Part of 1 of 2 on delivering what your guests want.
Part one focused on building & delivering a great delivery program.
Yesterday we looked at what your guests want and value in a restaurant delivery program, plus some strategies for taking advantage of these ideas. Today we’ll be focusing on what guests want in a meal kit program.
Meal kits are a subscription service–foodservice business models where a company sends customers pre-portioned and sometimes partially-prepared food ingredients and recipes to prepare homecooked meals. Services that send pre-cooked meals are called meal delivery services, but for the sake of this blog post we’ll consider them one and the same.
And yea, we know. Traditionally of late, meal kits have been seen as a competitor of restaurants. But a new study shows that meal kits could be a new revenue opportunity for savvy operators looking to expand their offerings.
Meal Kits: A Hybrid Approach for Guests & Operators
Meal kits also saw a huge uptick in popularity thanks to COVID. Few people wanted to go into grocery stores filled with potential infected humans and instead ordered meal kits as one of their primary food sources. In fact, the industry is expected to be worth $11.6 billion next year.
Almost half of Americans (48%) have tried a meal kit service at least once this past year, including cook-and-eat and heat-and-meat meal kits. And 45% of meal kit subscribers are planning on continuing to use a meal kit service going forward.
Meal Kits are a Restaurant’s Rival but Also Opportunity
As much as the pandemic has severely limited restaurant on-premise dining and blew up at-home delivery, it’s also created a mini cooking renaissance among Americans. Half of consumers say they are more likely to cook meals from scratch since the pandemic began.
And meal kit companies are stealing business from restaurants. The vast majority of Americans (83%) believe that meal kits encourage them to cut down on their restaurant visits.
We won’t sugar coat it. That’s a rough number to look at. However, there is also opportunities for savvy operators.
If offered, 41% of guests would buy a make-at-home meal kit from their favorite restaurant. Offering meal kits can be a great way of getting some of that lost business back. Guests want to enjoy the flavors and food experience only your restaurant can provide. It’s just a matter of restaurants meeting guests where they’re at – at home in their own kitchens.
On top of that, 90% of meal kit users referred others to the service they subscribe, so there’s promise of such a restaurant program expanding quickly if done well. Operators may even want to consider some sort of referral or loyalty program to encourage this.
Marketing Your Restaurant’s Meal Plan
If you’re looking to add a meal kit program to your restaurant’s offerings, it’ll help to know what exactly about it consumer’s value. According to the Progressive Grocer:
Reduces meal planning & cooking effort (24%).
Option to try diverse and interesting cuisines (21%).
Reduces shopping trips and sourcing efforts (15%).
Less food waste and leftover ingredients (11%).
Meal plan/kit subscribers also tend to be Gen X and Millennials, identify as male, and live in cities. They also believe that meal kits are a healthier eating option. This is, of course, a mile high view of the typical subscriber and operators should do their own local research to garner interest and demographic data.
Final Takeaway
To be a broken record, COVID-19 has changed how the world works, including our relationship with food, dining, and restaurants. The key for restaurants to not only survive but thrive in this new environment is to keep doing what they do best (provide amazing food and dining experience) while simultaneously adapting to what has changed and the new consumer behavior. Continuing delivery programs and expanding to meal kits can do just that.
