Jared Kligerman’s Post

NEW! INNOVATIVE! DIFFERENTIATED! In today's competitive retail landscape, having new, innovative, and differentiated product assortments is a necessity for retailers aiming to thrive and serve their clients effectively. Take Publix Super Markets, for example, whose strategic decision to bring in buzzy food and beverage brands has helped solidify its position as a beloved grocery chain in the Southeast. By constantly refreshing its shelves with trendy offerings and sought-after brands, Publix not only attracts new customers but also retains its loyal following, keeping them excited and engaged with the shopping experience. This approach not only drives foot traffic but also fosters a sense of community and loyalty among customers, ultimately contributing to the company's sustained growth and success. In today's dynamic market, retailers must recognize the importance of curating diverse and innovative product selections to meet the evolving needs and preferences of their customers, ensuring relevance, competitiveness, and long-term viability in an ever-changing landscape. #innovativeproducts #newproducts #differentiatedproducts

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, Direct-to-Consumer brands remain at the forefront of revolutionizing consumer products 🚀 and experiences. However, amidst the digital dominance, there's a compelling case for DTC brands to venture into the realm of retail. Enhanced brand visibility, improved personalized experiences, additional consumer insights, and overall omnichannel synergy are just a few of the reasons why a blend of DTC and retail can be powerful for brands. But when to enter retail? At which stores? In which locations? Those are some of the most challenging questions to answer that require many months (ahem… years) of planning 🗓️ and internal changes in order to bring retail to a reality. At Daily Harvest, we understand that in today's dynamic retail landscape the path to success lies in embracing omnichannel strategies. We launched in retail last year at over 1,000 Kroger Family of Companies stores, including Kroger, Dillons, Fry's, Fred Meyer, QFC, Ralphs, Smith's and Harris Teeter. In 2024 we’ve already launched various SKUs at Wegmans stores on the East Coast, New Seasons Market in the Pacific Northwest and through online marketplace Good Eggs in the San Francisco Bay Area. As of today, our most popular item (Strawberry + Peach smoothie) is now available at Costco Wholesale in 82 warehouses across 12 states in the Midwest. 📣 🍓🍑 I am so proud of our team's collective effort as part of our continued expansion into retail. If you're a Costco shopper in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota or Wisconsin, find us in the freezer aisle! Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/eCcSbQK8 #fruitsandveggies #retail #grocery

🚀 The Battle for Grocery Shelf Space is Heating Up! 🛒 In a competitive market where every inch of shelf space counts, brands are pulling out all the stops to secure prime real estate in grocery aisles. With store brands on the rise and consumers tightening their belts, the pressure is on for both established names and newcomers to stand out. Key Takeaways: Shelf Space Crunch: Grocers are reducing item counts and physical space, favoring private labels. Strategic Positioning: Prime spots like the “strike zone” are more critical than ever. Brand Tactics: Companies are innovating with new products, packaging, and strategic investments to capture consumer attention. 🔗 Read more on how brands are adapting to this fierce competition and what it means for the future of grocery shopping. #RetailTrends #GroceryIndustry #ConsumerGoods #ShelfSpace #BrandStrategy #RetailInnovation #FMCG #CPG #SupplyChain #BusinessGrowth

I had someone ask “If a CPG reduces the size of their product offer it’s called “shrinkflation”, but what happens when the CPG can’t shrink the size of their product?” This is called the Shrinkflation Cycle. ;-) Imagine I opened my own potato chip company. I’m only selling plain potato chips with ridges in 24 oz bags for $3.99. Andy’s chips wants to be a good steward to the environment so I try to minimize waste by using a chip container bag that could hold 30 oz, but still significantly better than the big players who seem to inflate their bags. Within the first three years, we’re in a grocery chain with 400 stores in the Midwest. Growth has been great, but a potato shortage is hitting the market causing my costs to increase 20%. What do I do? This could shut down my dreams of becoming a chips baron! This is where things get complicated for CPG’s. I need to pass this cost along to consumers, but I have a problem. My grocery store partner is usually against any price increases. I call the grocery store merchant to explain I’m increasing my price. If the grocery store has a great merchandising team they are going to push back HARD against any sort of increase. I could say, “markets are up due to tight supply.” And if competitors are following suit, the merchant may capitulate, BUT the moment the market dips, they’ll blasting my phone with calls demanding I reduce my price. There is a risk the grocer could pull my product from their stores if I put up a fight due to my smaller footprint. Now in a perfect world, I would innovate and introduce more flavor variations and lower my cost of production thru scale, but raw material shortages may not allow a significant offset in efficiency gains. Fortunately for me, the grocery chain merchant has an idea. Rather than increase the price, can I reduce the quantity from 24 oz to 18 oz and hold the price? I agree. Do I reduce the size of my packaging? While I want to be a good environmental steward, if I shrink my bag size customers may notice, but it could cause me to reduce my shelf footprint at the store and allow competitors to take that space. This would further hurt my sales and cross-elasticity effect, so I promise to make it up to the environment later and keep my bag size capacity at 30 oz and add some air to fluff up the bag. This cycle happens again a few years later. This time I go down to 14 oz. And for the environment I reduce my package capacity down for this sku. Though I’m also introducing a new sku, a family size offering where I’m adding a New 30 oz capacity bag and increasing product quantity from 18 oz to 24 oz and increase my price from $3.99 to $5.99 on the family size offering. Next time around, I’ll eliminate the 14 oz size and begin the Shrinkflation cycle again.

