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Collective Excellence
Progressive Grocer's 2011 Category Captains and Advisors are putting their best ideas forward for the good of the industry. By Progressive Grocer Editors
Now in their 15th year, Progressive Grocer's annual Category Captains awards honor the most innovative suppliers in the game, doing what they do best in the world of category management. There are a whopping 89 winners this year – 71 Category Captains and 18 Category Advisors – assembled from the best and brightest major CPG companies to smaller gourmet suppliers, including one that's also a specialty retailer, and an ever-growing number of fresh food suppliers, among others. Since the contest's judging process is confidential in nature, you won't see many grocers' names mentioned directly in the stories describing this year's winners. However, after carefully sifting through the numerous entries that were submitted for our 2011 awards competition, our editorial and advisory teams had the honor of learning far more about what's going on behind the scenes, which enabled us to make the final selection of the winning platforms showcased herein – some of which took wing with an idea that began after fresh consumer research unveiled a missed opportunity; a cutting-edge tool established to facilitate a new shelf management scheme, not only on a national basis, but also to customize on a regional scale; or by maximizing loyalty card data to get promotions just right. The supplier community has some surprises in store to help grocers grow sales and profits during these tough economic times. Assembled side by side on the following pages, the stories of PG's 2011 Category Captains and Advisors paint a picture of manufacturers and retailers working hand in hand for the greater good of specific categories and, ultimately, for the industry. Talking Trends You'll see evidence of these trends in several of our winners' profiles. Perhaps the biggest proponent of taking the store's larger geography into account is General Mills. While the company still measures yogurt and refrigerated baked goods as separate dairy categories, for instance, there's work being done to incorporate insights into the dairy aisle as a whole. The same principle applies to frozen foods, the cereal aisle and other departments where General Mills claims a piece of the pie. The J.M. Smucker Co., which owns the ever-popular Folgers brand, is now looking at the "warm beverage aisle" in its category management platform, so hot tea and cocoa, creamers and filters, and other related products are now taken into account. Numerous recipients of PG's Category Captains are making the most of their retailer partners' loyalty card data. Coca-Cola, Flowers Foods, Bayer HealthCare and Abbott Nutrition are just a few examples of suppliers that use shopper card data to create promotions, design more effective ads and consult their retailer partners on forecasting, as well as other initiatives. As is the case every year with Category Captains, more than one contestant mentioned plans for the year ahead as they laid out the case for why they excelled in 2010 and the first half of 2011. Meanwhile, some suppliers have launched new products, shelving plans and other programs that are still too early in their development to garner solid results. But judging from this year's entries, it looks like the supplier community definitely has some surprises in store going forward to help grocers grow sales and profits during these tough economic times. Willard Bishop's Hertel shares his advice for manufacturers that want to stay a step ahead in category management: "They need to be thinking about how to help retailers win with shoppers … how to build trip-to-trip loyalty, greater aisle penetration and category conversion. Real forward-thinkers will be looking to help retailers capitalize on their fresh department strengths to help drive center store traffic."
WINNERS LIST INDEX
Alcoholic Beverages – Beer Alcoholic Beverages – Wine Baby Food and Consumables Breakfast Foods– Cereal, including Convenient Wholesome FOODS (CWF) Breakfast Foods– Ready-to-eat Cereal Breakfast Foods– Hot Cereal Candy Canned and Packaged Beverages– Coffee Canned and Packaged Beverages– Juice Drinks Canned and Packaged Beverages– Soft Drinks Canned and Packaged Beverages– Warm Beverages Canned and Packaged Foods– Baking Ingredients, Spices and Seasonings Canned and Packaged Foods– Desserts Canned and Packaged Foods– Dry Packaged Dinners Canned and Packaged Foods– Dry Packaged Potatoes Canned and Packaged Foods– Fruit Spreads and Peanut Butter Canned and Packaged Foods– Nut Spreads Canned and Packaged Foods– Shelf-stable Meals Canned and Packaged Foods– Shelf-stable Vegetables Canned and Packaged Foods– Soups Commercial Baked Goods Cookies Crackers Ethnic Foods Gum Mixed Salty Savory Snacks Natural and Organic Foods Premium Snack Foods Salty Snacks Wholesome Portable Breakfast and Snacks
Frozen Baked Goods Frozen Breakfast Frozen Entrees Frozen Fruit/Smoothies Frozen Hot Snacks Frozen Meals Frozen Pizza Frozen Vegetables Frozen Veggie Foods Ice Cream & Novelties
Pet Care Soaps and Detergent
Analgesics Digestive Health Hair Care Oral Electrolytes Sports Nutritionals Sun Care Vitamins Vitamins and Supplements
Category Captain: Dawn Foods
Cooking Crème Margarine Refrigerated Baked Goods Specialty Cheese Yogurt and Smoothies
Prepared Foods
Fresh Pork Products Deli Meat
Avocados Bananas Berries Citrus Fresh-cut Fruit Packaged Salads Pineapple Potatoes Tomatoes Value-added Vegetables
Front End Front End– General Merchandise
Books and Magazines GROCERY: FOODS and BEVERAGES The extensive review uncovered the recent emergence of a unique beer palate seeking a more complex, flavorful and sophisticated sweeter-tasting beer. A-B pinpointed opportunities for retail partners to grow beer through marketing and innovation efforts to satisfy the unmet demands of consumers with these palate preferences. The high-end craft segment is up 19.9 percent in supermarkets, with A-B's Shock Top Belgian White delivering the highest growth for wheat beers. The new Shock Top Raspberry Wheat variety is quickly gaining momentum, ranking fifth in overall growth out of wheat beers. This positive growth is nationwide, with all eight regions displaying double-digit or higher growth for the Shock Top family. The top-10 growth accounts for the Shock Top family also reflect positive increases for the high-end craft segment, with the Shock Top family contributing 25 percent of the growth for the segment. Category Captain From late March to late April 2011, all Similac non-WIC SKUs were featured in ads or on TPR, with an offer to buy two participating large-size powders or two big packs of participating Huggies or Pampers diapers and receive $5 off. Although national formula consumption is declining, the event drove category growth for the retailer. Total non-WIC formula category dollar volume increased 0.9 percent, while non-WIC formula category dollar volume growth, spurred by Similac, increased 6.7 percent. In all, there was a 10 percent increase in two or more transactions of participating formula products, and program participants spent 17 percent more in total store spending during the program period and made 6 percent more trips vs. the pre-period. At another national food retailer, where the infant formula segment was losing market share to competitive retailers, The decision was made to co-merchandise infant formula with complementary categories to help drive incremental category growth and establish the category as a key entry point for the baby care aisle. During its first quarter of 2011, the retailer held a two-week loyalty event at about 2,270 stores across the country for Similac, PediaSure, Pampers and Beech-Nut products, with an offer to save $5 instantly at checkout with the purchase of $25 of select items. The total baby care category increased 18 percent during the promotion vs. the prior two weeks, with formula up 24 percent, diapers up 11 percent and baby food up 12 percent. The average lift during the promotion was 35 percent to 40 percent vs. the prior eight weeks, and 16 weeks after the promotion, large-powder weekly dollars were still averaging up to 16 percent higher. Category Captain During this research, Gallo confirmed that there are four distinct phases – pre-shop, shop, purchase and post-shop – that affect shoppers' decisions in-store. By pairing the research findings with Gallo's proprietary Customer Health Monitor, which listens to hundreds of shoppers every week to learn about their wine-shopping trips, the retailer and Gallo were able to draw deep insights into how to address the shopper's needs in-store. The most compelling of these insights revolved around the shopper's lack of confidence when purchasing wine. Leveraging these insights, Gallo and the retailer developed E. & J. Gallo Winery's "Climb the Vine," a comprehensive wine education program that considers a shopper's total path to purchase and aims to grow the entire wine category. This non-branded education and merchandising program incorporates communication throughout each of the four phases of the shopping process. To build baskets, wine was cross-merchandised with recipes at seven locations throughout the store. Educational take-home materials built shoppers' knowledge and helped make them more confident in their wine buying. The retailer's wine sales grew at twice the rate of its competitive market, and the sizable focus items grew at nearly seven times the rate of the competitive market. The retailer was so impressed with the results that it has expanded the program to run throughout the entire year and plans to roll out the initiative to all of its stores. Category Advisor 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. Category Captain In the past four years, Kellogg brands have been six of the top 10 innovation launches, led by the franchises of Frosted Mini-Wheats and Special K, along with new brands like Crunchy Nut, which garnered 6.3 percent household penetration in its first six months. Further new product innovations included Frosted Mini-Wheats Touch of Fruit in the Middle, with a mixed berry filling, and Rice Krispies Gluten Free. Kellogg has invested heavily in enhancing its products' nutritional profile. Currently, 80 percent of Kellogg's portfolio boasts being an excellent source of fiber, while select brands have also removed high-fructose corn syrup. The focus on nutrition extends to Kellogg's new website, loveyourcereal.com, which educates consumers on nutrition issues such as fiber, whole grains and energy. This year, Kellogg began a syndicated data partnership with Nielsen, which has helped the manufacturer better show retailers how to optimize their cereal aisles. The new Nielsen-based tools allow Kellogg to work directly with the retailer to make decisions that grow the category. Further, Kellogg's exclusive partnership with Fifth Dimension enables the manufacturer to test and implement consumer-based shelf-merchandising strategies, pricing optimization, shelf-ready packaging and aisle fixtures in the virtual world. Category Captain General Mills' "Grow with Grain" research shows that executing the right strategies and tactics for the cereal aisle can deliver greater shopper loyalty to the total food basket. Further, the company strives to maximize growth of the aisle's most important categories: grain bars, which generate 7.5 percent higher sales rates when in the aisle, and hot cereal, which when positioned with the aisle's historic anchor, ready-to-eat (RTE) cereal, enjoys 4.9 percent higher sales rates. General Mills has used its "Space Station" tool to help retailers reshape their cereal aisles for better configurations that maximize space for high-performing products and improve overall store shopability. For RTE cereal, General Mills has delivered insights on consumer needs, shopper purchase trends and best practice category strategies through proprietary research efforts designed to target growth opportunities at the shelf and on promotion. Further, the company's "Accelerate the Category" helps retailers find additional space in the cereal aisle to expand CWF and meet the future space needs of the category today. Such initiatives have been successful in changing aisle space at several key retailers, and will continue to make the cereal aisle pivotal to overall food sales success. Category Advisor The McCann's brand, a longtime darling of specialty retailers, is expanding its reach to mainstream supermarket shoppers. For many years, supermarkets treated McCann's as an imported food and shelved it as such in the specialty food section of the store, away from the hot cereal category and away from mainstream shoppers. McCann's crafted a breakout plan to deliver premium sales and profits for the hot cereal category by bringing steel-cut oats into the mainstream set. Its multipronged strategy included targeted distribution growth with retail stores that cater to $75,000-plus households and establishing a shelf plan to expand the hot cereal category to include steel-cut oats. Retailers that have transitioned steel-cut oats to the mainstream hot cereal aisle have garnered higher category growth rates, according to IRI category data for the 52-week period ending July 31. General hot cereal/oatmeal sales increased 1.1 percent in dollar sales, while unit sales posted a 0.8 percent growth rate. McCann's experienced a 17.2 percent increase in dollar sales and a 16.6 percent increase in unit sales. Among the brand's key accounts, virtually all reported dollar and unit sales increases. While the median increases were in the 25 percent range, one retail store experienced an impressive 95 percent increase in unit and dollar sales, underscoring the effectiveness of McCann's platform. Category Co-captain To help retailers accurately estimate the ideal per-store mix to maximize profit potential during key seasonal timeframes, Mars Chocolate North America created an innovative seasonal forecasting tool – Seasonal Architect – that not only places the correct candy mix in the right stores, but also makes retailers and manufacturers more profitable by selling more confections during the season, as opposed to after the season ends. A related key benefit of the tool further enables superior forecasting efforts during key promotional periods such as Halloween, Valentine's Day and Easter. And the proof, quite literally, is in the candy aisle. Indeed, since its launch in February, Mars' Seasonal Architect has improved sell-through at an average of 92 percent as a result of its integrated ability to help retailers maximize profitability across four key areas: First, it identifies stores and items with out-of-stock issues; second, it determines the root cause of out-of-stock issues; third, it recommends tactics to maximize seasonal sell-through; and finally, it accurately estimates the total opportunity through mix optimization. Retailers that have used this tool have seen increased seasonal confectionery category results by an average of more than 10 percent improvement. What's more, retailers that have tested Seasonal Architect report that their category seasonal chocolate sales have increased from 5 percent to 25 percent. Category Co-captain Hershey's research revealed that the retailer was converting a modest 46.2 percent of its shoppers into buyers compared with one of its local competitors, at 53.1 percent (and further compared with one of the best retailers in the country, at more than 84 percent). Based on Hershey's proprietary opportunity assessment, the supplier recommended a focus on everyday take-home candy, based on its insights indicating that candy buyers have trip missions and usage occasions that must be satisfied to maximize conversion. The company correlated sales, conversion and profitability at other local retailers with larger gondola sections. Its findings led to the conclusion that while larger sets sold less per base foot, there was no significant decline in productivity. In other words, adding additional gondola space didn't put the category past the point of diminishing returns. While the category dynamics and insights were compelling, future growth needed to be considered before undertaking a size expansion project. Candy has proved to be a largely recession-resilient category. In fact, candy's 5.6 percent growth placed it as one of the fastest-growing large categories in 2010. Hershey's retail partner decided to expand gondola set sizes, using remodels and new stores. With only a fraction of stores currently reset, its growth is already outpacing total food. Category Captain In the past year, Kraft conducted extensive shopper research to explore the role of the coffee category in driving trips and store selection, as well as to identify opportunities to enhance the center store experience to drive traffic into the aisle and build basket ring. Its research unveiled that coffee is a trigger category, and highly likely to drive a stock-up trip. In addition, coffee shoppers give grocery stores the highest marks on comfort, convenience and consistency – which suggests that enhancing the shopability of the coffee aisle will go a long way toward growing the business. Galvanized with this learning, Kraft developed a new shopper-centric aisle flow that includes:
Category Captain The category services team has focused on three primary strategies: 1) providing differentiated, timely, relevant and actionable insights and solutions; 2) delivering neutral, impartial and objective total store and beverage solutions with wall-to-wall category expertise and thought leadership; and 3) implementing a strategic framework for merchandising organization, assortment and adjacencies. Examples of Coca-Cola's recent category management accomplishments include:
