‘Clean-up attempt on Aisle 5’

An army of cliches gave their lives during our recent confabs to alert restaurateurs they’re in the bomb sights of a rival they probably discounted long ago. The new mantra of that resurgent enemy should’ve readily done the job: Restaurant meal replacement. It underscores how determined the grocery business is this time around to take away restaurants’ lunch, dinner and breakfast sales.

But back to a moment of silence for the clichés that are no longer with us. Topping the casualty list is “share of stomach,” the clever tag for the struggle between restaurateurs and grocers for the public’s food outlays. That battle, the supermarket business realized, lapsed into a one-sided contest long ago. Smart grocers have left such conventional warfare to the retrogrades who still believe they can trump restaurants with clamshells of Buffalo wings stacked in a refrigerator case (“Best sold before 2010”), right next to the vintage sushi.

The new grocery militia has also given a blindfold and last cigarette to the old adage that they have to beat restaurants at their own game. The often-tried strategy of bolting a restaurant onto the public’s source for Metamucil and Handi Wipes just hasn’t worked. As menu watcher Nancy Kruse suggested during our MUFSO conference, dates are seldom wowed by dinner at a Piggly Wiggly, even if the moonlight hits the plate glass just right.

But, Kruse stressed during that convention and our Culinary R&D conference a week earlier, regional and upstart grocers have quietly mapped a more effective strategy, in part by enlisting chain menu planners in the brainstorming. Whole Foods’ development of ready-to-eat meals, for instance, is being handled in part by Tina Freedman, a longtime veteran of the Fresh Choice buffet chain’s test kitchen. Fresh & Easy, the fast-growing American outpost of British retailing giant Tesco, has entrusted its R&D efforts to chef Michael Ainsle, who apparently coined the battle cry of “Restaurant meal replacement.”

That term, of course, is a rewrite of the label Boston Market gave its targeted market back in the days when it was still the concept that was going to upend the industry. Asserting the brand didn’t really compete with conventional restaurants, executives cited their strategic objective as “home meal replacement.” For the year or so that Boston Market continued to fly high, it was the buzz-phrase that captured the industry’s attention. Today we forget that Boston Market-inspired concepts were tried by McDonald’s, Brinker International, Cracker Barrel, Hardee’s (through its Roy Rogers holding), Arby’s and Ruby Tuesday (through Morrison’s), to name just a few converts. They were convinced the future would belong to a concept that could combine restaurant-quality meals with the convenience of takeout and the lower prices of groceries.

Another cliché that should be taken behind the barn: Be careful what you wish for.

As Kruse noted during her “State of the Plate” presentation at MUFSO, some supermarkets have finally mastered that alchemy. Because a consumer tends to shop for groceries about four times a week, food stores have the convenience factor wrapped up. Grocers foolishly figured shoppers would buy basically anything carbon-based for a heat-and-eat dinner, since they’re in the stores anyway. Who cared if the meatloaf was older than their kids, and roughly the color of a bruise.

Casualty No. 14: “If you stock it, they will buy.”

But now, Kruse observed, progressive supermarkets are delivering the quality and freshness that weren’t there during the Era of Rotisserie Chicken, the long stretch when store meals were merchandised no differently than mop heads or turnips. She noted that some restaurant chains are putting grocers like Ukrop’s on their list of direct competitors.

Perhaps that’s because grocers are starting to eat restaurants’ lunch, at least at dinner. Kruse cited NPD/Crest data that shows restaurants’ evening share of stomach—sorry, proportion of all supper opportunities—as slipping between 2001 and 2006. She also mentioned NPD’s finding that consumers are dining at home more often to economize, not only on their meals, but on their gasoline usage. If they’re going to be in a supermarket anyway to pick up staples like bread, milk or cereal, why not grab a dinner that involves no tipping or a separate trek to the mall?

Among the more surprising indications to arise from the enemy camp, Kruse added, is an intention by the grocery chains to elbow their way into the away-from-home breakfast market, a major area of growth for quick-service restaurant chains. Retailers have apparently been getting up before their stores open to count the cars lining up at drive-thrus. A push for that market would change the game, since grocers would have to position their outlets as a morning destination, not a place to grab a meal while you’re there for other reasons.

Which brings us to an old expression that most restaurateurs would probably like to put on the list of cliché casualties, but definitely won’t find for some time: May you live in interesting times.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Wal-Mart treats competitors the way Moe worked through conflict with Curly or Shemp. If Al Qeda had controlled a market the retailer wanted, Osama Bin Laden would be straitjacketed in some Middle Eastern asylum right now, whimpering, “It’s yours. Just don’t lower your prices again.”

