Examining intrapreneurship: Meal deals as traffic builders in food retail

Abstract

The paper addresses the relationship between meal bundling and driving customer traffic in foodservice and food retail overall, derived from a focused application of ‘entrepreneurship from within the organisation’ (or intrapreneurship). The study expands the domain of foodservice strategies by including a broader sales growth role than is normally found in the branding literature. The paper opts for an experimental study using current offerings in foodservice for a major regional food retailer, and bundling them as an offer called a ‘Meal Deal’. The Meal Deal was then offered in every store on one particular day of the week, with an advertising component of in-ad communication, in-store communication and social media engagement. The paper provides empirical insights to the hypothesis: if we aim to grow customer acquisition and sales, an entrepreneurial innovation process with a current trend (meal solutions) can be used as a traffic builder for the foodservice department. The results were highly encouraging versus baseline measures.