Category Captain A May 2011 test of the company's V8 V-Fusion + Energy platform at a major national retailer yielded highly positive sales results for the 8-ounce trial-size cans, which sold at two for $1 in support of newly distributed 8-ounce 6-packs of two new varieties. Sold in 2,300 stores, the packs quickly become the No. 2 and No. 3 fastest-turning V8 V-Fusion multipacks out of the six varieties the retailer carries. Another major retailer ran a share-building promotional event in March 2011 for V8 100% Vegetable Juice 46-ounce and V8 V-Fusion 46-ounce at $2.99, with a consumer takeaway of 1.7 million units. As a result of such efforts, over the latest 52 weeks ending Aug. 14, total U.S. FDMx sales for the shelf-stable juice/drinks category were $4.7 billion, an increase of 0.6 percent from a year ago, according to SymphonyIRI. For the same time period, Campbell Soup Co. sales were $556 million, an increase of 0.8 percent vs. last year, driven by V8 V-Fusion, which was up 5.8 percent, and V8 Splash, up 11.4 percent. Category Captain In the past year, Smucker undertook a comprehensive project to gain an understanding of what truly optimizes total aisle performance. The project began with a 3,000-store audit and store group analysis to assess the current state of the market and recent aisle trends across the country. Smucker was able to build upon the findings by leveraging a market structure analysis, shopper intercepts, shopper card research and shopper segmentation. These insights-driven tools allowed Smucker to fine-tune aisle recommendations based on emerging new trends and essential shopper needs, developing truly shopper-based insights. The research resulted in several key recommendations:
Smucker worked with SymphonyIRI on a case study revealing that retailers have anywhere from a 5-plus percent potential increase in velocity. Several retailers have begun to implement Smucker's recommendations and are seeing positive category and aisle growth, according to the company. Category Captain In 2011, General Mills introduced a holiday merchandising platform featuring shopper insights and holiday-specific display solutions. The company kicked off a six-month path-to-purchase study and, in August 2010, it hosted six retailers at an all-day roundtable to share its vision for the aisle. The event influenced baking aisle adjacency recommendations at one top retailer, reinforcing its reputation as a leading strategic partner in the baking aisle. To meet consumer needs and maximize sales rates, the company recommends anchoring the ends of the aisle with high-penetration segments, aligning the aisle with consumer purchase patterns for an improved shopping experience. General Mills introduced a new product platform featuring Fun da-Middles cupcakes filled with frosting in the center, which are positioned to be both fun for kids and an easy-to-prepare introduction to baking for millennial-generation moms. Other products include Betty Crocker Milk Chocolate Brownies, Bisquick Complete Pancake Mix and Gold Medal White Whole Wheat Flour. Category Advisor Nutrition is still an important issue among Americans. Smucker's research found that 82 percent of consumers are reading the nutrition labels on foods, and more than 41 percent of consumers said they're specifically looking at the sugar content. Additionally, 72 percent of consumers are actively trying to cut back on or completely avoid sugars in their diets. According to additional findings, an estimated 26 million people in the United States are currently living with diabetes, and 79 million can be classified as pre-diabetic. Focusing on these trends, Smucker developed a line of sugar-free cakes, brownies and frostings that were launched in June 2010 for the Pillsbury brand. These products represent true innovation within the dessert baking mix category, as they meet the needs of a reduced-sugar consumer and have a broader reach by including diabetic consumers with the sugar-free appeal. Consumer panel data collected from SymphonyIRI after the launch of Pillsbury sugar-free products indicates that these products were up to 60 percent incremental to their respective categories. Pillsbury sugar-free items have outpaced the growth of the better-for-you segment within dessert baking mixes, and more importantly, the growth of the segment throughout the baking aisle. Category Captain Desserts is a $1.2 billion category with steady growth trends, and General Mills is the category dollar share leader. To further enhance its category leadership in 2011, the company leveraged its retailer partnerships, deepened its insights, co-developed capabilities and tools, and introduced meaningful product innovation. In addition to hosting six retailers for an insightful baking roundtable, General Mills' occasion-based shelf set has been implemented in about 70 percent of TTL U.S. planograms. Besides providing shelving guidance, General Mills publishes a Baking Aisle Vision Platform containing the most current information on product assortment, shelf management, consumer trends and other key issues in the baking aisle. In December 2010, General Mills joined forces with Kantar to develop a Web-based SKU optimization tool for the dessert category, as well as teaming with Willard Bishop to generate insights on productivity in desserts. To bring variety, excitement and incremental growth to the category, General Mills introduced a new-product platform, plus extensions to several product lines, and five seasonal in-out items this year aimed at driving category dollar sales during the holidays. Category Captain By replacing slower-turning SKUs with more productive items, one national retailer has realized category growth of 5.6 percent. Meanwhile, another regional retailer is driving Hamburger Helper dollar growth 19 percent, main meal segment growth 8 percent and total DPD growth 13 percent. To further enable consumers to stretch their family meal dollars, General Mills has developed a Hamburger Helper twin-pack to deliver greater value: 72 cents per serving. One regional retailer's "value event" resulted in category volume growth of 1 percent and Hamburger Helper growth of 25.5 percent. General Mills has joined forces with retailers to create a rotational meal solution platform, incorporating a main dish, side dish and dessert. The results: 5.6 percent growth of featured items, and remaining store sales up 7.8 percent. Further, General Mills has launched two brands within the main meal segment, Macaroni Grill and Good Earth. The introduction of Macaroni Grill drove 2.2 million new consumers to the DPD category within its initial year. Additionally, Hamburger Helper has expanded its portfolio with two additional varieties that build upon the success of its top-turning segment SKUs. Category Advisor Key findings were then used to create a consumer segmentation framework for each category, with the segments being clustered based on similar lifestyle types, frequency of use and brand loyalty. Smucker discovered consumer segments within its portfolio that weren't recognized before through traditional research methods. These segments opened the door for the supplier to talk to a new group of consumers in a much more meaningful, relevant manner. Smucker teamed with a data provider to match the defined consumer segments to the national consumer panel, allowing for custom analysis at the retailer level. Presenting retailers with these custom consumer segmentation trends has opened the door to a new level of understanding and collaboration to meet the needs of the shopper. Using the consumer segmentation, a major Southern retailer learned that its largest peanut butter consumer segment was also a large area of opportunity. Smucker provided the insight that the target segment believed in the quality and value of brands, but they were also the second most likely peanut butter consumer segment to watch their grocery budgets more closely. By matching the national household panel against the custom segments, Smucker could identify purchasing trends and dollar leakage that led to tactical strategies to capture more of this opportunity shopper. As a result, this retailer is in the process of ensuring a strong presence of branded peanut butters, but it's also aligning pricing to ensure that it's competitive in the market. Category Captain About 41 percent of new buyers enter the category with a Betty Crocker purchase, and the brand also leads in consumer retention. The drawing power and SKU variety of the Betty Crocker brand keep the category invigorated and moving forward. To further support retailers and add flexibility in the section, the company implemented a case pack reduction from 12 to six units on Betty Crocker Potato Buds, which allows retailers to better align space allocation with sales. New products include Betty Crocker Loaded Casserole and Loaded Mashed Potatoes, which rank 25th and 27th in dollar sales out of 71 SKUs, and Betty Crocker Simple Recipe Potatoes, offering good taste and microwave simplicity. To build the category, General Mills is reaching out to consumers through a variety of promotional efforts, including an innovative social media campaign that targets mothers. The consumer growth plan also includes FSIs in key seasons and value-focused efforts that showcase product variety. Category Advisor From its research, Ferrero determined a category-enhancing strategy. After implementing these tactics, eight supermarket chains experienced Nutella sales increases ranging from 39 percent to 113 percent. According to the research, shoppers want the hazelnut spread to be easier to find on the shelf. To that end, retailers should place Nutella with mainstream spread items, according to Ferrero. Up to 98 percent of the time, Nutella is shelved next to slower-selling specialty items. After testing several options, Nutella placed next to peanut butter scored significantly better than sets with Nutella next to specialty items and preserves. To reduce out-of-stocks, Ferrero's platform for Nutella guides retailers to determine the number of facings needed based on sales, profit contribution and turns. Out of the stores audited, 10 percent had out-of-stocks, and 29 percent of consumers surveyed had found out-of-stocks. Using advanced analytics, the research determined that limited facings contribute to out-of-stocks, which result in lost sales. The cost of Nutella out-of-stocks is more than two times higher than that of a leading peanut butter SKU. Category Captain In April 2011, Green Giant launched a category management platform based on new consumer learnings and best practice principles obtained via various research initiatives. General Mills created a category scorecard for retailers to have best practice insights in areas such as assortment, variety and shelving. Green Giant is committed to bringing innovation to the shelf to drive traffic and provide retailer solutions. Slated to arrive in January, SteamCrisp corn is vacuum-packed and steam-cooked in a can; it contains the same amount of product as a standard can of corn but uses less water and packaging, so it's friendlier to the environment. Green Giant also recently unveiled new packaging to allow for a stronger consumer communication for holiday recipes, and will also be adding two four-pack items that are expected to bring a significant incremental lift. To better reach the consumer and to drive sales and store traffic, brand media spending for Green Giant has increased by 212 percent over the past three fiscal years. This has helped Green Giant brand equity grow by five points between 2009 and 2010. General Mills brings its retailer partners solutions to drive profitable growth through research, category management, innovation and consumer support. With its dedicated consumer investment plan, the company has positioned this category and its retail partners for years of growth. Category Captain ConAgra's In-Store Experience team created innovative, consumer-centric signage to call out specific product segments. Nielsen Spectra clustering targeted the stores where convenience-seeking consumers were more likely to shop, an IRI assortment tool identified the optimal array of convenience items, and a virtual store environment tested various in-store options to help determine the size of the section before actual in-store testing began. Sales increases varied by item, but all products within the category saw an increase of some kind, based on the shelving change. Most critical is that the category grew by double digits in an area where sales are flat to declining. ConAgra has further developed a strategy to expand the UCM destination in other markets and channels. The solution has been successfully implemented in new stores and remodels, and will also undergo continuous testing. Category Advisor After tests with select retailers across the country, Mario Snack Olive Pouches have shown continuous incremental sales growth with no negative impact to existing category sales, according to the company. One retailer that tested the product saw sales spikes anywhere from five to 13 times the usual levels when conducting in-store sampling. After the promotional event, base volume had doubled. To build brand awareness, Mario Camacho Foods promoted the product through in-store product demos, customized shipper displays, couponing, trade shows, and advertising in both print and digital media. As a result, Mario Snack Olives has achieved nationwide distribution in new accounts, including Delta and Alaska airlines. In addition to the added benefits of healthy, on-the-go convenience and category growth, the new packaging is not only innovative, but also sustainable. The BPA-free pouches use approximately 85 percent fewer packaging materials than their glass- or aluminum-packed counterparts. Also, the lack of brine reduces the weight, and therefore the environmental impact, through cost savings in shipping. Category Co-captain Progresso provided clear strategies to solve mix, messaging and value perception issues that were causing RTS, and therefore the category, to decline. The brand asked retailers to focus on three key tactics: adding variety to RTS, contracting microwave and expanding taste distribution. In addition, Progresso aligned its innovation with such taste-focused new items as World Recipes and a new Mexican-inspired subline. And because the Rich & Hearty line is taste-focused, highly productive and incremental to the category, Progresso invested heavily in relaunching it this past summer. A wide variety of taste-focused messaging strategies was employed to drive consumers back to the category. Additionally, Progresso invested in significant trade support to secure meaningful and effective quality merchandising. While support was robust throughout soup season, October and January were key windows for teams to join forces with retailers to leverage lower price points. The strategy worked, as RTS quality merchandising was 11 percent more effective this soup season and overall incremental dollars were up 8 percent. Progresso is now working with retail partners to implement a next-generation solution that incorporates a usage-based shelf set segmenting meal and ingredient soups, taste RTS SKUs blocked at eye level, and signage to warm up the aisle. Category Co-captain This was the largest quality and product upgrade of Campbell's condensed soup in more than a decade. Overall, more than 50 percent of the varieties and 60 percent of the volume received a quality or wellness upgrade. Regarding display, iQ Maximizer racks were upgraded in 42 percent of the installed base to new-generation racks that improved the look and functionality of the soup section, with variety perceptions amplified via benefit-based segmentation and the use of color to highlight clusters at the point of purchase. Segmentation callouts now appear at the top of the iQ Maximizer cards for greater visibility, with four segments organized into "Shoppable Chunks" to provide more visibility and scale: Classic Favorites, Taste Sensations, Healthy and Delicious, and Healthy Kids. As a result, fiscal year 2011 volume sales improved in three out of four segments, according to IRI InfoScan data: Taste Sensations rose 6 percent; Healthy Kids, 1 percent; and Healthy and Delicious, 13 percent. Additionally, 87 percent of shoppers provided positive feedback on the changes. Category Captain Over the past year, Sara Lee Fresh Bakery has had significant success with several targeted initiatives. Its "Bread Aisle Reinvention" program aims to organize, optimize and innovate the fresh bread aisle, which has historically been organized in vendor blocks. Retailers have experienced a 2.7 percent lift in category sales, according to Sara Lee. This growth is driven by positive lift across all category segments and vendors. Sara Lee strives to introduce items that drive incremental volume and minimize cannibalization for the category. In some instances, "innovation" means expanding regional top performers and their benefit to more markets and retailers. In March 2011, for instance, the company expanded distribution of its Ball Park hot dog and hamburger buns, just in time for the key bun-selling season (April to September). Product sales grew from $24 million to $73 million. In another example, Sara Lee Iron Kids Better White Bread, which is fortified with fiber and calcium, was expanded nationally in late July 2011. The bread was already a leading and highly incremental SKU (21 percent of volume is incremental) for the category in select markets. Category Captain Kraft's category management team came up with a "Cookie and Cracker Aisle Reinvention" that had two main objectives: unearthing actionable shopper understanding, and creatively translating the insights into a redesign with sustained sales-building potential. The manufacturer took on customized qualitative and quantitative studies that delved into cookie versus cracker perceptions and shopping behaviors. Armed with its new understanding, Kraft's reinvention unfolded around three strategies:
