Category Advisor: Baby Food and Consumables: Nestlé Nutrition

Nestlé Infant Nutrition continues to help retailers manage the profitable baby care aisle with its “Start Healthy, Stay Healthy” platform, a stage-based approach to help improve shopability, drive frequency and efficiency, and increase the overall lifetime value of the infant nutrition shopper.

With an 83 percent share of toddler food, Gerber Graduates and Gerber Graduates for Preschoolers have the product portfolio to keep moms in the category. Product innovation in 2011 included Graduates Breakfast Buddies and Graduates Fruit & Veggie Melts. These new items account for seven out of the top 10 new toddler SKUs, and 66 percent of new item volume year-to-date.

Nestlé’s category approach encompasses on-shelf communication as well as shopper marketing activation focused on the Start Healthy, Stay Healthy platform as a means to enhance navigation, education and engagement of infant nutrition shoppers. Programming ranged along various touchpoints, including digital pre-planning, customer registry, direct mail and in-store signage with select retailers.