Which is why I have to play Paul Revere and warn you of a story we posted on our website today: Wal-Mart is trying a new concept called Marketside, which is positioning itself as the place to buy dinners a consumer might’ve otherwise purchased from a restaurant. Customers can pick up the ingredients to whip together a meal themselves. Or they can opt for one that’s ready to plate and serve the family. Indeed, “easy meal solutions” is the cornerstone of the venture. Except here you can get them for what the nation’s notorious discounter coyly terms “affordable prices.”

“With us,” says the one-time home-supplies source that now dominates virtually every merchandise category it’s entered, from music to toys, “you¹ll never have to compromise quality to get a lower cost.”

Wal-Mart says it has no plans to open more than the first four green-lighted Marketsides, all of which are slated for the Phoenix area. But it slipped up and acknowledged in ads for Marketside staffers that it envisions 1,000 units cranking $10 billion in annual sales. Darden Restaurants, the king of casual dining, garners about $6.7 billion.

News of Wal-Mart’s interest in stealing your customers follows a similar development during the Olympics: The retail chain exploited coverage of the games by advertising its in-house take-and-bake pizza as a more-economical alternative to restaurant-made pies. The primetime commercials sum it up bluntly: If your family buys only one pizza a week, it’d be saving $312 a year by grabbing a pie from the nearest Wal-Mart.

We in the United States are worried that the Olympics were reason to be more fearful of the Chinese. Restaurateurs should be more concerned about a rival named Wal-Mart. It’s a nightmare that appears to be coming true.

Carbon footprints on restaurateurs’ backs

This just in from the Wile E. Coyote Falling Anvil Alert Service: Stay inside. The well-intentioned forces that hope to make the world a better place for chipmunks and koala bears are about to drop some serious (and no doubt recycled) iron on the restaurant industry.

You might even spot some casual-dining operators atop the cliff with them, though they could end up victims as much as supporters. Their curbside takeaway business would no doubt benefit if the ecologically-minded put the brakes on quick-service drive-thrus, as a number of activists are already vowing because of pollution concerns. The proponents of bans on drive-thrus or car idling could probably live with casual dining’s system of running an order out to patrons’ SUVs or hybrids as soon as they pull into designated parking spots.

It’s the drive-thru that has the Dark Greens stomping their Birkenstocks. Isn’t wasteful idling as much a part of that experience as yelling into a microphone? And isn’t that both contributing to global warming and wasting precious gas? Why not ban it?

And that’s exactly what Minneapolis did a little over two weeks ago. Cars that sit still outside of traffic for more than three minutes have to shut down their engines or risk getting ticketed.

Other areas, like Madison, Wis., are weighing the possibility of banning new drive-thrus. And interest in that method of cutting auto emissions is approaching a national crusade in Canada, with at least nine major cities considering a prohibition on the drive-up.

But the casual restaurant operators may soon have their own sustainable fish to fry. Conservationists hoping to stigmatize bottled water on ecological grounds succeeded last week in recruiting the Klingon Empire to their cause. After hearing that San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom had outlawed his city’s purchase of bottled water, the U.S. Conference of Mayors passed a resolution that obliges the 250 members to look into a similar rule within their respective jurisdictions. Already, the tribal leaders of Ann Arbor, Mich., have agreed not to allow bottled water to be served at city events.

So far, restaurants have only been pressured by the pro-tap forces to stop selling bottled water, instead of being forced by law. But certainly that insistence they forego the high-margin item is going to grow much, much stronger. Indeed, the industry is even hearing it from its own members. At the trade’s big convention last month in Chicago, some attendees groused that the panel of speakers at one event was provided with single-serving bottles of water, instead of a pitcher and glasses. It probably didn’t help that the green movement was going to be one of the topics discussed.

So what’s an industry to do? For one thing, catch up with Road Runner of public opinion. When I mention the possibility of a drive-thru or idling ban, restaurateurs always shoot me that same look they’d direct at a deranged street person. It reminds me of the bemused look they used to get when the topic of menu labeling came up at the beginning of the decade.

Secondly, the debates have largely been waged thus far on the basis of emotion, not fact. How much pollution do cars in a drive-thru actually contribute, and how does that compare with the emissions generated by parking, or stopping and starting the engine?

And what is the carbon glass print, so to speak, for water that comes from a bottle rather than a tap? How much energy is needed to wash pitchers or glasses for the stuff that comes out of a pipe in the kitchen? And how much of an impact did that pipe have? What about the effect on reservoirs that have already dwindled below the high-water mark?

Some hardcore research is clearly needed. Just try to avoid a provider that goes by the name of Acme. Its products have proven time and again to be ineffective, especially if they have a fuse.