Journal of Negro Education, Volume 78, Number 2, pp 114-122 (Spring 2009) (with Dr. Thomas McDuffie)

What food attributes drive minority adolescents’ food choices? What do these adolescents consume during the school day in terms of “energy” dense versus “nutrient” dense foods? What knowledge do their parents or guardians’ have regarding their food consumption during the school day? What “energy” and “nutrient” dense foods are available on school premises? Adolescents are human “eating and drinking machines.” As such they represent a significant opportunity for food providers. Alternatively, the childhood obesity crisis especially minority youth represents a real crisis to school administrators and school food providers. School administrators and food providers need to better understand what drives these young consumers in order to keep them as customers and avoid a potential backlash from parents, the community, and public policy makers. This paper reports the findings of a study on African-American adolescents and food, specifically their attitudes, constraints and behaviors during the school day. The study is based on data collected in two Philadelphia, PA public schools–one middle schools and one high school—with very high African-American student presence. Three areas of the findings have implications for improving the school day diet of African-American adolescents. These are related first to the parental role in constraining what students eat during the school day. Second, the sensory reality food providers must factor into any change in menus. Lastly, the nutrition standards need to be addressed during the instructional day.

• “The biggest issue with our students, and its one we’ve been attempting to address at the university, is perception.”
• “A lot of them worked through high school as a bagger or at checkout and didn’t see it as a career path. And unfortunately some of the retailers they worked for were not real fans of higher education because they came up the hard way by working their way through the ranks.”
• “It is not simply money, food retailers should figure out how they could work in a car with these kids. They would be king! This is the kind of thing which the CPG companies do a great job with and we struggle on the food side and ask how did they do that?”

Mature Millennials

Author: FMI Research

Year Published: 2009

Description:
This report takes an in-depth look at the older members of Generation Y, which have been labeled as the Mature Millennials. In particular, food retailers can benefit from understanding the lifestyles, food eating behaviors, as well as the food shopping attitudes and behaviors of this population that will rival the Baby Boomers in terms of the scope and depth of their influence on American food retailing.

Specifically, the study collected the following information:

• Meal and snack consumption (weekday vs. weekend)
• Source of meals and snacks (weekday vs. weekend)
• Food shopping alternatives
• Food shopping frequency
• Food shopping spending
• Food shopping importance factors
• Food shopping/eating psychology

Developed in cooperation with St. Joseph’s University, this report is the final installment of the three-year Gerald E. Peck research fellowship.

Download from FMI.org

Curious how independents like their wholesalers? Whether IOs use wholesaler-provided services such as merchandising, advertising and category management programs and how they rate them?

This report provides all the insights into the wholesaler-independent relationship. Developed in cooperation with St. Joseph’s university and based on input from almost 150 independents across the country, this study includes:

• a market overview including sales gains and key operating benchmarks 
• a review of the wholesaler relationship in years and service orientation 
• reasons for selecting the primary wholesaler 
• usage levels of dozens of typical wholesaler-provided services and satisfaction levels
• budget allocation across support services 
• willingness to recommend the primary wholesaler 
• overall satisfaction with the primary wholesaler

Download from FMI.org

Developed under the Gerald E. Peck Fellowship, this report is the first in a series of three studies. This report provides an in-depth review of the current landscape following some of the most significant shifts in food retailing and wholesaling in a long time.

The overview includes trends in store sales and outlets, market share, major players and retail and wholesale formats operated. Additionally, key wholesaler executives provided insights into the current state of the industry as well as future challenges and opportunities.

Examples are the impact of consolidation at the manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer level, how wholesalers can add value to other channel members and the Wal-Mart effect. Order your copy today!

• “Delis are the perfect outlet to serve time-starved customers who are also looking for an economical meal.”
• “People who used to visit restaurants still want delicious food that they don’t have to cook themselves.”
• “To position delis as dinner destination retailers need to create displays that contain various meal elements including entrees, side dishes and desserts.”

• “I think if you look at the whole concept of Wawa, they thought they’d be the alternative to the supermarket, the appeal being convenient access to household necessities.”
• “The company also prides itself on quality control, which is partly why it has chosen to close some older buildings - what he called “legacy stores” - to consolidate resources and make room for expanded facilities.”

• “What they do particularly well is that they are very customer-focused.  People are time starved.”

• “Whole Foods has been successful in attracting employees living the WF lifestyle.”
• “It is tremendous theater, but they’ve also got a good set of actors and actresses to play the parts.”
• “To the extent that retail grocers are partnering with national brands and coming up with their own unique store brands, they give shoppers more reason to frequent traditional supermarkets over Whole Foods.”
• “However, I’m not particularly impressed by what has been done in the fresh area, because it is just not a big enough footprint to make a difference.”
• “If shoppers don’t see the assortment in their tradtional supermarkets that they want in terms of natural and organic, they’ll go to Whole Foods to see if they have it.”

• “We are time-starved.  No one’s going to cook two hours a day anymore.”
• “I think there’s a tremendous opportunity right now.  The question is, who is going to be poised to go after it?”