Hormel Foods Aims to Simplify Center Store Shopping
The results? So far, so good, according to Jeffrey Ettinger, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the Austin, Minn.-based multinational marketer of such well-know brands as Hormel, Spam, Jennie-O Turkey, and Dinty Moore.
“The center of the store has become hot and interesting again because of the economy. We’ve tried to innovate against it for many years because it’s a core area for us and for our retailers,” he said in a presentation recently at the Food Industry Summit hosted by St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.
“What are consumers looking for in the shopping environment?” he asked. “They’re still
time pressed and don’t want to spend a lot of time in the store. They find the store layout to
Technology, the global marketplace, sustainability, and changing consumer demands create new challenges in the marketplace. Here is a closer look:
With new technological capabilities, companies face the process of absorbing and analyzing an overload of data about consumers, purchases, profitability, and location. With more countries having companies in the top 100 largest corporations each year, competitors are no longer just domestic companies. With consumer and government interest in sustainability, companies have increasing packaging, carbon footprint, and recycling issues to address. With consumers demanding personalization and using different media for information, creating products and messages is more demanding.
In this new business environment, do companies need to compete or collaborate? The reality is that both are part of the current business landscape...
More customers, anxious about the downward economy, are remaining loyal to the stores where they currently shop rather than switching retailers. These “advocates” of existing stores differ from “shifters” who seek new retail relationships.
Those are the keys results of a survey of 30,000 U.S. consumers, including 9,700 in grocery, to understand the factors driving shopping behavior and spending. The study was conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value.
“Advocates – that is, shoppers loyal to their primary retailer – have radically increased as consumers are relying more and more on retailers they trust,” Craig Stevenson, Global Portfolio Leader for IBM, said in a presentation recently at the CPG and Retail Summit hosted by Information Resources, Inc. (IRI).
Most analysts believe that such shopper insights serve to encourage retailers and their collaborative trading partners to focus on loyalty marketing programs to maintain the
shopper base. Retailers that deploy the right strategies to attract and retain these loyal shoppers will be positioned to emerge as winners...
The economic downturn presents many new challenges for marketers. For example, price and promotion become more important, especially in the way they affect the product choices and purchase behavior of consumers.
The key challenge today is developing plans for category and brand spending that increase volume and earnings while supporting brand equity and a competitive price position.
In this CPG Webcast, learn how to achieve the right competitive price points and promotional bundling strategies to improve the return per trade dollar spent. Click on the first arrow in the control bar to listen:
Hormel Foods Corporation is trying to breathe life into the dying
Center Store.
The $5.75 billion maker of meat and poultry products, salsa, canned stew and microwaveable meals is combining innovative products and partnership with retailers to simplify the shopping experience and boost sales in an area of the supermarket that has fallen on hard times because of a lack of pizzazz and foot traffic.
PRODUCT TRENDS
SC Johnson Phases Out Phthalates in Major Product Reformulation
SC Johnson is continuing to go beyond regulatory requirements by providing ingredient information for its home cleaning and air care products such as Windex, Shout and Glade. Meanwhile, as part of a major product reformulation, the Racine, Wis.-based company is phasing out phthalates, an ingredient which has sparked questions from consumers.
“Today’s families want to know what’s in the household cleaning and air freshening products they use in their homes,” said Chairman and CEO Fisk Johnson. “Making information about the ingredients in our products readily accessible and easy to understand helps our consumers know they can continue to trust our products.”
In the summer of 2008, SC Johnson began working with its suppliers, requiring them to phase out phthalates from the fragrances they supply for SC Johnson products. This action came in response to an increasing number of questions from consumers...
