A sure-fire way to win customer loyalty and increase revenue for your supermarket business is to offer supermarket prepared meals. Both grocers and distributors benefit by joining a well-run meal prep bag program.
However, for such a program to work well, keep in mind these five things:
1. Know your clientele and what they want.
2. Find the sweet spot to display your supermarket prepared meals.
3. Display colorful and fresh meals in meal prep bags.
4. Sell them more than just a meal.
5. Learn from others with meal prep packaging experience.
Know Your Clientele and What They Want
If you’ve been with a store for a while, knowing your customers and what they like to eat is simple. However, if you’re new to a store, a few weeks of careful observation can help get you up to speed.
Here’s what you need to know:
- Which meal sizes are most popular (single meals, family meals, etc.)?
- What meal trends do they favor (organic, veggie, Paleo, gluten-free, etc.)?
- What holidays drive the most meal purchases?
- What are the most reliable price points?
Find the Sweet Spot to Display Your Supermarket Prepared Meals
For some shoppers, spotting the supermarket prepared meal section at the end of their shopping trip often inspires last-minute, impulse purchases. But for others, the minute they walk in the door, they want to see a meal solution that they can grab and go.
If you have a small store, you may be quite limited in where you locate your prepped meals. But for larger stores, it takes experimenting to discover that sweet spot.
Display Colorful and Fresh Meals in Meal Prep Bags
Consumers pay a higher price for meals that are either prepped or ready to heat-and-eat. In exchange, they have high expectations when it comes to the meal’s freshness.
Using brightly colored proteins and vegetables makes your job so much easier. Garnishes, spices, and sauces! They help the meals stand out in their meal prep bags, giving them the appeal needed to move quickly from display case to shopping cart.
Sell Them As More Than Just a Meal
It can be hard to remember sometimes, but you’re not really selling meals to customers. Instead, customers who purchase prepared meals from the supermarket are trading their money for what’s important to them.
Here are a few examples of what we mean by that:
Trading Money for Time
- Time with family
- Time to relax
- Time for themselves
Trading Money for Freedom
- Freedom from the kitchen
- Freedom from shopping for meal ingredients
- Freedom from worry about healthy eating
Trading Money for Convenience
- Convenience of spending only 5 minutes in the supermarket
- Convenience of sitting down to a meal 15 minutes after arriving home
- Convenience of not needing to clean up after a meal
So, when communicating with your customers, make sure your message isn’t just about the menu. Emphasize how buying supermarket prepared meals can enhance the lifestyle they work so hard for.
Learn from Others with Meal Prep Packaging Experience
Before diving into meal prep bags and selling supermarket prepared meals, consider what your most important goals are, as well as the available time and resources to devote to it. To help ease the learning curve, we’ve prepared the following article: 5 Tips for Offering Grocery Store Meals to Go.
Joining the RCG cooking bag program is a great way to kick start a program for meal kits, prepared meals, or prepped meals. We’re eager to share what we’ve learned!
Whether you have questions or are ready to get started, contact us to begin driving your revenue upwards!
