Are you tempted by the exciting and demanding adventure of food courts? Originating in North America and Asia, these large-scale restaurants are made up of several establishments, shared dining areas and, in some cases, a more or less extensive range of services and entertainment. They're sure to appeal, provided you know how to position yourself.
Discover our tips for defining your food court's positioning, one of the key success factors in today's competitive environment.
Food court, food hall or food market
Food court, food hall, food market, only one word differs, yet each of these concepts has very distinct characteristics, business models and management methods.
Let's start by defining the concept of food courts. You'll generally find them in busy locations. They bring together a number of restaurant chains, including national and international ones. The primary objective is efficiency of service .
Food halls, also known as halles gourmandes, are designed to provide customers with culinary experiences and introduce them to new flavors. In these places, you can enjoy a meal or buy products to cook yourself. It's a harmonious blend of retail and catering.
Food markets are places where the latest F&B trends are expressed with a strong event angle.
Which model are you most tempted by?
👉 To find out more: What is a food hall?
The aim of a positioning strategy
Customers, especially if they're in a big city, are spoilt for choice as to which food court or food hall they'll choose to dine in. Your challenge is to position your concept so that it is credible, attractive and different from what already exists on the market.
The aim of your positioning strategy is to ensure that customers can answer the 3 questions:
- Why should I go to this food court rather than another?
- What's the difference between such and such a food court?
- Which company should I buy from?
Your aim is to make it easier for consumers to choose from a plethora of products, by ensuring that your offer occupies a clear and determined place in their minds.
👉 To find out more: Foodcourt: how much does it cost?
Developing a positioning strategy
At the heart of your success lies an intelligent positioning strategy, which we've broken down into 5 steps.
1. Identify your persona
Opening a successful food court starts with defining your persona. By persona, we mean your ideal customer. What type of public do you want to attract to your establishment? The more precisely you can define it, the better you'll be able to identify the issues, expectations and behaviors to which you can subsequently adapt.
Defining your target audience is useful, if only to help you choose the location for your food court. If you want to attract a tourist clientele, it's best to opt for an area with good transport links. If, on the other hand,
2. Define your culinary theme
Most food courts have a specific culinary theme. So it's important to choose your theme wisely. Whether you opt for a theme based on world cuisine, streetfood, vegetarian or fusion cuisine, it must arouse the public's curiosity and make them salivate.
3. Take stock of your company's values
Take the time to think about the values you want to convey through your staff, your suppliers, your employees and the products served to your customers. Ask yourself what the raison d'être of your restaurant is. Don't lose sight of your goal: to create a feeling of closeness between your target audience and your concept, by uniting around values that unite you and define your identity.
4. List your competitive advantages
Study the food courts in your area and list the features that distinguish your offer from those of your competitors. To do this, don't hesitate to use tools such as competitive mapping, which will help you visualize your relative position in the market. By highlighting your competitive differences, you'll reinforce your appeal and uniqueness.
Here are a few things you can do to make a difference:
- your culinary theme,
- the atmosphere and decoration of the place,
- the creativity of our chefs,
- the use of organic, seasonal and short-distance produce,
- Etc.
5. Work on your storytelling
Storytelling , or the art of telling a story about your concept, can have a considerable impact on how the public perceives it. No matter how well you refine these 4 steps, if your added value and uniqueness aren't convincingly presented and sold to the public, they won't have the desired effect. Good storytelling transcends the facts, creating an emotional connection with customers that they won't necessarily have with your competitors.
It's then up to you to translate all this into a well-thought-out communications strategy that will engage your target audience and strengthen your ties with your community. In addition to local events and traditional channels, make social media the real spearhead of your communications.
You now have the keys to positioning your concept and making it stand out in a landscape as competitive as that of food courts.
The risks of poor strategic positioning
Your project to open a food court may suffer from poor positioning or a lack of positioning. We have identified 4 major risks:
- be invisible in your market - in other words, not attract or hold the attention of your target audience,
- suffer from a lack of understanding of your offer,
- not selling your products/services at the right price,
- be poorly recommended by your customers.
You've already launched your food court and recognize yourself in one of these scenarios? It's never too late to review and correct your positioning!
Remember that the whole point of your positioning strategy is to aim for uniqueness and convince your target audience.
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You want to open a food court and are looking for a partner to help you digitalize your establishment? Innovorder is the only player in France to offer a complete ecosystem designed specifically for food courts: order taking, collection, preparation, delivery and management!
👉 Discover our solution for food courts: Innovorder Foodcourt
