by Dustin Skelly, Prepared Foods Category Manager
Over the last two years a lot has changed with how Owners and customers interact with and what they expect from our Prepared Foods department. We’ve seen a fairly dramatic sea change in folks' habits as we enter our third year of the coronavirus pandemic. Long gone are the lunch rushes of the past; instead we now see more methodical shoppers planning their lunches ahead of time, thinking about what they’ll have tomorrow or the next day. It also seems like folks are increasingly looking towards our Delis as a means to complement their meals and take an item or two off their prep list for their dinner. We have been slowly evolving our Prepared Foods program to adapt to all of these changes so that we can best serve our Owners and customers in this new environment.
Grab & Go
One of the most pronounced changes we’ve seen is the huge uptick in our Grab & Go sales and offerings. We’ve worked to expand our capabilities in these areas and are planning on introducing some new, but familiar, concepts to keep these areas fresh and interesting for Owners and customers. We’re really excited to announce that we’ll be starting to incorporate more seasonality into our Prepared Foods department, taking advantage of seasonal items and offering new and exciting ways to prepare those products. Keep an eye out for things like Ramp Pesto in the spring (and our delicious Spring Salad with Pickled Ramps), and Caprese Pasta Salad in the summer, just to name a few!
New Icons
Along with these seasonal changes we’re also developing a new system that will allow shoppers to identify which items are seasonal and which items are part of our core offerings that don’t change. Keep an eye out for icons denoting spring, summer, fall, and winter items on our shelves. We’re also considering developing an icon that lets folks know what our core offerings are. You can expect to see these items on our shelves year round. As we develop this new system for our Grab & Go, we’re hopeful that we can begin to incorporate this system into our bakery offerings, hot bars, and salad bars.
Hot Bars
Speaking of hot bars, we’re happy to announce that our hot bars are fully open at all three stores. One big change is that we are no longer posting daily menus online like we have in the past. We were simply not able to keep those fully up to date and accurate as the day went on and dishes started to change. Instead, we’re having all sites adhere to themes each day of the week. We’re hopeful that this will allow each site to have some flexibility in what they’re offering, but to provide some consistency so that Owners and customers can know what to expect at all three of our stores. Here’s the list of each theme day:
Monday: Comfort Food Day
Tuesday: Tex Mex Day
Wednesday: Italian Day
Thursday: East/Southeast Asian Day
Friday: Indian Buffet Day
Saturday: BBQ Day
Sunday: Meat and Potatoes Day
Salad Bars
Last but not least, I wanted to update y’all on the status of our salad bars. I’m excited to announce that we have plans to install a new salad bar at Willy East in April! We were hoping this could have happened earlier, but there’s been several delays in delivery from the manufacturer. This new salad bar will be a bit smaller, but it will still feature the amazing organic produce that our Owners and customers are used to. Once the salad bar at Willy East is installed and operating, we’re planning to move Sally the Salad Robot to Willy West. We’re planning on doing some reconfigurations of the Deli space there which will create some extra space where Sally will fit perfectly. Lastly, we’re hoping to get Willy North’s salad bar back open once our staffing situation gets better, hopefully by this summer.
I hope most Owners and customers find that our plans help make their lives easier, providing quick lunches for folks on the go, and hearty family meals for those days when there just isn’t time to cook a whole meal. Keep your eyes peeled for these new and exciting additions to our program and don’t hesitate to reach out to one of our amazing Deli clerks if you have any questions!