A five-month controlled store test showed the reinvention concept increased velocity by more than one percentage point – an impressive change for one of dry grocery's largest categories. As a result, the retailer will be rolling out many of the initiative's elements chain-wide. Category Advisor Nature's Own maintains the highest average retail price in the soft variety segment and continues to grow its share of the segment in its core market, currently at 43.6 percent of IRI South FDMx. While only available to 53.5 percent of the U.S. population, Nature's Own is the No. 2 loaf brand in volume sales in the United States. In 2010 Flowers introduced Nature's Own Sandwich Rounds. Although it wasn't the first of its type on the market, the strength of the brand, coupled with a resealable package, brought new consumers to the segment. Nature's Own 100 Percent Whole Wheat Rounds and Multigrain Rounds are the No. 3 and No. 4 sandwich rounds in IRI South. Flowers now offers four varieties of sandwich rounds, and has extended the resealable bag to a new line of Nature's Own Thin-Sliced Bagels In the past year, using automated scripts and analysis tools, Flowers efficiently optimized retailers' shelf configuration and assortment at store level. Pulling consumer insights from loyalty card programs, IRI panel and scan data, trip mission studies, and other sources, Flowers gave its retail partners impartial business assessments and recommendations. As a result, Flowers' fresh packaged bread retail sales are up 2.4 percent, outperforming the category year-to-date through Aug. 7, vs. last year (total U.S. food/drug/mass). Category Captain Following extensive internal and external market research, the company overhauled the entire Keebler product line and introduced a new go-to-market strategy that included new packaging graphics, pricing structure, advertising, partnerships, promotional strategy and product innovation. Prior to this launch, the category had seen weekly declines; following, it saw positive sales in 11 out of 15 weeks. In 2011, Kellogg successfully launched Special K Cracker Chips, including tie-ins to Kellogg's Special K Weight Loss Challenge. Combined with the company's other better-for-you cracker options, such as Wheatables and All Bran, the company continues to make a statement regarding its commitment to health and weight management. Additionally, social media is playing a larger role in Kellogg's promotion of its Cheez-It brand, which boasts more than 2 million Facebook fans. The 2011 "Choose the Cheese" program offered 200,000 free Cheez-It sample packs to Facebook fans, along with other packs offered at 99 cents at retail. The sample packs included three flavors that directed consumers to Facebook to vote on their favorite flavor. Combined with the brand's "Real Cheese" national TV advertising, the campaign is taking the consumer-brand relationship to a new level. Category Captain In 2011, Wrigley developed a new department that focuses solely on shopper insights. This partnership with the shopper team enables category management to bring insights and opportunities to life at retail. Over the past year, Wrigley has worked with retailers on testing new front end merchandising concepts that affect the entire confectionery category. Because many retailers are developing technologies to diffuse traditional dwell time at the front end, Wrigley is aggressively focusing on "dwell time management" as shoppers migrate from traditional checklanes to self-checkouts. Further, Wrigley has continued to develop its holistic "Power Practices" in-aisle insights with its partners at Mars, which prescribe optimal aisle size, share of space and positioning by segment. Wrigley has provided consistent, positive results for retailers who continue to test and implement holistic gum and mint positioning over the belt. Moreover, while the number of self-checkouts is expected to double by the end of 2012, Wrigley urges retailers to merchandise relevant power categories that drive impulse sales per transaction, particularly when considering the company's estimates that project nearly 70 percent of grocery accounts will have merchandising at self-checkout registers by the end of this year. Category Captain Old El Paso's aggressive growth strategy is based on four key opportunity areas: one consistent category definition, improved shopability, understanding regional demographics and growing usage. The brand recognizes that the economy-driven trend toward eating more Mexican meals at home represents a significant incremental opportunity for retailers. Having invested significant resources in shopper segmentation studies, assortment, in-home immersion, consumer intercepts, shop-along interviews and category audits, General Mills expects that leveraging this learning will drive an additional $1 billion in category sales for retailers. In March, Old El Paso began shipping its newest heat-and-serve product, Tortilla Stuffers. As the only new products from any manufacturer in the category to hit the shelf this year, Mesquite Chicken, Carne Asada and Garlic Chili Chicken Tortilla Stuffers deliver convenience in the Mexican aisle. The new products are highly incremental, since they bring new consumers to the category while also catering to "convenience seekers" on the go who want easy-to-prepare meals to enjoy between other activities. General Mills reports these three SKUs are already driving significant growth in the category. Category Captain With the growing interest in better-for-you options, the salty aisle is evolving into two distinct groups: traditional (chips) vs. more health-oriented contemporary (snack mixes, pretzels, pita chips, popcorn). General Mills has developed a new salty snack category structure that mirrors these trends. Chex Mix Muddy Buddies was the No. 1-turning Chex Mix SKU during the 2010 holidays and achieved a top-three standing in franchise turns by the second month in the retail market. Launched this past summer, Chex Mix Gourmet Blends Italian Herb & Parmesan was supported by national FSI, sampling and store displays. Sales are off to a solid start, and retailer acceptance has nearly reached top 10 in the franchise. Boasting 800,000 Facebook fans, Chex Mix also debuted redesigned packaging last year, which the manufacturer says has further boosted brand loyalty. Store audits indicate that sales performance is optimized by following General Mills' guidelines, and its shelf layout is being tested at multiple leading retailers. Category Advisor Product innovation has been key to Kashi's success. Recently introduced items include TLC Pita Crisps, TLC Peanutty Dark Chocolate Layer Bar and TLC Cherry Vanilla Cereal Bar. The company's category management toolbox includes a new syndicated data partnership with Nielsen, Fifth Dimension virtual store testing capabilities, the Shopper's Edge tool and custom store audits. Category Captain Annual planning with top retailers resulted in category and brand sales that outpaced the national average. Accolades for General Mills' Cascadian Farm brand being voted Best-tasting Granola (Cooking Light), Best Raisin Bran (Real Simple) and Best Granola Bar (Self). Cascadian Farm, the fastest-growing natural/organic brand, has brought sales growth, new product innovation and renewed interest to the cereal category. The brand's Organic Grain Bars outpaced the category with strong growth in traditional grocery and the natural channel. Meanwhile, the Larabar brand has introduced new items, capitalized on customer marketing efforts and expanded distribution, with growth outpacing the category. Cascadian Farm introduced two new organic cereals – Chocolate O's Organic Cereal in the underdeveloped and fast-growing natural/organic kids segment, and French Vanilla Almond Granola into the already strong granola segment – plus three new organic granola bars. Through extensive work with its mainstream category management counterparts, Cascadian Farm Organic Cereal and Grain Bars now have best practice planograms that offer placement principles for retailers to shelve natural/organic items in the mainstream aisle, yielding strong sales growth. Category Captain Pepperidge Farm and IRI performed a study to numerically measure "variety" – the measure of a SKU's uniqueness. The IRI study clearly showed that "higher-uniqueness" SKUs contribute well beyond their individual velocities: They contribute to total category velocity by driving a shopper's decision on store choice. For the research, Pepperidge Farm employed an Assortment Optimization Power Ranking, which incorporates an item's incrementality, velocity metrics and uniqueness score. Insights gleaned from this study were shared with two major food retailers, both of which subsequently experienced double-digit dollar sales increases in Pepperidge Farm items, along with lifts in the overall cookie and cracker segment. Category Captain Kellogg had two key launches for the category in 2011. Keebler Granola Bars – a combination of rolled oats and rice, blended with honey and bottom-dipped in fudge – are already the 11th- and 12th-ranked SKUs in the granola segment of wholesome snacks. Pop Tarts Mini Crisps, in snack-size pouches, are also seeing strong success. Among its research, Kellogg commissioned a study on how consumers might create their "ideal center store," providing guidance on key wholesome portable breakfast and snack adjacencies and total aisle solutions. The company's direct sales force conducted a mapping project of 16,000 stores to identify retailers that could benefit from spacing adjustments. Further, Kellogg uses a category audit and sales rate analysis to recommend optimal placement, flow and adjacencies, and is forging new relationships with other data partners to assist in the development of multiple categories. Category Captain Although Hormel already offered a wide variety of pepperoni shapes, sizes and flavors, its research proved that consumers sought even more convenient ways to enjoy the protein-packed snacks. To meet these needs, Hormel Foods during the past year launched Pepperoni Stix Snacks, all of which are sugar-free, require no refrigeration or preparation, and are packaged in convenient, easy-to-open pouches that make them an ideal on-the-go snack for both kids and adults. The products have experienced tremendous year-over-year growth of more than 500 percent at grocery stores with $2 million or more in sales, while opening up new selling opportunities for Hormel's retail partners. FROZEN FOODS As at-home meal consumption continues to increase, frozen items are the fastest-growing component of meals and are increasingly becoming critical to retailer success. While frozen baked goods (FBG) is a relatively small category within the overall frozen department, it provides an important meal solution occasion while delivering a high dollar ring per basket to retailers. General Mills focuses on leveraging research capabilities that enable its category management to provide valuable solution-based insights to its customers and thus drive FBG growth. The company works with customers to create a frozen aisle that maximizes category dollar sales by grouping items that promote cross-purchasing, and separating high-penetration categories to create a push-pull effect throughout the aisle. Using Demand Transfer, General Mills can work with retailers to ensure that current and proposed distribution will maximize incrementality and sales, in turn providing its retail partners with a competitive advantage to grow the FBG category. Further, using DemandTec to run several pricing scenarios, General Mills is able to help retail customers create value for their consumers while maximizing category dollar sales. Category Advisor But the company is rebounding well, outpacing the overall performance of the category and the syrup carrier segment: French toast, pancakes and waffles. Kellogg continues to provide future growth by leveraging consumer- and insights-driven innovation in 2011. With heightened nutrition awareness among consumers, the new two-SKU Fiber Plus waffle line has been a success, propelled by a master-brand ad campaign. And Kellogg launched its Thick & Fluffy line, featuring deeper pockets to hold more toppings. To optimize merchandising and assortment, Kellogg embarked on a category- and retailer-focused case-pack reduction initiative to maximize variety with fewer facings to satisfy consumers. The company has leveraged findings of a recent segmentation study to better communicate Eggo's brand strengths and personality. With changing in-market conditions, Kellogg pursued an online test to understand optimal promoted price points for Eggo, allowing retailers to remain competitively priced and grow category dollars. Category Captain Pillsbury has launched new items that General Mills expects to reinvigorate the savory segment: Pillsbury Egg Scrambles, pastry stuffed with egg and other ingredients, using steam-in-bag technology, and Pillsbury Grands Biscuit sandwiches, which combine scrambled egg with meat, cheese and vegetables. Further, through increased investment, Pillsbury Toaster Strudels continue to drive consumers to the frozen breakfast aisle. Leveraging shopping behavior insights, General Mills works with retailers to create a frozen aisle that maximizes category dollar sales by grouping items that promote cross-purchasing, and separating high-penetration categories to create a push-pull effect throughout the aisle. The company's Virtual Store provides a high-tech venue for its customers to interact with layout suggestions and for its category management team to highlight customized solutions that will drive growth. With an ongoing focus on consumer insights while further encouraging growth in frozen breakfast with its savory innovations, as well as continued support of Pillsbury Toaster Strudels, Pancakes and FiberOne Muffins, General Mills will continue to spearhead profitable growth in the frozen breakfast category with retailers. Category Captain Considering that Italian and Asian cuisines represent 80 percent of two-serve dollar volume, the company's Wanchai Ferry and Macaroni Grill brands are helping to drive consistent growth while elevating the leadership position of General Mills within these cuisine types. In particular, Wanchai Ferry's introduction addressed key consumer needs and leveraged the international success of the brand, as well as extending the brand from its presence within the dry Asian cuisine section into frozen. The eight-SKU line quickly penetrated the market, fueled by an aggressive consumer support plan. Its increases in buy rate and penetration are the highest across all segments and cuisine types in total multiserve entrees. In July 2010, General Mills introduced four SKUs of Macaroni Grill all-natural, restaurant-quality entrees. Enjoying the highest household penetration rate for any cuisine type, the brand recently added two more flavors to the line. In partnership with Macaroni Grill, General Mills will execute a robust digital campaign with online and in-restaurant integration. Offering a full suite of tools, capabilities and insights to its retail partners, the company also enhances its platform with a simulated in-store environment in which items like planograms can be assessed and out-of-stocks can be better understood. Through annual Nielsen category audits, General Mills has identified which brands should be directly adjacent to each other, as well as how those brands should be shelved to maximize sales rates – insights that provide retailers with actionable, quantifiable information. Category Captain In an effort to jump-start growth in the sandwich segment, Totino's launched Totino's Pizza Stuffers, which combine the taste of pizza with the convenience sought by the typical hot snack consumer. Dedicated TV, digital and sampling events were designed to drive consumers to the category. Totino's leveraged a promotional campaign with Redbox, the chain of in-store DVD rental kiosks. An on-pack offer for a free movie rental with the purchase of a Totino's pizza and hot snack enticed consumers to shop cross-category and make an incremental store visit to pick up the movie. Having earned the highest hot snack share within the growing Hispanic population, along with its standing as the leader in Hispanic consumer spend within the pizza and hot snack industry, Totino's has aptly integrated key Hispanic consumer insights into its overall consumer plan. Through extensive use of consumer segmentation, POS analytics and Nielsen Shelf Audits, and correlating Sales Rate Tool, Demand Transfer, Consumer Research and Virtual Stores, General Mills is providing best-in-class category management insights to drive hot snack growth. Category Captain The growth of the Yoplait Smoothie line represented more than 40 percent of total category growth and has solidified Yoplait as the leader in the category. Since General Mills launched Yoplait Smoothie in September 2009, the brand has captured four times the sales of its closest competitor. Armed with a goal of bringing the goodness of yogurt's live active