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I feel like there’s a joke in there. Of course, grocery stores are selling ingredients; otherwise, they would be restaurants.

But one of the best grocery emails I ever received understood what I really wanted and changed my behavior. And it was so good, I remember it years later.

There is an independently owned gourmet food store within walking distance of my home. It’s one of those places with a great selection of meats, decent produce, and a well-stocked and skillfully curated selection of local craft beers and ciders. 

It’s the type of place you pre-order your Thanksgiving turkey from. The type of place that would never install a self-checkout. And all employees wear aprons with the store name embroidered on the front.

The offer: purchase a pot roast and get a free bag of carrots, a free bag of potatoes, and a free bag of onions. I grabbed my reusable canvas grocery bag and walked to the store that day. 

The campaign wasn’t personalized. There was no data mining involved. But it solved a problem my family faced every day: what to make for dinner. 

The promo wasn’t about a pot roast. It was about reducing my mental load.

It removed one decision from my plate after a long day of making other equally important decisions. And I’m not the only one who feels this way.

Nearly 40% of shoppers would like their store to be more helpful with meal planning. Maybe it’s because more of us are waiting longer to plan our meals. Maybe it’s because steep inflation and fuel costs have made us rethink how we’ve been doing things. Maybe we’re just burned out.

To some extent, grocery stores have realized this for a while. That’s how a simple roasted chicken became a $52.1 billion deli category. 

The promotion got me into the store, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the reality that this was still a gourmet grocery store. The experience solved one dinner. It didn’t change the value equation for every shopping trip. But, if I were in charge of their marketing, I would lean hard into what I knew we did best: quality meats and a lovingly curated selection of local brews and ciders. 

But more than anything else, I’d help customers decide.

But maybe I’m an outlier. Maybe everyone is still building shopping lists from weekly sales flyers, and I’m the only one who’s frustrated.

I honestly don’t know.

That’s why I’m conducting a survey on how people grocery shop today. Once the survey closes, I’ll share the results publicly on LinkedIn.