Tag Archives: Food

March 11, 2016 · 10:02 am

Off The Fairway

I read a sad article this past week and it’s the topic for our Foodie Friday Fun today.  Fairway is one of my favorite markets.  In addition to having a huge selection of groceries and produce, both organic and non-organic, the prices for most things are reasonable.  The store began as a fruit and vegetable stand in the early 1930’s and has grown into a chain of fifteen stores spread across the New York Tri-State area.  That expansion, however, didn’t begin until the mid-1990’s, and really only took off after the chain was purchased by some private equity folks.

Fairway Market

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to the article I read from Grub Street, the chain is in dire straits.  It has a huge amount of debt and, as the article says:

Almost everyone agrees that a confluence of issues — including an overly aggressive and poorly executed expansion plan and rising competition in the quality-produce business — are the reasons Fairway is now in crisis. “It was a perfect storm,” says a former executive for the company.

Those are lessons for any business.  First, the systems that support one or two stores were inadequate to support many more.  The chain is having issues managing its inventory, and as any retail business knows, inventory management can make or break the operation.  The Point Of Sale system was antiquated, further compounding the inventory problem (how can you manage supply when you don’t have an accurate picture with respect to what’s selling?).  Most importantly, the market changed.

One of Fairway’s primary appeals was the availability of unique ingredients and products.  They have extensive meat and fish departments that often provide hard to find cuts at good prices.  The problem is that others are now doing the same and Fairway rested on their laurels rather than pushing to stay ahead of the pack.  All of those issues might be found in any business that allows success and rapid expansion to disrupt the processes and execution that brought that success in the first place.

It’s easy to think that it can’t happen to your business, and it won’t as long as you continue to attract talented, knowledgeable staff (Fairway couldn’t find enough to keep up with expansion), pay attention to your systems, execute well, and listen to the market (and your customers).  Easy to say, I know, but that’s why they call it work!

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March 4, 2016 · 10:06 am

Getting Real

This Foodie Friday, I’d ask for an extra minute of your time so you can watch the commercial below.  It encapsulates our business thought perfectly:

I’d say that the spot is less about “big” food than it is about authentic food.  Real food, made with the same ingredients you’d find at home or in a farmer’s market.  It is yet another manifestation of consumers being sick and tired of lies and their desire for authenticity.  In case you hadn’t noticed, consumers are buying a set of values over a simple brand logo or image these days.   I found this quote from a marketing blog which I think states it well:

The demand for authentic marketing is a reaction from consumers based on decades of deception and deceit from organizations with slick marketing campaigns and smooth interactions with the media. From cigarette manufacturers, food producers, banking and more recently, automotive, the public has become less trusting of the messages shared by corporations. What the public really craves is this: honesty.

You might think that you don’t have this issue, but it goes beyond your products themselves.  For example, how authentic is your social media?  Are you letting the consumers do the talking in their very real voices or are you heavily editing comments?  Have you ever bought followers or likes to make your content appear popular rather than allowing your content to draw consumers to your brand?

Consumers are sick of photoshopped images, “editorial” that’s nothing more than an ad, and “astroturfed” virality.  The age of making products less expensive to produce while making consumers less safe or healthy is gone.  Maybe we ought to factor in the customer’s long-term viability as we think about “cost effectiveness” since their lifetime values certainly will decline if we shorten their lifetimes.  Do you like that notion?

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February 26, 2016 · 9:35 am

We’re All Termites

This Foodie Friday, let’s talk about eating wood.  There have been a whole host of articles written about it.  We all do it,  unknowingly most of the time.  Oh, you’ll not find “wood” on any label, but you will for sure find “cellulose” or some variant thereof.  As The Street explained it:

Cellulose is virgin wood pulp that has been processed and manufactured to different lengths for functionality, though the use of it and its variant forms (cellulose gum, powdered cellulose, microcrystalline cellulose, etc.) is deemed safe for human consumption, according to the FDA.

Don’t we all need a little more fiber in our diets?  It’s in shredded cheeses, ice cream, and pretty much any “low fat” version of your favorite food.  To my knowledge, it doesn’t lead to an insatiable urge to gnaw on a table leg.  I think the real issue is one from which all of us can learn, and it’s our old friend transparency.
Sure, it says cellulose on the label, but when it also says “natural” or even “organic”, I think that there is an expectation that the product is made from the same sort of stuff that you might find laying around your kitchen.  It’s disappointing (or worse) when people hear that wood fiber is being used as a filler to make the product cheaper to produce among other things. Of course, that’s one of the trade-offs that consumers never think about.  Do you want a less expensive, potentially better for you product or do you want it to cost more but be made from the same ingredients you’d buy at the market to make it yourself?

There are tradeoffs like that one in a number of areas.  Do you want a secure phone, safe from hackers, or do you want terrorists to be able to plot without governmental monitoring? Any trade-off involves a sacrifice that must be made to get a certain product or experience. To me, it isn’t so much about what’s being sacrificed as much as consumers aren’t helped to understand how these conscious choices affect them. I think we can all do better in helping them to do so.

I don’t suspect any of us is going to sit down with a nice bowl of wood fiber anytime soon, but I bet you might read the label a little more carefully on your next bowl of whatever.

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