations of convenience, but these same consumers still want freshness. Produce is a key element when it comes to a fresh image. I cannot see promoting a grocerant without highlighting produce items, but they need to be interesting and unusual taste profiles to capture the current expectations of both old and young.”
In store, there’s a huge opportunity for produce not yet realized in the marketing of the grocerant, adds Consumer Insight’s Lempert. “How? There are several ways. For example, incorporate displays of fresh produce like Fuddruckers does, some- thing that differentiates this burger chain. Second, have a salad bar in the grocerant itself, not just in store. Third, talk about the fresh produce served on the menu, such as if it’s locally sourced. Fourth, offer more plant-based items on the menu.”
3. To have or not to have? “To any