cultures to the freezer, General Mills has enabled consumers to embrace a line of innovative, health-oriented products. Focusing on taste, nutrition and convenience (just add milk and blend), Yoplait Smoothies added a new Chocolate Banana variety to its original core flavors to bring new users to the category. Also new to the category, 30-calorie Yoplait Frozen Yogurt Bites are a handy snack that feature a coating of General Mills' legacy Nature Valley granola, with yogurt and fruit inside. Yoplait Smoothie is driving heightened levels of category awareness for consumers, and is the only smoothie brand investing nationally to grow the category. In addition to TV support, there are digital support, five FSIs, sampling, in-store point-of-sale advertising and media promotions. Category Captain Bertolli is redefining frozen soups and meal kits, which is helping to jump-start the frozen food business during a shaky economic period. Spurred by research that found soup appealing to a wide range of consumers – many of them looking for more restaurant-quality options – Unilever launched a four-product line of Bertolli Meal Soups. Inspired by Italian restaurants, the restaurant-quality soup line is helping to grow the frozen meal category by bringing in soup buyers. The Bertolli Family Style Meal Starters line, meanwhile, provides a premium, restaurant-quality meal for a family of five. This is growing category value and volume growth by expanding beyond the meals-for-two concept. It appeals to high-income, larger families. The new Bertolli products are projected to deliver $78 million in retail dollar sales this year. For its part, Unilever's P.F. Chang's brand team is looking to build on the success of its initial entry into the frozen meal category last year. Its newest line is Noodle Entrees, a set of four varieties that appeal to consumers who love Asian cuisine and are looking for restaurant-quality tastes at home. Unilever expects the new line to be 50 percent incremental to its original eight SKUs (Menu Meals for Two), and projects that it will deliver $62 million in retail dollar sales. Category Captain In addition to convenience such as steam-in-bag technology, taste and health are also primary consumer needs, and General Mills has innovated to address all three primary need states of the consumer. In fact, since 2004, General Mills has brought more new items to the category than its competitors have. The Valley Fresh Steamers line has expanded to include the new 100 percent natural Macaroni and Cheese with Broccoli, and Pasta and Vegetables with Alfredo Sauce. Adding steam to its large-size bag in 2010, General Mills addressed the convenience needs of consumers, and new packaging will clearly provide the value-size benefit to the consumer. In fiscal 2012, there will be an increase in TV support with dedicated "As Nutritious as Fresh" messaging and an increase in digital and online consumer support. In addition, there will be dedicated support for both regular and value-size offerings in the form of multiple FSI waves and in-store IRCs. Further, using annual shelving audits, General Mills has identified which brands should be directly adjacent to each other, as well as how those brands should be shelved, to maximize sales rates. Category Captain Considering that the average person eats pizza 30 times in a year – an increase of five points over the past decade – frozen pizza is an anchor category in the frozen department and largely represents a planned trip for consumers. However, for the first time in recent years, consumers shopped the category less often. To counter the trend and offer stability to its retail partners amid value competition from quick-serve restaurants, General Mills leveraged its Shopper 360 studies to help retailers attain the right price and assortment to satisfy their consumers. GM's Totino's brand was able to grow during this difficult year, bringing in nearly 25 million units sold for each of its items handled on shelf. Core advertisement messaging centered on value, from radio clips that highlighted the Totino's brand's value versus delivery, to creating a "Five Dollar Friday" family event, plus a Redbox DVD rental offer done in conjunction with the brand's hot snack line. Totino's also participates in the "Box Tops For Education" program, which has helped to raise more than $375 million for 100,000-plus schools across the country. Category Captain With a 68.2 percent dollar share of the category, MorningStar Farms has significantly grown dollars in key segments, including entrees, dogs and sausages, breakfast, and burgers. Taking advantage of new manufacturing capabilities, Kellogg relaunched its highly successful MorningStar Farms Corn Dogs and Mini Corn Dogs, which left the category two years ago due to production constraints. Since the relaunch in January 2011, the brand has regained most of its previous share, with much of the volume coming from category expansion rather than brand switching. To capitalize on growing trends in portable protein for breakfast, the brand last January launched Breakfast Biscuits, which have already nabbed a 0.9 share of the category, with nearly 11 percent of the volume coming from new category buyers. In an effort to increase assortment in a limited amount of freezer space, Kellogg embarked on a category and retailer focused packaging redesign. A dozen items were tweaked so they could be merchandised either vertically or horizontally, allowing for the addition of three to four items to an average section. Category Captain
GROCERY: NONFOODS Category Captain To literally "open the department," Nestlé Purina advised its retail partners to add more SKUs (as many as 300-plus supplies and accessories, in some instances) while also adding impulsive fixtures, all in the same linear footprint. This innovative design has actually reduced out-of-stocks in many departments. By leveraging shopper insights, the retail environment, supply chain/replenishment and virtual technology, Nestlé Purina created four separate yet fundamentally similar designs to fit within virtually any retail environment. The company has been able to collaborate with store planners well in advance, thereby streamlining implementation significantly. With more than 40 stores launched to date at four retailers, acceptance of the new departments has significantly improved. Eighteen percent of consumers surveyed have indicated an improvement in "willingness to purchase at this store," and 16 percent acknowledged making an unplanned purchase in the new department. Sales consistently outpace the category's prior performance, and within many stores, sales significantly outpace performance of the entire center store. Best of all, department profitability is also up significantly. Category Advisor Specialty food consumers who are concerned about what they eat are increasingly concerned about what they're feeding the four-legged members of their families. In the past, these high-profit pet-owning households, or HIPPOHs, have purchased their pet foods at specialty pet retailers. With a premium, fresh, grain-, corn- and wheat- free product, Freshpet is driving more HIPPOHs down the supermarket pet care aisle. Whereas a 20-pound bag of dog food will feed a 40-pound dog for about a month, Freshpet features a smaller package size. Its largest chub contains enough fresh food for a week – and the fresh pet food's perishable nature increases shopper frequency. Product innovation in 2011 included five new products, boosting the line to 21 SKUs. In addition to a robust product line that includes toys, snacks and food, Freshpet offers different ways to showcase the line. Through its partnership with True Manufacturing, the brand offers 10 refrigerated units that will work in most planograms. An analysis conducted by IRI proves that the 3,400 stores selling Freshpet have significantly higher pet food sales growth than the 8,400 stores that don't carry the brand, according to the company. The positive impact was seen across all segments of the category, including dry dog food, pet treats and pet supplies. Since an aggressive TV marketing campaign began, sales have increased more than 20 percent. Category Captain Henkel's research showed that a natural, crystal-based, convenient laundry freshener offered a unique combination of benefits that appealed to consumers and retailers alike. Rather than create another line extension, Henkel introduced Purex Crystals, a 92 percent natural product that's not oil-based like most fabric softeners. Its crystal form, which Henkel highlighted through packaging, point-of-purchase displays and trade promotions, has built overall category sales by disrupting "auto-pilot" shopping trips down a traditionally sleepy aisle. Purex Crystals is tracking to do more than $80 million at retail in year one, far exceeding Henkel's initial projection of $57 million. The product is driving new users and consumption into the category. The company's retail partners have given the product great distribution and excellent display. Since the January launch, Henkel has tripled its market share in the in-wash segment, doubled production due to consumer demand and moved the Purex franchise from seventh to fourth in the category. HEALTH, BEAUTY & WELLNESS The immediate initiative focused on the impact of the 2010 McNeil recall of Tylenol, Motrin and St. Joseph products, with the objective of helping retailers understand the switching behavior of previous McNeil shoppers for the period when product availability was limited, so that retailers could adjust their distribution and forecasts. Tracking the shopping dynamics of more than 500,000 households based on loyalty card data, the analysis followed purchase patterns from shoppers' first post-recall purchase, as well as their subsequent category purchases. The end result provided retailers with a customized forecast that enabled them to adjust their inventory and safety stock levels. The other initiative offered a framework for managing a category that had long-term potential but was facing some short-term challenges. Retailers were instructed that they needed to leverage the more chronic conditions that drive category volume, the key ingredients that consumers seek and the future trends that would affect the category in the long term. These undertakings helped Bayer perform significantly better than its competitors and the overall category in 2010. According to IRI, total category dollar sales in FDMx were down 3.7 percent in 2010, while Bayer Aspirin grew 6.7 percent and Aleve was up 10.7 percent. Category Captain The switch to Prevacid24HR in late 2009 was the beginning of a new strategy that not only leverages the power of each Novartis brand, but also creates a cohesive merchandising and communication plan aimed at simplifying the shopper experience and ultimately helping consumers find the best product to meet their needs. The centerpiece of Novartis' initiative was proprietary shopper insights research that better understood the shopping experience. One element was a retailer differentiation online study comparing thousands of digestive health shoppers to identify which key attributes were driving category and retailer loyalty on an account-specific basis. Another study and subsequent analysis identified four core shopper segments, which allowed retailers to prioritize their shoppers. Finally, new communication research identified the optimal approach to the in-store experience, including the best language to help consumers navigate the category as well as how best to educate them. Specific changes included a new in-store location for the category, new category adjacencies and shelving layouts, streamlined assortments, and new navigational, organizational and education signage. Over the latest 52-week period in food/drug/mass merchandising, Novartis' portfolio of brands grew 12.6 percent, while the digestive health category was up 3.5 percent. Category Captain The four-week promotion also featured ad support and made use of the retailer's loyalty card database to drive increased sales. Planograms were revised and reset to highlight such new offerings as Pedialyte Strawberry liters, Apple singles and Powder Packets. Additionally, the retailer's baby mailer, which included a $2-off coupon for Pedialyte liters, went out to a targeted list of households. As a result of the promotion, Pedialyte fluid replacement sales increased 9.4 percent, according to Nielsen data, generating an incremental sales amount of more than $37,000, or 4,300 units. The retailer was able to close a competitive gap by expanding on its fluid replacement assortment, thereby giving moms more options when they're purchasing fluid replacement items, and lowering the chances that they'll opt to purchase Gatorade as a substitute product. For 2012, the overall oral electrolyte category is expected to increase 1.7 percent over 2011. Category Captain Although TRESemme' FreshSTART wasn't the first dry shampoo to market, it was the first brand to successfully bring it to the mainstream, according to Unilever. The company ran a popular television advertising campaign that helped the brand experience more than two times its expected lift, resulting in supply chain challenges due to the overwhelming demand. Consequently, there was a plateau in sales midway through the year. Once forecasting was quickly adjusted, FreshSTART achieved $12 million, of which dry shampoo accounted for 77 percent of sales, according to Unilever. To encourage trial and awareness, trial-size bottles were offered as part of a bonus pack on TRESemme hair spray. Displays were also available to allow for secondary locations to further increase awareness and visibility of the brand (split with another 2010 launch, TRESemme Naturals). By introducing a new subsegment to the category, TRESemme FreshSTART was successful in increasing category consumption of daily hair care by 9.5 percent. Category Captain From October 2010 through March 2011, the retailer tested a 3-foot sports nutrition set including EAS, Muscle Milk, Power Bar and Clif products within the water/isotonic beverage aisle as a secondary location in 10 stores. A store intercept study ran to glean consumer insights on where the optimal location for sports nutrition items should be. Among the goals of the test were to drive increased household penetration of a fast-growing category, build market baskets through cross-category purchases, grow the sports nutrition category in an alternate high-traffic location vs. GM/HBC, and improve shelf organization and assortment to meet consumer needs. The test led to a 15.9 percent increase in sports nutrition category sales, according to Nielsen, and stores with dual placement outperformed the control store by 9 percent versus the prior period. The 10 test stores also outperformed the total division and total corporate, with sales for the overall sports nutrition category twice as high in the dual-placement locations. The 3-foot sports nutrition set in the water/isotonic aisle will roll out across a division of the retailer in 2012. Category Captain Pharmavite, maker of the popular Nature Made brand, has conducted extensive research showing that consumers who purchase both vitamins and prescriptions within a retailer have significantly higher buying rates. This suggests that converting shoppers to buy both vitamins and their prescriptions within the same retailer creates a prevention/treatment health regimen mentality that increases shoppers' overall transaction rates for both areas. According to Pharmavite, most consumers don't realize that many drugs deplete important nutrients from people's bodies. So the manufacturer is working with its retail partners to develop programs to educate consumers and to increase buyer conversion rates. Pharmavite is also using attitudinal shopper insights to help retailers develop consumer-based strategies and tactics. This year, the company integrated a strong focus in its surveys on vitamin consumers' interest in using digital marketing and social media advertising platforms, and found a huge gap between the vitamin consumer's high interest in using mobile applications and the lack of this technology currently available in the vitamin category. This insight has prompted Pharmavite to begin developing digital/mobile advertising and consumer education strategies. Category Captain Working with Edgewood Consulting Group, Merck delivered a category leadership strategy based on several quantitative shopper studies conducted over the past 24 months, which ultimately focused on shopper-centric differentiation. Major retailers that have implemented the Merck team's recommendation have reaped the results. For example, in the drug channel alone, the sun care category is up 7.4 percent. Coppertone is driving these results, with the brand up almost double, at 13.2 percent. Category Co-captain Another identified area of shopper concern was item proliferation at shelf, which made shopping more difficult and confusing. Assortment had increased, along with continued category growth, and many retailers hadn't proactively "pruned back." To support enhanced assortment, Bayer developed detailed retailer guidelines based on analysis of shopper dynamics and switching behavior. This included focusing on brand and vendor duplication, leveraging transferable demand insights to understand tradeoffs between items and brands, and conducting assortment analysis every six months to keep up with evolving category dynamics. Bayer also worked on coming up with a future vision for the category and then having retailers build and shape it to their own advantage. The results of these initiatives