Ten More Big Ideas From the NRA Show
By CSP Staff on May 25, 2016CHICAGO -- As the 2016 NRA Show came to a close on Tuesday, CSP Daily News editors checked their notes and scanned their brains for any final nuggets of wisdom for convenience-store operators from the show floor.
What’d they find? Three technology disruptors, two foodservice segments on the rise and one very weird dessert.
The internet of things
The "internet of things" has permeated the entire store—even the coffee bar. Grindmaster-Cecilware’s Kitchen Brains function captures sales data and customer usage preferences and tracks maintenance on the company’s Radiance hot powdered cappuccino dispensers. You can find out not only that vanilla cappuccino sales took a nosedive, but also that the vanilla hopper is empty. No wonder.
Digi International’s temperature sensors can track the temperature of pretty much anything—holding equipment, coolers and freezers, and even coffee and creamers. All that data is, of course, sent to the cloud for operators to track and analyze.
Premiumization of c-stores
During a presentation on the growth in retail foodservice, Technomic’s Wade Hanson shared the firm’s projections for the convenience-store industry. Currently, Technomic puts the industry into three tiers of foodservice: Ninety percent are in the basic tier, 7% premium and 3% superpremium.
Those numbers don’t say much for the industry’s foodservice sophistication today, but Technomic expects 15,000 c-stores will move into the premium tier over the next three years. It’ll be enough to “change the way consumers see c-stores, and change the way they interact with suppliers,” said Hanson.
Protein on protein
Given the rise of high-end-burger trends and the ubiquity of bacon, “protein on protein” is a trend whose time has come. We were offered bacon-infused sausages, and we also marveled at the versatility of gyros meat. Kronos has developed KronoBroil, a program that brings gyros meat to foodservice operators. Just heat up the presliced meat on a grill and it’s ready for inclusion on burgers, in breakfast quesadillas—you name it.
Supermarket sweep
More staggering news on the growth of supermarket foodservice: Between 2006 and 2015, supermarket foodservice grew from $12.5 billion to almost $28 billion. It's now bigger than K-12, college and university and health-care segments. What’s more, according to consumer research from Technomic, supermarkets are doing better than fast-food operators on all experience attributes but craveability.
Grab and go evolves to self-serve
During his session on retail foodservice, Technomic’s Wade Hanson stressed the difference between grab-and-go foodservice and self-serve—with self-serve expected to proliferate in years to come. What’s the difference? For grab-and-go, think packaged sandwiches and salads; for self-serve, think hot and cold food bars, which allow guests to customize their meal and feel confident that it is fresh and high quality—all with speed and convenience.
Boozy treats
It took this long for someone to pair ice cream with liquor? Bourbon and chocolate, plus vanilla with cognac: Previously they were only in my dreams. We’re glad BuzzBar had samples available, but we just wish we’d had a tiny cooler that would have let us smuggle out one of those pints.
Careful with ‘fresh’
One sweep of the show floor, and you’d likely come to the conclusion that “fresh” is the most commonly used term in foodservice today—even the convention-center concession stands used it in signage. But speakers warned operators and suppliers to be careful with the term: It’s all but lost its meaning with consumers.
Vending renaissance
Self-serve vending popped up all over the show floor. Apex had its AnyWhere lockers for pickup of preordered meals (think Panera’s cubbyholes, digitized).
Quinzee by Nicevend is the world's first fully automatic vending machine for frozen drinks, according to the company. Drinks are dispensed in about 50 seconds, and varieties include frozen yogurt, frozen iced tea, fruit smoothies, frozen latte, frozen energy drinks and more.
Vollrath unveiled a frozen yogurt vending machine under its Stoelting brand. A Kitchen Innovations recipient, the AutoVend (pictured here) dispenses two flavors individually or combined as a twist, along with up to four toppings in multiple sizes, and includes one spoon per cup.
Predicting consumer behavior
Editors at CSP Daily News’ sister publication Restaurant Business noted that more and more restaurants are using technology to anticipate what guests might want and when they might want it.
Online ordering, mobile apps, loyalty programs and good analysis are helping operators entice customers to come in to order their favorite lunch again—and making it more convenient than ever for customers to do so, the NRA reports.
Behold the chocolate gyro
Sometimes the most memorable thing from a trade-show floor is simply the strangest. Choco Kebab is a turnkey concept that makes “pita bread” and “kebab meat” out of chocolate. It comes with a griddle that makes crepe-like pancakes (the pita) and a kebab machine that rotates 22-pound cylinders of chocolate.