As 46% of shoppers plan to buy somewhat more or much more private label brands over the next year, the increasingly complex #Grocery environment is pushing retailers to rethink their short- and long-term planning. Join our Grocery Channel Virtual Event from July 31 to August 1 to learn how traditional grocery is merging with other channels and how retailers are adapting their strategies over the next five years. Reserve your seat: https://loom.ly/7t5LTf8 #Retail

Not surprising: the news out of Walmart today is that they are launching a new line of Private Label designed to capture a better-for-you segment. I'm sure their primary focus is competing with Target and Costco Wholesale who have been taking share, but this is an increasing risk factor for emerging CPG brands, and not necessarily for the reasons you might expect. When I worked in the UK with Whole Foods Market it was remarkable how underdeveloped the emerging brand co-manufacturing and logistics infrastructure was, compared to the US. The major retail sales growth was either being driven by hyper-local DSD, or retailer private label, dominated by the Big 4 retailers there. It was difficult for us as the "underdog" retailer to differentiate our assortment because the brands were either too BIG or too SMALL for us to work with...they just didn't have access to the means of production like we do here. For all of the attention Trader Joe's gets with their PL program, if Wal Mart actually moves into Better-for-You "faux-innovation" products in a big way, this can massively increase production minimums and manufacturing costs for emerging brands. This doesn't mean Wal Mart is evil, or doing anything wrong. We need to protect the emerging brand ecosystem by giving independent BRANDS (as opposed to private label) a path to true scale that ISN'T predicated on Wal Mart. If we don't, there will be a lot of people in this industry who wake up to a reality of much bigger barriers to entry than we have experienced over the past 30 years since. This starts with the Innovation "Heroes" like Erewhon Berkeley Bowl Marketplace and Central Market and stepping up through larger retailers with strong local/innovation programs like Fresh Thyme Market Giant Eagle, Inc. Sprouts Farmers Market and Whole Foods Market. As long as there is a healthy pipeline of new products being made and placed into these accounts, we can protect the supply chain infrastructure that we take for granted. #emergingcpg #innovation #foxtrot #privatelabel #solidarity #podfoods Pod Foods Errol Schweizer Rebecca Stephens, MBA Jack Sinclair Jake Benedict

STORE CHECK: 5 KEY INSIGHTS FROM MY VISIT TO Kroger IN TOLEDO, OHIO. Toledo is home to the Mud Hens, Tony Paco’s, Klinger and my mother-in-law. So, whenever we visit, I love doing in-person store checks in grocery stores. As I was walking through the local Kroger store this morning I observed a number of interesting things: FLOOR MEDIA: For a variety of reasons, including safety concerns and cleanliness standards, Canadian grocery retailers do not offer floor decals as part of their retailer media network solutions. Shame. Kroger had at least a dozen floor media executions (via Neptune Retail Solutions) that I found to be visually engaging, helped brands reinforce key messaging while directing customers to specific areas of the store. CHOICE: In Canada, shoppers are generally limited in their buying choices for most CPG categories to private label plus one or two national brands. Not the case at most US supermarkets. For example, Kroger had an entire aisle dedicated just to cereal. CROSS-MERCHANDISING: Several brands utilized a cross-merchandising strategy with shelf media placements in 2 or more aisles in store. The best example I found came from the Mars brand Ben’s Original. In the rice aisle, the company promoted its new Street Food product by telling people they can find it in the canned food aisle. In the canned food aisle was a second shelf media ad placement promoting the benefits of the new product: new, fast and flavorful. LARGE DISPLAYS: Kroger’s floor was bustling with massive, eye-catching displays placed in high-traffic areas from top-tier CPGs like Mondelēz International (Oreo) and Kellanova (Pringles). No doubt driving impulse purchases. BACK-TO-SCHOOL: The wheels on the bus keep going round and round when it comes to display units during the back-to-school period. Kroger featured school buses from General Mills (Nature Valley), PepsiCo (Lay’s, Doritos), Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. (Motts) and Mondelēz International (multi-brands). What are your thoughts on these insights? Have you noticed similar trends in your local stores? #cpg #supermarkets #grocery #in-store #merchandising #storecheck #shopperinsights #retailinsights #toledo #kroger #omnichannel

In 2023, a number of retailers and grocers including Kroger, Whole Foods Market, and Target aggressively promoted their respective private label offerings direct to consumers in a brand-building effort more common to GPG brands. So what's next? And what steps can retailers and grocers take to further enhance their efforts and continuing raising the profile of private labels. https://lnkd.in/euGbWUHJ #privatelabel #retail #grocery

One of the concepts I'm most grateful to P&G for teaching me is CATEGORY GROWTH. It was mind opening when I first learned that Retail Buyers are rewarded on category growth and don't necessarily care if your particular brand grows or declines. This quote nails that lesson -- "When you go in and talk just about your brand, you immediately lose credibility. What Retailers are looking for is a partner to help them grow their category." Great examples of category growing insights from Kraft-Heinz in this Retail Brew article. Did you know that Shoppers shop ketchup and mayo by bottle size based on the storage space available in their fridge? Turns out it is true and organizing the shelf space by size led to a 2-3% category sales lift! https://lnkd.in/gyPj97RN #CPG #CategoryGrowth #ShopperMarketing #ConsumerInsights

The battle for the shelf is also the battle for the consumer's wallet. Some of the stress noted in this The Wall Street Journal article is normal, but the current retail and shopping environment is anything but normal. Consumers are being more selective based on inflation and economic uncertainty. Retailers are emphasizing private brands to respond to consumers price sensitivity and to pursue additional basket share. Both retailers and brands are curating their assortments to help manage inventory, overall as well as at the store level. We’ve certainly noticed an uptick in interest for process improvements and solutions to support the stress points discussed, including forecasting, assortment planning, pricing, and overall inventory management. What else are you seeing in the market, in stores, and with consumers? #retail #assortment #pricing The Parker Avery Group Robert Kaufman Sam Iosevich Amanda Decker -Astrologo