have been impressive, with dollar sales in FDMx up 8 percent in 2010, according to IRI. Bayer's One A Day brand was up 11.3 percent, nearly double the multivitamin segment, which grew 6.2 percent, while the company's Citracal brand rose 10.1 percent, dramatically above the rate of the calcium segment, which increased 1.5 percent. Category Co-captain Over the past year, US Nutrition has focused on several key areas, including the joint care category, which has been under pressure from consumers' leaving the segment and becoming less engaged. After identifying these trends, the Osteo Bi-Flex brand introduced a convenient "One-Per-Day" tablet option as an entry point. This innovation was highly successful, with 68 percent of sales incremental to the segment. Meanwhile, several new products were added to the Nature's Bounty brand, including a higher-dose melatonin product for improved sleep, higher-strength and multi-strained probiotics for improved digestion, and a one-per-day, enteric-coated burpless option in the booming heart health segment. Innovation continued within the sports nutrition category as well, with the Pure Protein brand launching resealable packaging for its protein drink. US Nutrition has seen double-digit growth at a major grocery chain over the past year by focusing on specific initiatives to build the category in its aisle and throughout the whole store. At a regional chain, the vitamin category has grown three times the rate of the competitive marketplace, with overall market share up nearly a full share point. PERIMETER: BAKERY Armed with the retailer's in-house point-of-sale data, as well as leading consumer data from The Perishables Group, Nielsen, The NPD Group and others, Dawn analyzed shopping habits, taking current economic concerns into consideration. The company created high-quality and value dessert cakes with innovative flavors that are the "right" size to fit consumers' buying profiles. It also developed a special-occasion cake program, offering the best solutions with minimal execution at store level. New signage and fresh, creative displays helped to further bring the changes to life while capturing shoppers' interest. The results were decidedly sweet: Total cake sales were up 6.5 percent in dollars, and unit sales were up 10 percent. Other highlights of the year for Dawn included the establishment of the Dawn Retailers' Advisory Board, an open forum with participation from a group of major noncompetitive in-store bakery retailers; the Dawn 360 proprietary/confidential study; and Dawn category managers' initiation of certification from the Category Management Association. PERIMETER – DAIRY Kraft assembled a $30 million, 360-degree marketing program to ignite and sustain consumer interest, drive speed to shelf, and drive enthusiastic activation. Recipes, sampling and meal solution partnerships were at the heart of the support plan. Cooking Crème was also seeded with the brand's "Real Women of Philly" online community to build pre-launch enthusiasm and further add to recipe versatility. The company teamed with HSN to execute cooking events in more than 10,000 U.S. homes, as well as going mobile in 10 major markets with on-the-street sampling. To inspire total meal solution purchases, Kraft joined forces with retailers by offering $1.50 IRCs on fresh chicken – an offer 20,000-plus retail stores activated against. Nielsen data through May showed Cooking Crème fueled more than eight points of growth in the brand's dollar sales, and drove expansion of the category at nearly the same pace. Consumer trial and repeat data show that Cooking Crème is 80 percent incremental to the category, sourcing volume from products in such other categories as condensed soup, meat enhancers and sour cream. These are typically lower-priced products, highlighting Cooking Crème's ability to add incremental dollars to shopping baskets. As Kraft sees it, Cooking Crème is more than a product innovation. It's an important first step in the supplier's effort to help grocery retailers reimagine and grow their entire dairy business. Category Captain In fiscal 2010, Pillsbury increased household penetration, buy rate and average number of items handled. The increase in number of items handled reversed a multiyear decline, a fact which the brand attributed to the innovation and incremental nature of its Sweet Moments cheesecake bites. While total category dollar volume growth didn't increase for this period, Pillsbury boosted share over two years ago and held flat over last year, and unit volume was up in the past two years. The brand has increased its consumer spending, reaching consumers via digital, magazines, billboards, blogger outreaches and newspapers. Pillsbury provides retailers with meal solution ideas for various months of the year to drive consumers to the various categories within the dairy aisle. The brand has expanded its refrigerated dessert offerings with Sweet Moments Bites and a special-edition lemon cinnamon roll, and launched Simply Buttermilk Biscuit and Simply Rustic French Bread, which don't contain high-fructose corn syrup, artificial colors or flavors, or trans fats. Both Simply products contributed a whole share point to the refrigerated baked goods (RBG) category as a whole in dollar and unit volume last year. General Mills continues to provide leadership in RBG for its retail customers by helping to grow the category, incremental innovation, product differentiation, marketing plan execution and solution-based thought leadership. Category Captain Year to date, Country Crock flavored spread sales have increased more than 25 percent. The spreads, which include Honey and two rotating flavors, Cinnamon and Pumpkin Spice, are not only bringing new users to the Country Crock brand, but are also incremental to the margarine category. An estimated 30 percent of total volume has been incremental, driving market development in the category. Unilever has supported the new spreads with on-pack usage ideas, digital and social media marketing, coupons, and merchandising shippers with recipe tearpads. Additionally, Unilever has embarked on a new customer-facing strategy that's helping to re-segment the category based on how shoppers view it, as opposed to segmentation based on product form. This segmentation and the resulting merchandising flow/POGs are currently in the process of being implemented in the marketplace. Category Captain Having leveraged its expertise in sourcing the world's best cheese selection at competitive costs while delivering an excellent customer experience, the New York retailer has successfully helped its customers navigate the world of specialty cheese, which includes hundreds of domestic and imported products for customers. By offering a comprehensive approach that's theatrical and food-centric, Murray's category management and SKU rationalization reduced duplication, allowing the destination to feature the best-tasting cheeses at reduced costs and higher margins for the retailer, as well as lower retails for customers. By bringing all cheese in bulk to be cut fresh at store level, Murray's platform enables its retail partner's employees to offer a taste of any cheese, alleviating concerns about buying the wrong item. Before the store-within-a-store program, the supermarket's specialty cheese shops distinguished between bulk "specialty" and pre-pack "everyday" cheese. Rather than categorizing by country, Murray's grouped the cheeses by nine styles, enabling customers to find familiar cheeses and easily discover similar items. In addition, a 10th family of cheese, which changed every four weeks and featured seasonally driven promotional offerings, was added to the mix. An "Under $5" basket further tempted customers with smaller cuts of cheese, driving multiple rings and deeper exploration into the category. To drive traffic, Murray's designed a monthly promotional program around selling events like football season and summer grilling. Plus, Murray's introduced effective cross-merchandising programs, most notably wine and breads from the in-store bakery. Category Advisor
In addition to layout changes, Beemster has invested in product development. This past June, the company introduced its new Blue Line of cheeses. The labels of each cheese have been redesigned with a large button that calls out the age and variety of the product. All of the cheeses and their respective promotional materials are also color-coded. As for promotional activities, Beemster is entering its third year as an official sponsor of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. It's the only official cheese sponsor in this event to fight breast cancer. The company is also a charter member of Caring Dairy, in partnership with Ben & Jerry's, which means it pledges not only to offer a sustainable product, but also to work in a way that's best for every person or animal in the cheesemaking process. Category Captain Yoplait Greek Single-Serve offerings, launched in January 2010, quickly grew ACV and household penetration. Yoplait launched Greek Multipacks this past January to offer consumers more size options within this segment, and drive increased dollar ring for retailers. Monthly sales of Greek Multipacks more than doubled after the launch. In July, Yoplait launched Yoplait Light with Granola, which is expected to drive 23 percent of the category growth in the next five years. General Mills is also expanding yogurt offerings outside Yoplait, with the acquisition of western market leader Mountain High Yoghurt. The company also bought a controlling interest in France-based Yoplait S.A.S., which will allow General Mills to grow the Yoplait brand globally as well as domestically. The new "Destination Dairy" platform has allowed General Mills to gain a deeper understanding on key components of the aisle, such as shoppers' behavior both inside and outside the store, optimal category space and variety, and new occasion-based promotional insights. The company also leveraged its relationship with Nielsen to develop a five-year dairy aisle growth forecast for each category. General Mills unveiled its "Maximize Yogurt" initiative last July to educate retailers about the need to expand yogurt space to maximize category sales. Yoplait is the brand leader on all consumer metrics, with the highest brand penetration, loyalty, buy rate and frequency. It continues its emphasis on brand building through product improvements, consumer-driven marketing campaigns and cause-driven marketing, including its trademark "Save Lids Save Lives" campaign, which has donated $30 million to breast cancer research over the past 13 years. PERIMETER – DELI Recognizing the logistical difficulties in calling on retailers individually, Tyson created a business-to-business Web platform, Tysondeli.com, that allows the company to collaborate more closely with its 29,000 distribution points, including untapped small chains and independent retailers that are often most in need of category management support. Among the available online tools is Tyson's Deli Mix Calculator, which helps retailers optimize their product mix and pricing strategies based on their own cost, sales and margin goals, while providing actionable tips. Feedback has been overwhelmingly favorable from the retail partners that take advantage of the initiative. Backing that up are innovative products that bring variety to the prepared deli. Easy to prepare for the hot case, Tyson Chicken Glazers are unbreaded chicken breast pieces with on-trend bold sauces. Meanwhile, Tyson Rotisserie Chicken Bakes are assembly kits that use excess cooked chicken to create a medley of quick, convenient, tasty meal solutions. These products provide retailers with easy, low-labor ways to add value to the deli prepared chicken category. Multifaceted programs with major retailers have further yielded healthy sales for Tyson's new products and significantly boosted sales of chicken wings through an exclusive brand created for one of its retail partners. PERIMETER – VARIABLE/ FIXED-WEIGHT MEAT The company's diverse portfolio of fresh meat includes pre-marinated Hormel Always Tender pork and beef products, as well as an extensive line of fresh pork cuts, which can be sold either as primal or in several case-ready formats. The company also offers Hormel Refrigerated Entrees, meal solutions for meat-loving families with busy schedules. To serve its growing base of consumers who are looking for quick and convenient ways to enjoy protein, the company recently introduced several microwaveable barbeque meat products under the Lloyd's brand. Also under the Lloyd's brand, Lloyd's Snack Rack Ribs offer the flavor of pork ribs in a convenient size, perfect for any snacking occasion. This refrigerated snacking item offers microwave preparation in just 90 seconds and is available in a variety of flavors. PERIMETER: PRODUCE To specifically address consumers with celiac disease and others choosing a gluten-free diet, Dietz & Watson teamed with Supervalu's Philadelphia-based Acme Markets division to open the first-ever dedicated gluten-free deli, isolated from other deli product to avoid cross-contamination. Conducting flavor-by-segment analyses to ensure the correct flavor assortments are in place at a retailer, Dietz & Watson worked with Nielsen Spectra to further create custom consumer profiles for each of its retailer partners. Dietz & Watson also works with retailers to better understand what promotions are most effective. The company monitors product performance via point-of-sale data to determine week-by-week promotional efficiency, which helps Dietz & Watson determine the most effective promotional strategies. To help grow the success of the overall category, Dietz & Watson developed a tool that details optimal price points based on uplift and promotional efficiency for any brand of deli meat. Rounding off these efforts, in-depth promotional partnerships the company conducts with several major retailers have resulted in significant increases in deli meat sales at stores in both chains. Category Advisor A CAFE analysis for the chain's cold cut category revealed a "long tail" of low-contribution SKUs. Kraft applied activity-based costing (ABC) analysis, which revealed 48 items that contribute less than 1 percent of the category's margin. Just above these "tail" items sat "C" level items that performed only slightly better, representing 35 percent of shelf presence but only 5 percent of sales and 6 percent of direct margin. The "C" items, however, account for 23 percent of throwaways. This multifaceted analysis uncovered three opportunities that the chain's cold cut category was able to capitalize on:
Year-to-date results have shown improved results, with the category growing 6 percent overall and 4 percent in its unpromoted baseline. Consistent with an improved assortment from both a retailer and shopper perspective, all major cold cut manufacturers have seen 2011 year-to-date growth. Beyond cold cuts, refrigerated pickles responded dramatically well to the reset as well. Category Captain To identify possible causes and opportunities, additional syndicated data was used to compare average retail prices per pound, with the finding that the retailer was priced appreciably higher than the market. Moreover, a review of Market Track FeatureVision data found that the retailer saw significantly less promotional activity for the time period compared with the competition. Ultimately, a pricing and promotional strategy was developed to be more in line with the market, resulting in more competitive retail prices, as well as double the number of ads for the following years. Further, a Del Monte Fresh category manager conducted an ongoing analysis of the retailer's point-of-sale data to monitor the banana program's success and continually identify areas of opportunity. Finally, Del Monte Fresh sales merchandisers visited select stores both individually and together with the retailer's field merchandisers to instruct store produce staff in best practices for in-store merchandising, and on the proper handling and display of bananas. During the two-year period ending with the retailer's fiscal year 2011, Del Monte Fresh was able to help the retailer boost its banana category volume sales by more than 6 percent. VARIABLE/ FIXED-WEIGHT PRODUCE An important part of the success of the Fresh & Ready avocado program is ensuring proper handling of the avocados, which must be kept refrigerated to retain optimal freshness. Since this is a new way of handling for retailers, Chiquita created a tracking tool, the FRA Quarterly Broker Recap, to compile information collected during the in-store auditing process. Chiquita has both an internal retail operations team and broker relationships that allow it to visit all stores that carry Fresh & Ready Avocados on a regular basis. During such visits, the auditor collects information that allows for feedback on the care and handling of the avocados, the quality on display, pricing, and point-of-sale materials. The auditor works with the produce manager, and the sales team can address any issues found during the visit to minimize the impact to sales velocity and ensure the best possible consumer experience. The raw data is then rendered in the form of a one-page recap able to be shared among sales, retail operations, brokers and retail customers. The report quickly gives an overall compliance score that can indicate where further training and attention is needed. Category Advisor The goal of the campaign was to leverage brand recognition to engage consumers and influence purchase behavior. Although bananas have the highest household penetration of any item in