Boosting the food-to-go ceiling in retail – learnings from the Irish approach
Updated: Oct 12
Ireland is widely regarded as a centre of excellence for food-to-go in retail. And with good reason. Dublin is a city where we have hosted many retail and food-to-go safari groups. Here are five core principles that we’d recommend you follow to emulate the success of Irish retailers in food-to-go:
1. Commit to putting food-to-go at the heart of your business
In fact, this is very much a broader point that we’ve seen backed up globally. Half-hearted, short term focus looks like exactly that to customers, who, it is important to remember, have a lag time in their behaviours. Which means you need to commit for more than a few weeks if you want to see returns. The first step? Build and commit to a vision. And while the tactics on how you get there may change, be consistent in what you are aiming to deliver for customers. You can start simple, but get the ethos and quality right from the start if you want your customers to be loyal. A disappointed customer will take a lot of persuading to return.
2. Benchmark vs. food-to-go specialists
Across most markets, the quality of food-to-go available has massively increased in many markets over the past 25 years. Fresher, better for you solutions are now increasingly available (alongside less healthy more indulgent options) reflecting an increasing focus on and expansion in this area. Convenience stores whose food-to-go ranges and propositions haven’t changed significantly over the past few years are likely to be missing out on sales opportunities.
And even a brief visit to city Dublin stores such as Fresh the Good Food Market, SPAR or Centra shows how these operators think like food-to-go specialists in what they offer and how they execute it. And this comes through to larger format stores as well - city centre Dunnes Stores' locations such as St Stephen's Green or out of town supermarkets like SuperValu Hansfield provide great examples of this.
Sometimes however having a strong food-to-go orientation also means recognising the benefits that specialists can bring to your own food retail proposition – as Dunnes Stores has done with its addition of Sprout & Co. to its flagship Cornelscourt location.
What are the lessons from Ireland? Identify the potential of your sites for food-to-go first, then build on the right operational approach to deliver this. And get the right equipment in place to serve you for the next 10 years and the next three iterations of your concept, rather than just what is riding a wave at the time of your concept development.
3. Get under the skin of best practice
For retailers across all markets we continue to see huge opportunities in the food-to-go space. But to win, you need to be consistently excellent and differentiated. Understanding and, where relevant, adopting global best practice clearly provides an advantage here over competitors who may be more insular and inward looking in their approach.
And our analysis and experience shows that Irish retailers travel more to visit new concepts and gain new inspiration than any other country in Europe. And this shows in the quality of propositions and the focus on innovation that you see in-store. And seeing live examples of what you’re hoping to do, helps payback, enabling you to hone the right approach before launch rather than after. Whether it’s visiting Ireland or other markets (we’d recommend both),we’ve experienced first hand how a small investment upfront can create millions of additional value in your business.
4. Consider how your offer works at the best and the worst of times
A key route to building credibility and trust in your food-to-go proposition is through showcasing freshness and product abundance. But you also need to control waste. How you balance these two factors will feed directly through to determining your food-to-go potential.
Set this against a context in which, while consumers are more flexible in how and when they eat, having the core pillars of breakfast and lunch in mind will be critical for most operators in this space.
So it's not just about setting the standards and guidelines for what your offer looks like at the best of times, it's also about identifying how it remains credible at off peak times - or potentially identifying specific time windows in which you decide to stop offering food-to-go.
The key message here is tfor retailers, it's not just another set of products on the shelf, it's a more complex category that requires careful consideration and management to make it work well. Ireland is a great example of a market where retailers have learned these behaviours - though there are others as well.
5. Understand that it is a fast changing market and evolve with it
You might already have the answers to what your food-to-go proposition should look like. And you might have already tested them in-store, but just introduced them at the wrong time in a suboptimal way. Or you might still need to look for them. What’s clear is that the opportunity continues to evolve, and our learnings from Ireland show that this continuing focus on test and learn is intrinsic within many of the best retailing operations. For us, it's also the attitude and approach behind the impressive store executions that continues to offer significant learnings.
For an individual store format, Thomas Ennis’ Lower Baggot Street SPAR store is a great case in point: it’s been transformed over the past 12 months, Greens & Co salad bar, sushi and rotisserie chicken now all form part of the offer alongside the core deli counter. The overall effect is to make this feel a lot like a mini food hall, offering a wide range of food-to-go solutions.
In summary, if you're planning to upgrade in food-to-go and you haven't visited Irish stores, we think your research is missing an important component.
Our next Dublin safari takes place on November 12. To reserve your place, click here or get in touch with Gavin direct.
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