There was a time when the supermarket deli was a fairly predictable place. Shoppers bought a pound of turkey, some sliced cheese and maybe a rotisserie chicken on the way home. Today, that same part of the store is becoming one of grocery’s best weapons in the fight for the next shopping trip.
Walk into a modern supermarket around lunchtime or 5 p.m. and the competition isn’t simply the grocery store across the street. It’s Chipotle, Jersey Mike’s, the neighborhood pizza shop, Chinese takeout and every restaurant sitting on a shopper’s phone. Increasingly, supermarkets are responding by becoming restaurants themselves.
Salad bars, Asian food bars, pizza, sushi, fried chicken, fresh-made subs and chef-prepared entrées have moved well beyond supporting roles. They give shoppers a reason to visit a store even when they don’t need a week’s worth of groceries. Once that shopper walks through the door for dinner, the retailer gets another opportunity to build a basket.
The latest numbers show why that opportunity matters. FMI’s State of Fresh Foods 2026 reports that fresh departments accounted for 41% of food-retail sales last year and specifically notes that deli prepared foods are attracting more trips and more buyers. Meanwhile, 77% of retailers plan to expand fresh grab-and-go space during the next two years.
The timing couldn’t be better for prepared foods. Circana reported that U.S. retail food and beverage sales increased 2.2% during the first half of 2026, but volume was flat, and it expects volume to remain flat through the balance of the year. When shoppers aren’t necessarily buying more products, finding another reason to bring them through the door becomes increasingly valuable.
Shoppers are also giving supermarkets an opening to capture more meal occasions. FMI’s U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends 2026 found that 50% of shoppers are eating fewer restaurant meals and ordering less takeout and delivery for their families, while 44% say they are having more family meals at home than a year ago. Prepared foods sit right in the middle of those behaviors, offering much of the convenience of takeout without requiring shoppers to prepare the entire meal themselves.
You can see the strategy playing out within a few miles of my home in the Lake Norman area north of Charlotte. The Fresh Market in Cornelius approaches prepared food as a premium meal solution, while Whole Foods Market in nearby Huntersville pushes the concept closer to a food hall. Both give shoppers reasons to visit at noon or 6 p.m., not simply during the traditional weekly grocery run.
Publix may have created the clearest example of a grocery prepared-food item becoming a destination of its own. The Pub Sub is something shoppers can decide they want before deciding they need anything else from Publix, while fried chicken, wings, salads and grab-and-go meals extend that strategy across additional occasions. Harris Teeter takes a similarly broad approach with deli sandwiches, pizza, sushi, Asian offerings, chicken and prepared meals.
The execution differs, but the objective is essentially the same. Create the trip first, then build the basket around it. The sandwich may generate the trip, but the rest of the store monetizes it.
A fresh sub creates an opportunity to sell chips and a beverage, while pizza can add a salad, drinks and dessert. Rotisserie chicken can pull fresh bread, vegetables and sides into the basket, while sushi can lead shoppers toward beverages or another fresh department. The smartest retailers can take that thinking further by merchandising around the meal occasion instead of the department.
Prepared foods also create something traditional center-store categories have a harder time generating: frequency. A household might make its large stock-up trip on Saturday, but there is another opportunity Monday for a salad, Wednesday for sushi, Friday for pizza and Sunday for rotisserie chicken. Every one of those visits is a trip that might otherwise have gone to a restaurant, convenience store or delivery app.
And the opportunity isn’t limited to dinner. FMI found that 68% of lunches consumed by Americans working away from home come from either home-prepared food or ready-to-eat options purchased from food retailers, rising to 79% among people working from home. For retailers, that creates another daypart where prepared foods can turn the supermarket into a meal destination.
For decades, grocery retailers have focused on getting shoppers to put another item into the basket. Fresh prepared food adds a different growth equation by creating another occasion to walk through the front door. Don’t just increase the basket; increase the number of baskets, because the most valuable thing a retailer gets from selling tonight’s pizza, sushi or fresh-made sub may be the shopper’s next visit.