the produce department, Chiquita believed there was room to grow the category by influencing brand preference and behavior through such brand-focused programs. In January-March, the Chiquita trend versus year ago was behind that of other banana brands by an average of one point. In April, during the promotion, the Chiquita trend outperformed all other brands by one point, for a two-point change in trend. This change was accomplished without any special price reduction or promotion, giving further credence to the impact of the advertising. Category Captain Cuties also launched the "Good Food Project," a childhood obesity prevention program in Chicago schools, and introduced the "Cooking with Cuties" campaign, which aimed to increase retail sales by providing uses beyond snacking. At the same time, the company conducted retailer-specific category performance overviews that identified opportunities and provided category insights and recommendations. To optimize retailer revenue, Cuties collaborated on promotional schedules and pricing and assortment recommendations. As a result of the integrated marketing program, Cuties experienced 130 percent dollar growth during the campaign period, driving mandarin category sales up 24 percent during the same period, according to The Perishables Group. The TV ad campaign test helped boost sales for both Cuties and the mandarin category in the Atlanta and Chicago markets. Cuties pound sales increased by 50 percent in Chicago and 1,000 percent in Atlanta, while mandarin category pound sales increased by 28 percent in Chicago and 153 percent in Atlanta. Category Captain The objective of the program was to provide the highest-quality berries consistently while reducing quality issues, and to improve displays to further drive category sales. Year-to-date through June, Quality Arrivals improved several key retail partners' category deliveries. Significant improvements resulted in fewer out-of-stocks, higher-quality berry displays, more frequent buying opportunities and overall better relationships among Driscoll's, retailers and berry consumers. For instance, a Western grocery retailer improved its berry deliveries by 70 percent over the prior year, and its retail berry sales grew 7 percent during the same timeframe. The retailer's margins also improved 3 percent, which shows that not only does Quality Arrivals provide better service, but it also allows the retailer to further drive its berry category sales and margins. For the first four months of 2011, overall berry sales adjustments have improved by 1.3 points in pounds and dollars. Category Captain After reviewing and analyzing the data, planograms were revised, promotional plans were finalized and Del Monte merchandisers visited select stores to monitor the effects of the changes. Ultimately, Del Monte was able to significantly help the retailer meet its shrink and profitability targets, decreasing shrink by almost eight percentage points and increasing profits by more than 21 percentage points. Del Monte Fresh category managers work closely with retail partners, as in the above instance, to formulate and execute plans to help optimize sales, while the company's merchandisers assist with the rollout of these plans at retail and ensure that the best products are made available to consumers. Category Advisor One retailer wanted to determine why the brand's Bowl Salad Kits were generating more sales than the standard Bagged Salad Kits. By using VAT, Fresh Express showed the retailer that the reason for the success of the bowls wasn't that bagged kits were less relevant to consumers, but rather that the situation was simply a function of the retailer's switching promotions from bagged kits to bowls. Being able to objectively quantify those drivers was critical to making that point. The retailer saw excellent results in the packaged salad category, based on two key initiatives: the new salad kits and a new retail execution plan. Consisting of top consumer-tested favorites and improved classics in a compelling package redesign, the new salad kit SKUs experienced an overall consumer appeal rate of 78 percent. Fresh Express generated additional excitement through limited-time-only (LTO) SKUs. In fact, the first two LTO kits were so successful that the retailer requested "permanent" availability. Additionally, a new retail team began full operations, from store calls to concise reporting at the corporate level, focusing on internal data and store audits. The results speak for themselves: approximately 40 percent improvement in year-over-year shrink, and distribution voids cut almost in half. Category Captain Trip missions, along with retailer insights, allowed Dole to create a customer-specific roadmap by account, ultimately driving category growth at three major food retailers. The company also created the D.A.R.T (Dole's Analytical & Reporting Tool), as a result of which scorecard, fair share, sales modeling, promotional analysis and segment/SKU performance are now automated, enabling the category development department to focus on value-added analysis. Leveraging shopper insights and consumer research, the company relaunched all Dole Salad Kits, thereby invigorating a stagnant segment and driving the total salad category to show positive growth for the first time in several years. Guided by the understanding that shoppers purchase by taste and texture, new packaging simplified the process by emphasizing salad type. The company's efforts have translated into positive category trends at its retail partners, the first such gains in three years. Dole is the only leading brand with organic growth, up 6.3 percent in dollars – four points ahead of the category and 16 points ahead of the leading brand. This improvement in brand velocity has helped overall category velocity by 39,500 units per point of distribution. Category Captain The exercise led to a few significant findings. Market Track Ad Data found that the retailer had decreased pineapple ads substantially over the previous year. A merchandiser audited the retailer's over- and underperforming stores, as well as competitors' stores with similar demographics, to compile best handling and merchandising practices. A subsequent finding was that the retailer had one of the highest price points on pineapples in the market. As a result of the analysis and subsequent actions, dollar sales increased more than 3 percent, while shipment to the stores increased an impressive 19 percent for the year. Category Advisor The commission asks retailers' potato category managers to suggest at least five stores for review, preferably with five different potato sets. Its team then goes to each of these retailers' stores and studies the potato sets, keeping best practices in mind. Using proven statistics and pictures from these stores, the group analyzes the layout and prepares a report. To complete its report, the commission also visits all competition within a five-mile radius of each store being reviewed to see what competitors are doing with their potato sets, either with their product mix or how the potatoes are displayed. When all of the analysis is complete, the commission prepares a PowerPoint presentation with a comprehensive category review offering its recommendations on how to improve sales in the entire category. In addition to the comprehensive category analysis, IPC began offering in-depth instructional merchandising recommendations through its quarterly "Potato Retailing Today" section in Progressive Grocer, which has further rounded out its effective efforts to help retailers reap the full rewards of aggressive fresh potato-selling strategies. Category Captain In 2010, the USPB fielded major consumer studies that yielded new insights into potato usage, as well as barriers. This year, the group is launching a landmark potato shopper study to define the decision tree that shoppers navigate. Additionally, the USPB and The Perishables Group have assessed and catalogued the best practices for marketing fresh potatoes. The USPB's retail programs put information into action, most directly through the group's "Retail Outreach" program, where face-to-face meetings are scheduled every year with regional and national food retailers. The board also publishes a bimonthly newsletter, which reaches a broader audience. The USPB's effective retail category management platform further excels by collaborating with food retailers to leverage its insights and apply best practices for individual companies. The "Best Practice Partner" program invites selected retailers to identify a single area of their marketing mix that will deliver the largest gain in category profits. The board then works over a nine-month period to implement the relevant best practices and closely monitor the positive impact on potato sales and profitability. Participating retailers outperformed their competitive markets by 2.6 percent to 11.7 percent during the most recent fiscal year, according to data cited by the USPB. Category Captain NatureSweet uses integrated data from The Perishables Group and MarketTrack to evaluate the direct impact of specific retailer ads and promotional efforts. One promotional best practice from NatureSweet's study recommends that retailers discount tomatoes 21 percent to 30 percent on average when on promotion. These discounts result in the best combination of volume and dollar impacts on the tomato category. Another best practice the company suggests is including small tomatoes in category promotions to generate the highest dollar lift. Promoting small tomatoes results in the largest volume impacts on the tomato category, ranging from 17 percent to 21 percent. Two recent NatureSweet Cherubs promotions at a Midwest retailer demonstrated the success of these tomato best practices. The retailer advertised a 25 percent discount on the NatureSweet Cherubs in its weekly circular. Lifts generated from the promotions were 118 percent and 147 percent, respectively. These promotions resulted in high incremental volume sales, generating 40 percent to 47 percent more dollars during the two promotion weeks. Category Captain Since 2006, the category's sales have increased steadily as more and more consumers seek out healthy snacking options. The third-generation, family-owned company contracted multiple research projects to ensure its product line met consumers' needs. The goal was to understand gaps in the category to create innovative products. Research revealed household penetration and sales of prepared vegetables are on the rise, with snacking vegetables a primary driver of this growth. Volume sales of value-added snacking vegetables increased 7.8 percent in the 52 weeks ending April 30; this increase was greater than vegetable side dishes, meal preparation items, trays and the value-added vegetable category overall. Results from a custom study indicated there's even more opportunity to expand the snacking vegetables category. While 70 percent eat raw fruits as snacks, only 40 percent of consumers eat raw vegetable as snacks. After conducting interviews, Mann concluded that consumers, especially children, are particular about the types and cuts of vegetables they prefer as snacks: They prefer them to be in single-serve packages with low price points. Mann identified new snack opportunities, adding 12 new Snacks on the Go! items to its full line of fresh-cut vegetable and fruit packaged in multiple convenient combinations. Category Advisor Each year, Mastronardi tests hundreds of varieties of tomatoes in search of unique flavors, shapes and colors. In the past year, its latest innovation, Sunset Zima Seriously Sweet tomatoes in a recyclable PET clamshell, has won seven awards in North America and Europe for its packaging and taste. The clamshell's resealable top label peels back to expose an opening that's wide enough to allow the tomatoes to be dispensed. Plus, the bottom piece has vent holes that allow the water to drain for rinse-and-serve convenience. In a category dominated by red, the Zima orange grape tomato is a refreshing color break. The stackable clamshells also bring new merchandising options to the category. In addition to being an innovator in specialty produce, Mastronardi is committed to using sustainable packaging. The clamshells are made with FDA-compliant, post-consumer recycled bottles/post-industrial recycled plastics, or with plastics that have been developed from renewable resources. The PET products used contain more than 70 percent post-consumer recycled material. Category Advisor To kick off the new size offering, Apio paired it with a seasonal label during a prime time for vegetable tray sales, the National Football League playoffs. The product first hit shelves on Dec. 20, 2010, and was available through the week of Feb. 12, 2011. Apio's 32-ounce vegetable, meat and cheese tray with a football-themed label sold at 14 retailers nationally. At a Southwestern grocer, the tray performed particularly well, accounting for 10.8 percent of the tray category during the football label promotion. Trays posted volume growth of 25.1 percent over the prior year, with 54 percent of growth directly from the introduction of the Apio 32-ounce tray, according to data from Perishables Group FreshFacts powered by Nielsen. Following the success of the initial launch of the football-themed label on the new 32-ounce vegetable, meat and cheese tray, Apio plans to expand the program for the 2011-12 football season. The football-themed label launches this year at the beginning of the NFL football season and will continue through to the Super Bowl. Category Advisor Over the past year, Pfizer Consumer Health, maker of Chapstick, Centrum, Advil and Robitussin, committed to, and invested in, developing a cohesive leadership strategy for front end general merchandise. Although food and beverage are still the volume leaders, from a shopper perspective, the team learned that GM has an 86 percent shopper penetration rate on the front end, just below the 90 percent for front end food items. Lack of a GM strategy was resulting in lower conversion and lost sales. The second step was to understand the purchase drivers of the front end, identifying those GM products that are truly impulse versus the many expected and normally purchased items. The final step was to evaluate best practice merchandising dynamics and then customize these for retailers, identify the right brands that belong, and recommend the right items to merchandise. In addition to bringing new thinking to the front end category, Pfizer sponsored a cutting-edge shopper research study geared to understanding front end shoppers' general attitudes in combination with actual GM front end shopping experiences. OTHER PERIMETER On the coin conversion front, the company and a major national retailer introduced a no fee-option that allows customers to cash in their coins free when they choose the gift card option at a Coinstar kiosk. Meanwhile, the rollout of "Give-A-Code & Accept-A-Code" technology enables multiple promotion types and enhanced promotion-tracking capabilities, while providing a seamless consumer experience. Additionally, an innovative consumer website now offers the "My Coinstar" account feature, which allows users to receive customized messages and alerts based on their shopping interests, get exclusive offers from popular consumer brands, and track their coin-counting transaction history. Coinstar continues to explore new self-service innovations by creating organically, investing or acquiring. At any given time, the company has multiple product seeds that are somewhere in the development cycle, from concept to market testing to potential rollout. Current examples include live testing of a coffee kiosk to take advantage of a growing market that's projected to reach $28.5 billion in 2012. NONFOODS In the past year, Rodale has launched several successful marketplace programs to serve its retail customers. As consumers rang in 2011, Rodale created a pre-packed DSD shipper for the best-selling women's and men's health magazines during the New Year's resolution time period. Sales increased an average of 48 percent and 59 percent, respectively. In another timely initiative, Rodale joined forces with several major grocers for temporary price reduction promotions. Its Prevention magazine offered all frequent shoppers $1 off the cover price. The turnkey promotion was communicated to shoppers via front end checkout merchandiser signage, in-store circulars and retailers' websites. Increases in unit sales ranged from 25 percent to 75 percent per issue promoted. Finally, to generate increased excitement and visibility for magazines in the in-aisle display, Rodale helped design and implement a "booster seat" digest display. In the same space as two regular-sized magazines, the adjustable insert holds $100 more in retail dollar inventory and allows for up to six digest titles to be displayed, greatly improving retailers' efficiency. Average sales from these new merchandising solutions increased 28 percent. |
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Behind every successful grocer is an abundance of strong brands and products – and the suppliers that support their success at retail. No one should discount the hard work and ingenuity taking place among the country's leading retailers, ranging from the great chains that span the coastlines and in between (think Kroger and Walmart) to the regional players that are the envy of any student of the retail trade (think H-E-B and Publix). Yet the essence of the business requires collective thinking from all parties involved to best serve consumers, stay relevant and continue to grow.
