Franchises offer alternative options to fast food
While a great deal of this article is filled with Dream Dinners worship there are still a few nuggets that are worth reading. An interesting point is the actual admission that store growth is flat. There is also an interesting point on the idea of grab and go versus customers purchasing a full month worth of meals. Did the idea of grab and go help the industry or hurt it? Has a customer been trained to simply grab a single meal on the way home rather than take advantage of more cost savings (even if it meant a larger time investment) to make a full 12 meals and have plenty of meals on hand?
In 2006, enthusiasm for a revival of the family dinner hour was at a peak. Grass-roots groups like Seattle’s Take Back Your Time urged parents to stop working late and cook weeknight meals. Panera Bread, a quick-service restaurant, even set up a separate Web site with tips for families trying to figure out how to eat at home more often.
But it turned out that some meal-assembly franchisees were too optimistic about how many people would want to go to their commercial-style kitchens and prepare a month’s worth of meals at one time, observers say.
Prefling said grab-and-go is not part of the lifestyle the company promotes. In fact, she thinks selling one-time meals would hurt business.
“We are staying away from that (trend) intentionally,” she said. “It’s a short-term answer.”
Dream Dinners Chief Executive Officer Darin Leonard has said it was short-sighted for meal-assembly stores to allow customers to buy one night’s meal when they could be encouraged to sign up for 12.
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September 3rd, 2008 at 10:41 am
It really ruffles my feathers to continue to read “Many people jumped in thinking it was going to be easy money.”
Could we take a poll on this??? I certainly didn’t think it would be easy. I worked my ass off.
AND
“But it turned out that some meal-assembly franchisees were too optimistic about how many people would want to go to their commercial-style kitchens and prepare a month’s worth of meals at one time.” Again, franchisees are the ones being blamed??? Where is the ZOR?? Why is is always us????
Guess I am in a really pissed off mood today.
and yes, my belief is that Grab ‘n Go hurt the industry.
On a happier note, 15% growth is really awesome and I wish the Ahwatukee DD and everyone else out there the best.
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Well, Grab & Go sales have been a 3-6k/month “trend” for us for the last 15 months. The impact of our grab and go sales were nil on our competitors and in my perception have had no impact on customers who would either pre-order to go or come in and assemble meals. A good portion of our grab and go business are drop in customers who were never, ever going to come in and make meals. But they’ll come in and purchase 1 time to try the food or come in regularly and just shop from the freezer. The rest are our regular customers who are looking to supplement meals they already made/purchased and/or don’t have time to make an appointment and pre-order so just come in and load up. The seasonality of grab and go seems to follow along with regular sessions but an occassional sale can sure bring folks out. We have done a sale every couple months of up to 15% off (depending upon how many meals you buy). The last sale brought in $2400 over four slow session days. Note: sales aren’t a tactic we employ too frequently because people come to expect them, but for slow summer months, they certainly helped get over some cash flow humps.