Restaurant Brands—Scaling Menu to Shelf: The Retail Data Advantage

The grocery and retail landscape has undergone significant changes over the past decade, with one of the most notable trends being the rapid growth of restaurant-branded consumer packaged goods (CPG) products.

Items like TGI Friday's frozen appetizers and Olive Garden's breadsticks seasoning are prime examples of how popular restaurant brands are increasingly appearing on retail shelves. However, successfully translating the appeal of a dining experience into packaged goods requires more than just brand recognition; it necessitates the use of high-quality data and advanced data analytics to replicate dine-in demand patterns in the retail setting.

The Restaurant-to-Retail Revolution

Restaurant brands entering the CPG space face a unique challenge: how can they capture the same consumer enthusiasm that drives foot traffic and table turns in a completely different purchasing environment? The key lies in recognizing that, while the channel may change, consumer behavior patterns remain remarkably consistent when analyzed properly.

Consider some recent success stories. Brands like Rao's Pasta Sauce have leveraged their restaurant heritage to secure premium shelf space, while Buffalo Wild Wings has successfully brought the game-day experience into consumers' homes with their sauces. These successes weren't accidental; they were built on a deep understanding of consumer demand patterns, seasonality, and purchase triggers that mirror those in their restaurant counterparts.

The challenge for VPs, senior directors, and analysts managing these transitions is collecting and accessing the granular and timely data needed to identify these patterns and insights and take action. Traditional monthly or even weekly reporting cycles often lack the agility required to capture the nuanced demand signals generated by restaurant brands in retail environments.

Decoding Dine-In Demand for Retail Success

Restaurant brands have a natural advantage in the CPG space: they already understand their customers' preferences, consumption occasions, and seasonal patterns through their restaurant operations. The challenge lies in translating this knowledge into retail success through thorough data analysis.

Peak dining hours often align with peak retail sales periods, although the connections may not always be straightforward. For example, a breakfast chain's retail products might experience sales spikes on weekends when consumers have more time to prepare elaborate home meals, while the restaurants see the most traffic during weekday morning rush hours. Additionally, comfort food restaurant brands may see a surge in retail sales during weather events or times of economic uncertainty. Recognizing these patterns requires daily-level data to identify opportunities.

Successful transitions from restaurant to retail occur when brands can pinpoint the emotional and situational triggers that drive restaurant visits and replicate those triggers in the retail setting. This analysis needs to go beyond merely understanding what sells; it must also consider when, where, and under what circumstances items sell. For instance, a pizza chain's frozen products may see increased sales during major sporting events, while their pasta sauces might gain traction during back-to-school seasons when families look for convenient dinner options.

Grasping these patterns entails the ability to analyze data across multiple dimensions simultaneously—considering retailer performance, geographic variations, seasonal trends, and competitive dynamics—while retaining the fine details necessary for making tactical decisions at the SKU and store level.

The Analytics Advantage: From Gut Feeling to Data-Driven Growth

Restaurant brands transitioning to CPG often rely heavily on intuition shaped by their foodservice experience. While this instinct is valuable, it needs to be validated and enhanced with comprehensive retail analytics to achieve sustainable growth and profitability.

The most critical areas of focus for analytics in restaurant-branded CPG products include:

1. Demand Forecasting: This should take into account both restaurant seasonality and retail-specific trends.

2. Promotional Effectiveness Analysis: It’s essential to measure how trade promotions and marketing campaigns drive incremental sales rather than just shifting sales timing.

3. Inventory Optimization: Brands need to manage inventory across retailers to prevent stockouts during peak demand periods while avoiding excess inventory during slower times.

4. Competitive Benchmarking: Understanding how restaurant brands perform against traditional CPG competitors in similar categories is crucial.

Advanced analytics can uncover opportunities that may not be immediately obvious. For instance, a casual dining chain might find that their retail products perform exceptionally well in markets where they do not have a restaurant presence, indicating potential expansion opportunities. They may also discover that certain product variations succeed in retail despite poor performance in restaurants, suggesting opportunities for menu innovation.

The challenge is accessing, cleansing, and harmonizing the various data sources needed for this level of analysis. Restaurant brands must integrate point-of-sale and inventory data from multiple retailers, e-commerce platforms, their own restaurant sales data, and external market intelligence to create a comprehensive understanding of consumer demand patterns.

Scaling Success Through Unified Data Intelligence

Achieving success in the restaurant and retail sectors requires more than just offering great products; it requires operational excellence driven by comprehensive data and business intelligence. This involves having clean, harmonized data that provides a single source of truth across all retail channels and geographic markets.

For restaurant brands expanding their CPG operations, having this unified view enables several critical capabilities. They can identify which restaurant locations serve as indicators for retail demand in specific markets, optimize distribution strategies by understanding which retailers and regions align best with their brand positioning, create more effective promotional calendars that leverage both restaurant traffic patterns and retail shopping behaviors, and make quicker decisions regarding product mix, pricing, and inventory allocation based on real-time performance data.

Successful companies in this transition invest in data infrastructure that can handle the complexity and volume of modern retail data. They understand that success requires more than just periodic reporting; it demands the ability to monitor performance daily, quickly identify opportunities and risks, and adjust strategies based on the most current market intelligence available.

This is especially crucial in today’s rapidly changing retail environment, where consumer preferences can shift quickly, supply chain disruptions require agile responses, and competitive dynamics evolve continually. Restaurant brands that can leverage comprehensive retail analytics gain significant advantages in market responsiveness and strategic decision-making.

The Retail Velocity Advantage for Restaurant Brands

At Retail Velocity, we recognize the unique challenges that restaurant brands encounter when scaling their CPG operations. Our VELOCITY^® retail data platform has been specifically designed to address these challenges by providing the comprehensive data cleansing, harmonization, and analytics capabilities that restaurant brands require to thrive in retail environments.

Our solution automatically collects and harmonizes daily data through over 625 available retail data adaptors, eliminating the data silos that often hinder restaurant brands managing both foodservice and retail operations. This integration allows you to analyze your restaurant performance alongside your retail sales data, helping you identify correlation patterns that drive sustainable growth strategies.

The platform's advanced data management capabilities enable restaurant brands to go beyond simple sales reporting to engage in sophisticated demand forecasting, promotional optimization, and competitive intelligence that produces measurable ROI. Whether you're launching your first retail products or scaling an existing portfolio, VELOCITY provides the data foundation essential for making informed, profitable decisions at the pace that modern retail demands.

For senior directors focused on driving profitable growth and analysts tasked with delivering actionable insights, Retail Velocity offers comprehensive, timely data intelligence that can help transform restaurant brands into retail powerhouses. When you're expanding beyond the menu, having the right retail data is crucial to your success.

Ready to learn how unified retail data intelligence can accelerate your CPG growth? Contact us today.