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03.24.2005

“HartBeat” is The Hartman Group's FREE online newsletter, providing insight, analysis, information and strategy to give business leaders the knowledge and vision to build sustainable brands.

For more Hartman Group articles on FOOD CULTURE, click here...

11.11.2004 "What's for Dinner?: Understanding Meal Fragmentation as a Cultural Phenomenon"

10.26.2004 "What If It's Not About the Food After All"

09.23.2004 "Asian Dinner Mixes & the Family Meal: Evolving Food Culture"

08.05.2004 "Snacking Our Way Through the Day: Food Culture in America"

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Convenient... and Fresh?

evolving food culture in america

The Quiet Revolution in Fresh

A quiet revolution has gone on in American grocery retailing during the past five years. Nationally branded organic grocers have undertaken a grand experiment by offering up freshly prepared grab-n-go foods made from whole ingredients and with virtually no traces of industrial food processing. And they taste really, really good. Fast casual restaurants have also driven this revolution by offering fresher tasting, higher quality food just as fast as McDonald's industrial-strength supply chain can.

The result? The collective patience consumers all have for lowering their quality expectations just so they can have convenient food has worn very, very thin. Unfortunately, this doesn't bode well for convenience retailers in the U.S., since their brand equity has rested almost entirely on this occasion-based, collective shoulder-shrugging. Quality fresh food, beyond the home, is simply no longer that inconvenient for many urban and suburban Americans. And convenience stores simply have no excuse for the low proportion of "fresh," high-quality foods within their walls.

Revamping Product Portfolios and Supply Chain Management
...Is Not the Answer

The problem for convenience stores trying to tap into the quiet revolution in fresh is more than just localizing the supply chain so that foods sold in far-flung convenience channels don't have to be bastardized for the infamously unnatural durability that creates that artificial "Twinkie" taste. 7-Eleven, for example, recently announced it has rolled out national, computerized supply chain technology that allows it to fill small SKU volumes the next day, using local vendors and warehouses. This is allowing each store to customize its offerings in great detail, much like independent coffee shops do. 7-Eleven is also developing a network of fresh foods kitchens and vendors to supply its stores with daily loads of fresh foods as well. Their model is Japan: world leader in just-in-time supply chains and truly constant new product development. But there are problems in adapting this hyper-modern and hyper-active model too narrowly to the convenient channeling of fresh foods in the U.S.

The expanding consumer world of American "fresh foods" increasingly requires an anti-industrial, almost pre-modern, in-store experience, one component of which is a product portfolio that meets the higher quality standards consumers have for these foods.

Credibility in Fresh Convenience Retailing

The key to succeeding in "fresh" foods in the U.S., whether in regular grocery or in convenience outlets, is in

Creating an in-store experience that places your retail brand in direct opposition to the sensorial signs of industrial food processing.
Requiring clear signals of hygiene and purity to educated, middle-class Americans - especially women. Female consumers, after all, tend to be the strictest guardians of what is and is not "fresh" on convenient food buying occasions, especially when buying convenience foods for their children.

The problem for convenience store brands in the U.S. is not just that consumers all associate them with edible, industrially processed "junk" food. They also have an in-store experience that says anything but fresh. Consumers associate these stores with noise, unnaturally vivid colors, filth, chemical smells, antisocial underpaid staff, harsh lighting, industrial flooring and vile bathrooms (that seldom seem to work).

Just a Few Key Elements of the Fresh Store Experience

The overarching theme here is that retail brands associated historically with the "non-fresh" have a very large burden of distrust to overcome when moving into the fresh foods arena. To build this trust requires communicating all sorts of subtle, indirect signals that fresh-oriented convenience food shoppers increasingly associate with credible fresh food retailing. Simply slapping a "fresh" designation on a storefront or a package will fail if the entire brand is already associated with "processed food."

These indirect signals of fresh focus largely on building trust through a very simple analogy: if they care this much about an innovative, quality in-store experience, then they probably do care enough to make "fresh" food that really is fresh. And in grocery retailing, the symbolic language of "fresh" tends to involve cues of the "natural."

Natural Exterior Design
The signals of "processed food" generally become palpable upon glimpsing the exterior of most convenience stores: Flourescently lit box signage, unnaturally bright colors, dirt asphalt parking lots, gasoline odors, etc. There is no signal at all of "nature" anywhere to be found. Ignoring the signage, most consumers see no difference between the exterior of these stores and the exterior of your average hardware store. The cold, artificial exterior, signals that artificial "processed" food lies within. Something dramatic and visible has to be done with the outside, to catch the attention of passersby and make them actually believe something "fresh" might actually be in there.
- Replace neon, fluorescently backlit or unnaturally colored signage
- Use wood, brick or tile front exterior storefronts
- Create flowery entrances
Sensory Cues: Aroma
- Make the smell of fresh food, not chlorine, hit every consumer upon entry
Natural Interior Design
- Use natural colors only
- Use natural materials for visible interior spaces (e.g., wood, stone tiles, hand-crafted artistic decorations, etc.)
Lighting
- Use lights that are muted, soft and warm, evoking the natural warmth of candle and fire without being quite so dim (i.e., low Kelvin)
Show Signs of Fresh Food Preparation
- Make the preparation of fresh food visible, either by making it happen inside the store or by displaying visual narratives of how it gets made
Staff Behavior
- Hire articulate, fluent staff who know how the store's "fresh items" get made. If they can't talk about the origin of the fresh food, the fresh-oriented shopper immediately assumes that the food is mass produced in some factory-like setting. They will make this assumption regardless of POP signage or package designations.
- Require dress and grooming that signals "the kind of people" who would care enough to make high-quality fresh food.
- Hire staff from the local area who can build first-name relationships that, in turn, build trust that what gets made fresh in the store, really is freshly prepared.
Natural cleanliness
- Eliminate visible dirt or filth on counters, floors and storefronts
- Maintain cleanliness through basic, non-mechanized equipment (e.g., brooms, mops, etc.)
- Harsh chemicals should be avoided since they produce harsh odors, signals of industrial processing that will work against other "fresh cues"
Visible evidence that at least some popular fresh foods are prepared on site by competent, clean and diligent staff.
And many more...

One of the unspoken reasons for 7-Eleven Japan's success may be the fact that the Japanese fresh foods buyer doesn't demand cues of the natural within their in-store environments in order to believe that the food is fresh, clean and safe to eat. The Japanese affection for neon, hyper-modern retail environments may resonate, or even, support the credibility of fresh food offered there. If this were true in America, then chains like 7-Eleven would just have to scrub the floors a little better. Unfortunately, it's not that simple.

U.S. convenience food retailers who want to get serious about fresh food need to orient themselves more to the in-store experience of Parisian patisseries and corner bakeries and less to the supply chain innovations of Tokyo. Fresh food doesn't speak for itself in the U.S., it requires quite a complex store experience to support it.

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