Anheuser-Busch Inbev (A-B) performed a quantitative fact-based segmentation of the alcohol category and consumer demand to identify unique consumer groups and need states. Each segment has different needs, interests and brand profiles for their choices in the beer category. By aligning the brands with the key segments, need states and palates, A-B can capture profitable demand for retailers. To help retailers achieve sustainable profitable growth, A-B spotlighted strategic brands that profitably fulfill the needs of the growth segments, allocating resources accordingly to ensure disciplined execution.
To gain a greater share of the overall "mom" shopper, a national food retailer teamed with the leading baby brands, foremost among them Abbott Nutrition's Similac, to create the "Baby Smiles, Mom Saves" event. 
In 2010, E. & J. Gallo Winery teamed up with a leading supermarket operator to study shoppers' wine-buying behavior.
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.
Kellogg has continued to maintain share leadership in this $6.4 billion category by leveraging insights-driven proprietary tools, data, research and innovation. While the overall category was down more than a percent for a recent 52-week period, Kellogg reported a 1.4 percent increase in dollar sales for the same period.
General Mills defines three key components to its success: defining the aisle, displaying the aisle and developing the anchors.
McCann's Irish Oatmeal has been making its steel-cut oats the same way for more than 150 years. But this specialty food staple is using modern-day techniques to evaluate its market position and determine how to build the hot cereal category.
Retailers that sell candy know full well the seasonally driven nature of the category, which often makes it challenging to determine the optimal seasonal product mix, unique product order quantities and adequate stock needs throughout the entire season for each store.
Hershey vividly demonstrated its leadership through the results generated by a large Southeast retailer, which increased total candy buyer conversion by 5.5 points. Hershey's shopper insights led the retailer to undertake minor adjustments that yielded impressive results.
Center store continues to be top of mind for many grocers, and Kraft Foods is doing its part to revitalize the segment, especially since coffee plays a key role.
Following the 2010 merger with its largest bottler, Coca-Cola North America has become an even bigger presence in the beverage world. While the company has always been viewed as a key supplier, its category management team found room for improvement in the past year. The merger afforded the company an opportunity to transform and redesign its interactions with retail customers. At the core of this vision is a new category advisory services team committed to establishing Coca-Cola as the top industry insights leader, delivering deep consumer and shopper knowledge and the comprehensive solutions its retail partners are looking for.
Campbell has launched 15 new items in the shelf-stable juice drink category, including the first shelf-stable fruit- and vegetable-based smoothies, sparkling juices, and energy drinks. Many of these items are expanding the category into new dayparts (afternoon, evening) and fulfilling new need states (energy, refreshment, snacking), so the volume is largely incremental to the category.
Since its acquisition of Folgers in 2009, the J.M. Smucker Co. has worked to build a comprehensive knowledge base regarding how to optimize the coffee category. While expanding its relationships with retailers through this new category, Smucker recognized the need to help its partners drive their business with increased insights that incorporate the entire warm beverage aisle. This included every category commonly found in the aisle, from coffee, tea, cocoa and milk flavorings, to complementary categories like creamers and filters.
General Mills, which competes in both the scratch and convenience segments of the baking category, is a key player in bringing traffic to the aisle. More than 80 percent of consumers who shop baking have tried General Mills products. Through holiday merchandising insights, path-to-purchase consumer research and new product innovation, General Mills leads the category forward and drives profitable growth for retailers.
This year, the J.M. Smucker Co. focused on identifying emerging trends and consumer purchasing behavior within baking to develop platforms for growth across the aisle. The company undertook several research projects to try to help identify these growth platforms. The insights gained from this research indicated that there was an opportunity to develop new products to address consumers' unmet needs.
The desserts category is a family favorite with potential for strong growth in the future. General Mills' insight leadership, strong retailer partnerships, capabilities and innovative products are helping retailers capture the category opportunities that will fuel future growth.
General Mills has collaborated with retailers to deliver category best practice shelf recommendations, prescriptive assortment guidance and differentiated consumer support. By implementing General Mills' recommendations, one of its retailer partners grew its dry packaged dinner (DPD) category by 16 percent, outpacing total U.S. growth by 14 points.
The J.M. Smucker Co. recently embarked on a research project aimed at developing a way to bring the consumer voice to the peanut butter and fruit spread categories. The research process included both qualitative and quantitative research sessions with more than 1,500 consumers across the country.
Betty Crocker is the leading brand in the dry packaged potatoes category, with a 44 percent dollar share, a strong presence in all category segments and a history of product innovation. With this historic brand, General Mills continues to move the segment forward for consumers and retailers alike with a broad portfolio of SKUs; promotional strategies that engage consumers; and category-best research that drives retailer profitability.
Despite limited shelf presence, Nutella has achieved impressive growth: Its 13-ounce product ranks among the top four SKUs in the nut spread category. To drive sales even higher, Nutella's parent company, Ferrero USA, commissioned a category management best practice study during which numerous shelving options were tested.
Green Giant continues to take a leadership position by investing in research, tools, product innovation and a strong consumer plan.
ConAgra Foods is helping retailers drive center store growth by creating an in-store destination set for ultra-convenient shelf-stable microwaveable meals, called "Mealtime Made Simple." Proven to increase category sales by 12 percent to 15 percent, according to internal research, the unique shelf set has shown increased category sales of more than $650 million for the 52 weeks ending Aug. 14, while addressing an evolving shopper need. The Mealtime Made Simple set includes ultra-convenient microwavable (UCM) meals such as microwaveable pasta, soup, chili and Asian items.
Mario Camacho Foods continues to introduce on-trend, category-building products. Meeting consumer demand for convenient, portion-controlled, healthy and flavorful products, the company has unveiled innovative 100-calorie snack pouches of olives without brine, in three flavors.
When it became clear in 2009 that category momentum had slowed, Progresso invested in significant research to determine the causes behind this trend, as well as to develop solutions for its retail partners. Because ready-to-serve (RTS) is the largest soup segment and a major driver of category trends, General Mills opted to focus first on righting RTS before turning its attention to a more holistic category approach.
Over the past 12 months, Campbell relaunched the iconic Campbell's condensed soup brand with a new label design, product upgrades and an improved store presentation to leverage the full power of the product line with consumers. The aims of the "Fire Up Condensed Soup" relaunch were to update the packaging and enhance quality perceptions while maintaining core visual equities, optimize iQ Maximizer cards and shelving organization to bring new consumer segmentation to life, make shelf navigation easier, and encourage browsing.
Sara Lee's category leadership program "S.L.I.C.E." (Sara Lee Insights for Category Excellence) provides category/shopper insights that are the foundation of a multitude of category-driving initiatives. 
After years of expansion at 3 percent to 5 percent, the cookie and cracker category sputtered to 1 percent to 2 percent growth when the economic recovery proved uncertain. As category captain at a major grocery retailer, Kraft Foods needed to regain lost momentum.
Flowers Foods has long prioritized innovation, product quality, in-store execution and category leadership to drive the continued success of its Nature's Own brand, which is considered No. 1 in household penetration, purchase frequency, repeat sales and customer loyalty, as measured by IRI panel data.
Kellogg's snacks division continues to drive profitable growth in the cracker and cookie categories through custom and syndicated category-focused shopper and consumer research, as well as product innovation.
Continually striving to exceed the demands of its retail partners through state-of-the-art tools and research and development of its teams to stay ahead of in-store trends, Wrigley has been successful in driving strong joint partnerships that leverage the company's in-store knowledge. 
Old El Paso, with the second-largest dollar share in the $3 billion Mexican meal category, is driving growth of this on-trend segment through a variety of efforts – including research, new products, packaging, advertising and promotional support – that positions retailers to meet rising consumer demand in this dynamic category.
With snacking on the rise and projected to continue increasing, General Mills is bringing capabilities and excitement to this $1.5 billion category through many avenues, including a planned product improvement in 2012 that will further endear its stalwart Chex Mix brand to consumers. Through category research and consumer insights, shelf enhancements, and new products, General Mills is leading the salty snack category and profitable growth for retailers.
Kashi is the leading center store natural/organic brand, with products in cereal, wholesome snacks, frozen entrees, cookies and crackers. As such, the company teams with retailers to ensure they have robust strategies across their entire natural/organic portfolios and capitalize on its upward trend. Kashi accomplishes this through research, category management tools, shopper insights, retailer-specific programs, innovation and brand building.
The natural/organic industry had another good year despite economic pressures, and General Mills is proving itself a leader in the $81 billion category with its Small Planet Foods group.
Campbell Soup Co.'s Pepperidge Farm brand recently joined forces with IRI on a solution to choose the most efficient assortment driving the role of variety enhancer and enhancing shopper loyalty and store experience. With the economic downturn, consumers have become savvier in preparing for shopping trips, while retailers have focused on SKU rationalization to bring greater efficiencies to the shelf. However, lessons learned from major retailers reveal a high risk to losing shopper loyalty by using only velocity metrics to make assortment decisions. This risk to shopper loyalty exists because of the crucial connection between unique lower-velocity SKUs and the shopper's store experience. Understanding the differences between variety and duplication is key to achieving the connection of unique SKUs to shopper store experience. 
Kellogg is fueling growth in this nearly $3 billion category with legacy brands, differentiated offerings, innovations and enhanced nutritional credentials. The company is beating overall category growth in nearly every subsegment.
Hormel Foods has worked hard to make pepperoni more than just a pizza topping, and the company continues to innovate in this important segment of salty snacks. Its most recent developments, innovative products for snacking and versatility, are helping grocers build their salty snack business.
