instore - January 2018 - 3

editor's note

Another wild (and fun) ride
I'm still new to the industry, so I won't pretend to make any big predictions about what will happen in 2018. What I am fairly sure of, however,
is that this year should be another adventurous one -and, for retail
foodservice, a thriving one.
Midway through 2017, the grocery industry was rocked by the Deal
Heard 'Round the World -Amazon buying Whole Foods. If you
believed some prognosticators, by the time the New Year rolled
around, half the brick-and-mortar stores in the U.S. would be bulldozed
(or turned into Amazon distribution centers).
And yet, last year ended with robust earnings reports from Walmart,
Kroger and other grocery retailers. And as more than one 2017 study
noted, despite what we all might assume about the younger shoppers
among us, millennials actually like to go to an actual, physical grocery
store to buy their food.
Yes, many traditional grocers won't make it in this new retail age. But
count brick-and-mortar out at your own risk.
The Fate of Retail remains a big question mark, but what can be said
with more assurance as we head into a new year is that we Americans
continue to value convenience more and more when it comes to
our food choices, and that instore delis and bakeries and c-stores
will continue to reap the benefits of that fact. Every study tracking
consumer wants and needs, every press release announcing the

opening of a new or renovated grocery or c-store repeats the same
buzz words like a mantra: ready-to-eat, prepared foods, grab 'n go.
A trip late last year to Chicago drove the point home yet again. At the
Private Label Manufacturers Association's annual show, I was pleasantly
surprised by the amount of news concerning grocery and c-store deli,
bakery and prepared food offerings. Then I was really surprised when
the PLMA president, Brian Sharoff, told me that deli, bakery and the other
perimeter departments were "where the action is" in his industry.
After PLMA, I headed downtown, to the Streeterville location of
Treasure Island Foods, a seven-store Chicago chain. Since its 1963
founding, Treasure Island has been famous for its selection of
European and other hard-to-find, high-end foods. That's still the case,
but what I left with was the impression that there should be a picture
of Treasure Island in the dictionary next to the word "grocerant." Even
though it's a small store, you could probably get a to-go meal there
every day for a year and never eat the same thing twice. And I wasn't
even there around breakfast, lunch or dinner, when, store manager
Frank Blackwell Jr. told me, the lines for prepared foods are out the
door. That's especially been true, he said, after the store was remodeled
in 2017 and deli, bakery and prepared foods all got big upgrades.
So as 2018 gets into full swing, plan on the Fate of Retail headlines to
continue to be big and bold. Plan also to hear a lot more about ready-toeat, prepared foods, grab 'n go, grocerant, etc. Should be fun.
Andy Nelson
ANELSON@SOSLAND.COM

instore * JANUARY 2018 * 3

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