ICSC 2025: Brands adapt to health and wellness lifestyle, suburban shift
As consumers are planning to trim spending in an uncertain economic environment, retailers, restaurant chains, and service-based brands are looking to continue evolving to better serve their customers.
At the recent ICSC show in Las Vegas, during the “General Session: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities” panel discussion, industry leaders detailed the ways in which consumers have shifted their behavior – and migration – in recent years.
“For us, the big consumer shift has been towards health and wellness and the concept of ‘food as medicine,’” said Dave McGlinchey, chief development officer at Sprouts Farmers Market. “A lot of consumers are really shifting to that.”
McGlinchey also added that in the grocery space, consumers are visiting more stores than ever, which has been beneficial to Sprouts.
“Consumers will go to a conventional grocery store, and then when they need fresh produce, grass-fed beef and attribute-driven products, they come to us,” he said. “During COVID, people consolidated grocery trips, and I think part of our acceleration of growth has been people starting to go to multiple places to shop now. The combination of both of those things has really worked in our favor.”
Health and wellness as a trend, perhaps unsurprisingly, has led to big gains for the gym and fitness industry, which is quickly taking up vacant anchor space.
“We’ve come full-circle. For the consumer, wellness means something different today. It’s become hyper-specialized and people are thinking about fitness differently,” said Adam Shane, chief development officer at fitness chain Barry's Bootcamp. “We have to figure out where the customer is now, and we have to double down or triple down on the experience when we have them because we're going to see them less often. We have to really nail the experience when they're at Barry's.”
For all sectors, the consumer shift from cities to the suburbs has led brands to reassess store planning, location selection, and how they can put convenience front-and-center for shoppers.
“We were founded as an urban business and now have to think like a suburban business,” said Shane. “Our consumer has moved to the suburbs and our consumer has gotten younger. We have to really figure out how to be more efficient in the suburbs. We have to be super convenient and we have to reduce our footprint to really expand.”
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McClinchey added that the shift to the suburbs has allowed Sprouts to expand its customer base, noting that health-conscious consumers aren’t just high-income earners in big cities.
“Our brand is really accessible. It's a lifestyle segment,” he said. “If you are gluten-free, it doesn't matter if you make $1 million or $10,000. We recently opened up in Cutage, Calif., which is a lower, middle-income Hispanic town. Same thing in Victorville, Calif. We are killing it in those areas, and I think our brand proposition really allows us to do that.”
In the restaurant sector, Shake Shack has also had to meet customers in new markets, but is also leveraging technology to make the dining experience more convenient for on-the-go families.
“We were going to great lifestyle centers in the suburbs and attracting those guests with a fun atmosphere,” said Andrew McCaughan, chief development officer at Shake Shack. “We are moving into digitization with order ahead pick up, providing convenient features to that suburban guest. We have also been opening ‘satellite cities,’ so not just the suburbs, but going that extra hour to a smaller city where they're so excited to have a Sprouts or a Shake Shack, because they didn't have access to those things before.”