Pillsbury brings a national brand coupled with category management expertise to a category that's a vital component to growth of the $31.6 billion frozen department. Pillsbury's continued efforts through innovative approaches to frozen meal solutions and best-in-class category management practices and tools are leading both the brand and the category to greater growth.
Last year, grocers across the country experienced shortages of Eggo frozen waffles because of problems at two Kellogg bakeries. So the Eggo team had its work cut out for it as Kellogg set out to rebuild its territory in the frozen breakfast category following the supply disruption that ended this past May.
General Mills is leading the $1.6 billion frozen breakfast category in both the savory and sweet segments.
General Mills' commitment to the multiserve entree segment of the $8.8 billion frozen prepared food category is evidenced by its level of innovation, investment in category management tools and capabilities, and consumer support. 
Through top-tier performance, item launches and best-in-class capabilities, General Mills' Totino's brand is driving profitable growth in the $2.3 billion hot snack category. Leveraging strong insights on category segmentation and buyer behavior, General Mills has allowed retailers to better understand how to leverage each segment differently to maximize overall category success.
General Mills is leading profitable growth in the $411 million frozen fruit/smoothie category through the introduction of new items, strong brand-building support and a comprehensive consumer support plan that drives not only its Yoplait brand, but also the entire category.
Unilever continues to innovate in the frozen meal aisle through its two popular brands: Bertolli and P.F. Chang's.
General Mills is leading profitable growth in the $2.3 billion frozen vegetables category through new items, strong brand-building support and category solutions that help retailers drive sales and profits. With its iconic Green Giant brand, General Mills continues to develop products that meet consumers' needs for taste, convenience and health, and supports retailers by providing best-in-class category management insights and capabilities.
Employing superior category information, General Mills was able to help customers navigate a turbulent time in the $3 billion frozen pizza category, driving profitable growth through insightful management and strong brand support.
MorningStar Farms has continued to drive profitable growth for retailers in the no-longer-niche $300 million-plus core frozen veggie food category in 2011 by focusing on a consumer-centric brand strategy, strong innovation, and leveraging Kellogg's proprietary and shared category management and shopper insights tools and research.
Unilever continues to stake its claim as the ice cream category's leading innovator. In 2011 the company launched the Magnum line of real Belgian Chocolate Bars and Breyers Blasts!, as well as a number of items under its Popsicle, Klondike, Reese's, and Ben & Jerry's brands.
With the launch of Magnum, Klondike also introduced a different method of merchandising. The Unilever shelving vision was to create a new door in the busy novelties set, incorporating all of the superpremium novelties brands, as well as organizing the candy-type brands, which were scattered all over the sets. Both superpremium frozen novelties and the candy-type brands are less promoted and significantly more profitable for the retailer, hence the "Adult Indulgent Profit Door." This initiative was successfully implemented in a number of major retailers.
As a member of Food Marketing Institute's Center Store Task Force, Nestlé Purina Petcare has stepped up with a new approach to improving center store performance through the importance of pet care. Dubbed "Open Air Design," Nestle Purina's concept is based on deep consumer and shopper insights.
Freshpet is bringing new customers into the pet care aisle, making the supermarket a weekly destination for pet owners.
Henkel has demonstrated its leadership in the laundry category with the launch of Purex Crystals – the first crystal-form laundry enhancer in the United States. Realizing an unmet need in the segment, as evidenced by three straight years of category decline, Henkel worked with its retail partners to turn this challenge into an opportunity.
Bayer HealthCare undertook two major initiatives in the past year to address both the immediate and longer-term needs of retailers.
Over the past two years, Novartis Consumer Healthcare – maker of Maalox, Benefiber and Prevacide24HR – has invested in what may be the most comprehensive category leadership and shopper marketing plan ever devoted to the category.
As a way to build traffic through increased assortment of fluid replacement offerings and to leverage promotional opportunities that would help drive cross-category purchases, Abbott Nutrition teamed with a food retailer in the South to offer Pedialyte liter SKUs at suggested retail pricing of $5.49. The item normally retails for $5.99.
Unilever's TRESemme was the fastest-growing brand in the daily hair care segment in 2010, contributing $44 million in absolute dollar growth to the category. Among the platforms driving TRESemme's success was the launch of FreshSTART, a customized line of salon-quality products that fulfill the unmet needs of women who don't shampoo daily. 
Loyalty card data indicated that a national food retailer featured categories with a high rate of overlap, including sports nutrition products with bottled water, sports drinks and isotonics (New Age beverages). The retailer had many stores featuring at least 12 feet dedicated to water/isotonic beverages, despite this category's decline of more than 15 percent annually. Water/isotonic items had multiple facings, along with significant secondary display support on a consistent basis.
Vitamin manufacturer Pharmavite contends that its category management leadership is making a distinct difference: For the 52-week period ending Aug. 6, category dollar sales grew 4.5 percent for those retailers where Pharmavite is category advisor.
Seasonality and regional variances influence how the sun care category is managed and demand a comprehensive go-to-market strategy for retailers to maximize sales, gross margin and shopper loyalty. Merck Consumer Care, maker of Coppertone, has taken on these challenges to help its retail partners succeed.
To ensure continued growth of the vitamin and supplement category, Bayer HealthCare developed solutions in such areas as aisle orientation (preferably near the pharmacy) and aisle organization using "beacon brands" as way-finders within the aisle. The final recommendation included a detailed shelf configuration that created segment blocks by health states to enable easier shopping, and optimized segment adjacencies to encourage multiple purchases.
As a leader in the vitamin and supplement categories, US Nutrition works to provide deep consumer insights and continual product innovation. The company brings in sales of more than $768 million annually, and is a category captain or maintains key relationships with leading retailers such as Kroger, Meijer, H-E-B, Publix, Wakefern Food Corp., A&P, Price Chopper, Winn-Dixie, Giant Eagle and Ahold USA.
Dawn Foods' effective category management program with a major club store retailer took the cake in the bakery category in 2011. The supplier developed an ongoing total cake program for the retailer's fresh bakery, helping to affirm it as a cake destination.
Kraft Foods created new excitement in the dairy aisle this year with the introduction of Philadelphia Cooking Crème. Designed to offer busy consumers ease in cooking, recipe versatility and restaurant-quality taste, the new item builds on Kraft's brand equity among home cooks. 
Pillsbury is the dollar share leader in refrigerated dough, with a focused effort to lead and accelerate customer growth by providing leadership on insights leading to winning solutions for customers.
As category captain in the margarine segment, Unilever is making sure shoppers continue to encounter exciting changes. Its new Country Crock flavored spreads are driving incremental margarine purchase occasions and helping to drive sales of host foods such as bakery items.
Murray's teamed up with a retail partner to create a successful, comprehensive store-within-a-store-destination for the dairy perimeter that's been so successful it's since been rolled out to 22 locations.
As Beemster Cheese continues to develop its business in the U.S. market, the Dutch cheesemaker is also evolving its category management platform. In the past year, the company has put a lot of time and effort into researching what makes cheese sell in the deli department. By developing strong partnerships with supermarkets, Beemster has been able to focus on growing the entire specialty cheese category.
Beemster's biggest challenge is increasing rotation in stores where there's no constant interaction between the staff and shoppers. In those instances, the company has worked to improve product layout to help attract consumers and allow them to more easily understand the different varieties available.
General Mills focuses its capabilities and solutions on driving yogurt category sales and optimizing the dairy aisle to maximize retailers' space and profit. Yoplait's innovation and brand building have contributed to yogurt's steady household penetration. Plus, Yoplait's ability to connect with consumers on causes or new items helps sell the brand to customers.
Working regularly with national retailers to share insights and recommendations for a strong deli prepared food category, Tyson Foods Inc. uses data to highlight retailer opportunities and then develops product solutions that appeal to consumers, reduce shrink and build strong performance in the category.
Nearly 120 years ago, Hormel Foods founder George A. Hormel set a new standard for delivering high-quality, convenient and value-minded fresh meat products that were relevant for his customers. Today, the company continues to maintain that tradition, yet keeps an eye on the future to ensure its success with supermarkets and consumers for years to come. 
Dietz & Watson takes a specialized category management approach in each market to cater to the needs of targeted consumers. The company tailors protein assortments, display size and promotional strategies to best fit with a store's shoppers, thereby growing success in the category.
This year, Kraft took category management to the next level at a major Midwest grocery chain by using the company's "CAFÉ" cash flow excellence model to reassess the cold cut category.
Del Monte Fresh used FreshLook Marketing syndicated data to compare a major Midwestern retailer's banana sales performance against the category's national, regional and by-market sales trends. A subsequent analysis showed that the retailer wasn't performing up to the standards of any of these markets, especially against its direct competition.
In the past year, Chiquita has focused on gaining distribution for its Fresh & Ready Avocado, an innovative value-added product positioned to better meet consumer needs. The brand's proprietary technology extends shelf life and provides uniform ripeness.
In early 2011, Chiquita launched a marketing partnership with Twentieth Century Fox as an opportunity to promote the brand in conjunction with a major 3D event (the animated film "Rio") and drive sales of Chiquita bananas. The brand also built an interactive microsite aimed at consumer families, 
Cuties Cooperative took a fresh approach to fueling category growth by developing a consumer packaged goods-style integrated marketing campaign targeting moms. The program's goal was to increase consumer awareness and drive category sales at retail, while showcasing small, sweet, easy-to-peel California Cuties as a healthy snack for kids. A television ad campaign test launched in the Atlanta, Chicago and Phoenix markets. To capitalize on the TV ads, Cuties developed an online/social media campaign that included a website offering nutrition information, games, and information on soccer programs and sponsored community events.
Driscoll's new "Quality Arrivals" program is an ongoing effort to ensure quality fruit for retail displays with which to excite berry consumers, and drive category awareness and sales. Through a three-pronged approach of internal process education, retailer interaction and communication, and supply chain improvements, the company strives to build stronger relationships with its retail partners.
In 2010, Del Monte Fresh maintained the fresh-cut business for the Western division of a major national retailer. Syndicated data was employed to identify fresh-cut sales trends nationally, regionally and by market. This data was cross-referenced with a list of actual scanned store sales provided by the retailer to pinpoint any missed opportunities. Additionally, Market Track Ad Data was reviewed in the retailer's market to create a promotional ad plan for the fresh-cut items. This data also helped identify periods when whole fruit was cannibalizing sales of like fresh-cut items. Finally, Spectra data was used to confirm any proposed changes to product offerings.
Fresh Express brought value and insight to its retail partners through a new automated analytic tool (VAT), a new direct retail team to reduce product shrink and close distribution voids, and new salad kits.
Dole analyzed salads across North American retailers and created a scorecard for best practices. This included, but was not limited to, assortment, pricing and promotions. The company also analyzed promotional effectiveness, in addition to changes in purchase behavior during the recession. Insights included a new category segment, as well as significant changes in consumer purchase behavior from the beginning to the end of any given month.
This past year, Del Monte Fresh oversaw the western division pineapple category of a major national retailer. When the company assumed this role, its main goal was to help the retailer increase sales. This was to be achieved by employing a number of category management tools. Fresh Look Marketing syndicated data was used first to compare the retailer's pineapple sales trends with pineapple sales trends in the surrounding market. Market Track Ad Data reports were then run to compare the retailer's ad frequency with the prior year and with its competitors. Finally, Spectra data identified the retailer's potential pineapple sales by store, based on shopper demographics, store size and potential. This data was cross-referenced with the list of actual scanned store sales provided by the retailer to create a list of over- and underachieving stores.
The Idaho Potato Commission (IPC) responds to retailers that are interested in improving potato sales with an in-depth review that takes into account all potatoes, not just Idaho potatoes. 
The U.S. Potato Board (USPB) has been working directly with food retailers for more than a decade to build their potato business through its focus on three key areas: information, education and collaboration.
Although NatureSweet Ltd. specializes in small greenhouse-grown tomatoes, it teams with retailers to grow the entire tomato category. NatureSweet joined forces with The Perishables Group to analyze point-of-sale data and circular ad activity to complete a comprehensive best practices study and develop a set of successful promotion parameters for retailers to implement.
Leveraging category management and consumer research, Mann Packing Co. brings innovation to the growing value-added vegetable category.
Strong brand recognition and an unusual tomato variety, combined with unique packaging, have made Mastronardi Produce a leader in the tomato category.
Apio recognized the need for a smaller party tray that combines vegetables with popular snack items such as meat and cheese, as 95 percent of the trays sold nationwide were either 36 ounces or 38 ounces. The smaller size would allow for a wider offering to consumers at different price points.
Historically, the front end – a valuable parcel of real estate to any retailer – has been left up to magazine, food, beverage and candy/gum/mint manufacturers, with limited focus on the more fragmented general merchandise categories such as lip care, hand sanitizers and other everyday products. In addition, managing front end general merchandise has proved to be a challenge due to the lack of data and lack of unique UPC codes in many cases.
Coinstar launched video game rentals at about 27,000 Redbox kiosks nationwide; teamed with Foursquare, a location-based mobile application with 10 million registered users, to enable consumers to check in at familiar spots while they choose from new-release movies and games at Redbox; launched the Redbox Android app; and upgraded the Redbox iPhone app and the website.
As a publisher of health-and-wellness content for magazines, books and websites, Rodale is in a unique position to help retailers share valuable health-and-wellness information with their customers.
