While the hospitality sector continues to feel the squeeze of diners trimming their spending, sharp independent retailers are quietly pulling off a brilliant trade-up trick: selling the restaurant experience straight from their ambient grocery display.
Shoppers may be cutting back on £100 meals out, but they aren’t giving up on flavour, experience or adventure. They’re trading down from restaurants to trade up in store and for forward-thinking retailers, this is perhaps the biggest year-round opportunity they have.
Sid Sidhu, owner of St John’s Budgens, is one of the top independent retailers in the country. From a 2,000sq ft store in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, he has become a local destination for evening meal inspiration. Here, we find out how his approach to ranging decisions is driving sales and profits.
Tapping into the ‘Restaurant at home’ mission
“Customers aren’t solely driven by price – especially when they want to recreate a holiday memory or a night out in their own kitchen,” says Sidhu. “They might be eating out less to save money, but that makes them far more willing to splurge on high-quality ingredients when they cook at home.”
As far back as 2021, Sidhu had recognised that shoppers were chasing global flavour profiles – specifically Mediterranean and Pan-Asian – to relive their travels. He saw the trend and translated it into aisle space, creating a destination for global cooking-from-scratch products.
The store layout assists shoppers with the right decision. Customers start with the produce, flow into the meats and proteins, and then wind up in a section for flavour packets, sauces, and seasonings.
To meet this demand for Pan-Asian and Mediterranean flavours, independent retailers need to make it simple and stock products that communicate trust – and that’s where wholesale curation comes in.
At Epicurium, our buying team finds proven-quality products that deliver on taste and nutrition. For example, with a Great Taste award displayed prominently in the top corner, Chimac is one brand doing this well. Its sauces are available in Sriracha Caramel Glaze and Korean BBQ Wings varieties. Similarly, Gordon Rhodes’ slow-cook mixes enable customers to easily create dishes like Moroccan Tagine or Sticky Beef Brisket at home, giving them that ‘restaurant-quality’ experience Sidhu’s customers are actively paying a premium for.
Products like these can be tactically placed next to proteins as Sidhu describes to create a trade-up opportunity.
Choosing curation over clutter
It’s easy to write off Sidhu’s success as simply down to his location or store size but that would be missing the point. St John’s Budgens has not simply landed in a local ecosystem where shoppers buy
this way – through smart ranging and a laser focus on data, the store has built that customer habit over time.
Replicating this success won’t be done by endlessly adding products, it’s done through aggressive range rationalisation, backed by data and a focus on ‘hero’ meal products that can deliver high-margin returns from a single shelf or clip strip.
For example, noticing the growth in popularity of Central American flavours, the team recently launched a tight Mexican range, each using authentic and high-quality ingredients, tapping into a consumer base who appreciates the quality assessment being done for them by their local store – but who has the money to spend.
Meeting the clean-label shopper
Another catalyst driving this shift is the empowered, ingredient-conscious shopper. Armed with AI apps on their phones that can break down and explain the nasties on a label from a simple picture, it’s never been easier to scrutinise the back of a pack and interrogate household staples.
“By stocking suppliers who prioritise clean, high-quality ingredients, we give customers a reason to feel good about what they’re buying,” he says.
“They get a restaurant-grade meal, and we get a loyal customer who keeps coming back.”
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