By Michael Emmanuel*

Never mind the gloomy market expectations for both the economy and retail - with projections for the restaurant sector bleak in most metropolitan cities.

There appears to be a 'window of opportunity' for food retail and food catering as customers “trade down” from dining out to more economical options.

In 10 years of consulting on increasing retail standards and the financial performance of foodcourts or dining precincts, we have found a consistent set of fundamental retail skills that food retailers fail to apply!

1. UPSELLING
McDonald’s has quoted that the old adage “Would you like fries with that?” adds 10 – 15% to their MAT. Do all your other food court retailers apply this basic tool? How about your butchers, bakers and delis?

2. HYGIENE
A BIS Shrapnel survey of consumer behaviour around food shopping rated “High standards in Hygiene” as the most important value in influencing their decision to shop at a store while “value for money” was ranked 5th! How well versed are your retailers and staff in this particular area? Food Safety is a major risk management issue and reflects on the whole centre not an individual retailer.

3. SIGNAGE & TICKETING
The silent sales person of food stores is generally screaming out “Go Away”!! Lack of priced and ticketed items in the display cases or such a mix of signs that it becomes “visual pollution” is one of our three most regularly cited issues when reviewing store performance.

It is highly likely this is a common problem across your food categories so we suggest you take the initiative and engage a graphic artist for the day to come into your centre and re-do ticketing on the spot for your retailers – this solves the problem immediately, creates uniformity throughout your precincts and provides the customers with the valuable information they need to move forward to purchase!

Remember, Aussie’s don’t like to ask. If they can’t see the information they need they move on to another store, or leave, or make their purchase in the supermarket where everything is clearly signed and ticketed.

4. STOCK WEIGHTS
Another of our top three tools holding retail sales back. Food is abundant by nature; Abundance is a sign of freshness and high turnover – essential for meeting consumer expectations. It is also the main tool by which food retail and food catering stores sell by – what customers see on display.

Do they see stainless steel or product? This is the main area where the franchises have it over the independent operators.

Getting your retailers in an 'abundant' mindset will pay great dividends.

5. DEPTH NOT BREADTH
The 'category killers' in the food world are the supermarkets. For all other food retailers, a narrow and specialty focus is the way go. Differentiate from the supermarkets and adjacent tenancies and go for the greatest range within the category. Extending a retailer's menu with a few menu lines will not save their MAT, encourage retailers to add more variety to their existing ranges, vary the sizes of the products to offer more pricepoint choices for different budgets or time of the day or take them back to Point 1 - up-selling - to get that extra 10% sales increase.

* Michael Emmanuel works for Brain & Poulter, an Australian food retailing consultancy. www.brainandpoulter.com.au/