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GOURMET NEWS JULY 2017 www.gourmetnews.com FROM THE EDITOR 4 Grocers are correctly con- cerned about losing mar- ket share to Amazon as well as to restaurants. Ac- cording to the U.S. De- partment of Agriculture's Economic Research Serv- ice, for a typical dollar spent in 2015 by U.S. consumers on do- mestically produced food, including both grocery store and eating out purchases, 34.4 cents went to restaurants, 15.6 cents to food processors, and 12.7 cents to food retailers. The proportion of their incomes that Americans spend on food has been sta- ble for the past several years. What has changed is who's getting that money, and, beginning in 2014, Americans have given more of their food dollars to restaurants than to food they prepare at home. That gives grocers more than one impor- tant thing to think about as they figure out how they're going to survive in a world in which shoppers are no longer loyal to their neighborhood grocery. This is a phenome- non that grocers refer to as "channel blur- ring," and it means that if consumers can buy the products that fit their needs in ei- ther a brick and mortar grocery store, at the convenience store where they've stopped to buy gas or through an app on their mobile phones, they're likely to choose whichever retailer makes sense to them at the mo- ment. And what makes sense to them at the moment may not have anything to do with which busy corner the store is located on, how shiny its floors are or even whether it's the store they've patronized regularly for the past decade. This same problem affects kitchenware retailers as well as grocers. They now have a common opponent as well as common goals. All that being the case, we're seeing some strategies emerging. Grocers are taking a hard look at their online presence and how they can make it convenient and attractive for their customers to order groceries from them instead of from Amazon. They're con- tinuing to work hard at figuring out how they can achieve intimacy with customers that can compare in some way with the in- timacy that Amazon achieves through the use of data that customers willingly hand over when they shop online, but that shop- pers often see as intrusive when they're shopping in brick and mortar stores. They're finding ways to offer meal kits in their stores to compete with the options offered by sub- scription services. They're improving their foodservice operations and the products that they're putting in their grab and go cases, which have become larger. Kitchenware re- tailers are fine-tuning their online marketing and taking a hard look at formats for their cooking classes and demonstrations as well as other events offered in their stores. Now, the International Dairy, Deli and Bakery Association has just announced that the association is funding research into "su- perconsumers" who spend more than the usual shopper on specialty foods, especially cheese, and who also eat out more than usual. You notice a theme here – the re- searchers are looking for the real foodies, and that's because those are the people who know what they like and what they're happy to spend their money on, and if they'll tell the researchers that, then the IDDBA will, it hopes, be able to tell its members how other consumers can be turned into these foodie superconsumers. It is worth noting that the economists say that a superconsumer in one category tends to be a superconsumer in other categories as well. It's not much of a leap to suppose that the superconsumer who'll buy lots of cheese and who's invested enough in food to eat out often is most likely also the kind of shopper who buys premium cookware and signs up for cooking classes. Through this research, the association hopes to increase the demand for food products in general, making that pie bigger for the entire industry, and also to give its members the information they need to re- capture some of that share of the food dol- lar that restaurants have stolen. The association points out that, while growing the food market overall will help all food manufacturers and retailers, the bulk of those benefits will go to those who take the earliest action on the insights to be gleaned by getting inside shoppers' heads and then delivering to them the shopping experi- ences that they're really hungry for. GN — Lorrie Baumann Editorial Director FROM THE EDITOR WWW.GOURMETNEWS.COM PUBLISHER Kimberly Oser SENIOR ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Jules Denton jules_d@oser.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Lorrie Baumann lorrie_b@oser.com SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR Robin Mather robin_m@oser.com ASSOCIATE EDITORS Jeanie Catron jeanie_c@oser.com Micah Cheek micah_c@oser.com Greg Gonzales greg_g@oser.com ART DIRECTOR Yasmine Brown GRAPHIC DESIGNER Jonathan Schieffer CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGERS Sarah Glenn sarah_g@oser.com Caitlyn McGrath caitlyn_m@oser.com CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Tara Neal tara_n@oser.com CIRCULATION MANAGER Jamie Green jamie_g@oser.com PUBLISHING OFFICE 1877 N. Kolb Road P.O. Box 1056 Tucson, AZ 85715 520.721.1300 Fax 520.721.6300 SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Gourmet News P.O. Box 30520 Tucson, AZ 85751 520.721.1300 G OURMET N EWS ® OSER COMMUNICATIONS GROUP FOUNDER Lee M. Oser MEMBER OF: Periodicals postage paid at Tucson, AZ, and additional mailing office. 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