Food-to-go suppliers and products need to take a “mission-first approach” to succeed in the burgeoning marketplace, according to IGD’s retail analysts.
The grocery research charity stressed how important it is to understand when and why consumers buy food-to-go products at its inaugural Food-to-Go Conference in London on 22 November.
Speakers at the event discussed exciting opportunities for food businesses in the sector, which is forecast to grow by as much as 35 per cent in the next five years.
Buying drinks and snacks on-the-go, and ‘leisure’ – taking five minutes to sit enjoy a food-to-go product in-store – were identified as key food-to-go missions by IGD’s shopper insight manager Rhian Thomas. But the most important occasions are mealtimes lunch and breakfast.
Lunch is the most common food-to-go mission among shoppers, according to IGD data, with 70 per cent of UK adults buying lunch on-the go. Breakfast follows in second place, being completed by 54 per cent of adult consumers.
“It is absolutely paramount to understand the missions that people are coming to the store for and how your products fit around that,” said IGD’s senior retail insight manager Gavin Rothwell.
Both speakers highlighted the importance of understanding your business’s food-to-go customers, noting that the average lunchtime shopper is 43 years old; the most purchased food lunch products are sandwiches or cold wraps; and the most common lunchtime spend is £2-3. Rothwell pointed out, however, that there is “an incredible spread in terms of how much people spend.”
Another priority for food-to-go businesses, according to Rothwell, should be to localise and tailor formats to meet specific missions. He said: “We know that there is a lot of activity on this from several leading players in the marketplace, who see this as a big opportunity going forward.”
One of the retailers that has made good progress in this regard is M&S Food, which continues to develop new mission-focused products with its Icelandic prepared food supplier Bakkavor.
Speaking at the conference, M&S trading director Stuart Forder identified six mealtime missions – breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner and evening snack – with products such as granola and yoghurt pots, salads, sliced fruit and protein pots designed to cater for these needs.
Spar meanwhile has launched a foodservice counter called Daily Deli in some of its stores, selling sandwiches, baguettes, wraps, pastries and coffee, as well as savoury snacks such as boiled eggs.
“Daily Deli covers all the day parts of food-to-go that you would expect: breakfast, lunch and anytime snacking and drinking,” said Spar’s Olivia Basten.
“The whole idea behind Daily deli is that we become a routine thought for customers who look to come to us on a daily basis. As we learn more about our shoppers and our competitors we will constantly evolve this offer, making sure that the stores that we select are in the right format and the right location for food-to-go.”
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