The Blurring Lines Of Foodservice

The term “grocerant” is a combination of “grocery” and “restaurant,” but there are many other ways in which the mashup of foodservice and retail are evident – and affecting food retailers.

For starters, although we're in the food retail business, we’re all consumers at the end of the day.  Like the people who shop our stores (or who we want to shop at our stores), we may divide our meals during a typical week by eating out at restaurants, taking food home from restaurants, buying prepared foods from our stores, making meals from scratch, using shortcut ingredients in home meals or substituting snacks for meals.

Indeed, the blurring lines between foodservice and retail are all over the place, representing more a zigzag than a straight line, according to experts at a panel discussion on that topic at the recent FreshForward event in Chicago. The panel featured Tom Heinen, co-president of Heinen’s, Inc., Kiersten Firquain, consultant, chef and entrepreneur at Happy Food Co.; and Greg Livelli, senior vice president at Hussmann Portfolio Solutions.

To read the rest of the story, please go to: Food Marketing Institute