Food retailers, including supermarkets, convenience stores, warehouse/club stores, supercenters and various specialty retailers have stepped up their efforts to compete with restaurant operators by offering new and appealing meal solutions. By placing a much stronger emphasis on quality and variety, and incorporating the same trends shaping restaurant menus, retailers are now in a much more powerful position—and are recapturing share for consumers’ dining dollars.

Not only are retailers now emphasizing higher quality and more on-trend, appealing options, they are also actively pursuing the very same growth opportunity that many restaurants are now targeting—the off-premise occasion.

Retailer meal solutions picked up for an evening dinner may replace takeout from a full-service restaurant. A panini sandwich purchased at lunch and brought back to the office (or eaten in-store) might take the place of a meal occasion at a limited-service or quick-casual restaurant. Further, new supermarket formats are adding in-store cafes and restaurants, meaning that retailers are also in an increasingly effective position to capture on-premise occasions.

To truly understand the “new” retailer meal solutions (RMS) market and the competitive threat it represents, it is imperative to understand consumer perspectives, specifically regarding the strengths and weaknesses retailers possess in meeting consumers’ needs regarding meal solutions. Our study Retailer Meal Solutions: A Growing Competitive Threat to Chain Restaurants assists operators in meeting this new competitive challenge.

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