A category manager’s work is never done. There are always new products to develop, market intelligence to gather and ponder, planograms to plot, and marketing campaigns to launch. But the consumer products strategists that PROGRESSIVE GROCER has chosen to be Category Captains have shown in 2007 that it takes more than the usual drill to break through with true category innovation. What follows here are 89 stories of battles joined, precious ground gained, and victories won in the struggle to squeeze more sales and consumer satisfaction from within the four walls of the store.

As the practice of intelligent category management has spread over the years from the store core outward to the fresh perimeter, it has also become much more sophisticated, increasingly customized, and often brutally competitive. Fact-based insights into consumer and retailer needs are the weapons of choice. The standouts are the operators that help grow not only their own sales and profits, but also performance in the total category, and sometimes in an entire department or store.

You’ll encounter a wide variety of tactics and tools among these category management stories. But many of the winning programs here have common elements as well, including proprietary technology, sharp business analytics, evolving shopper insights, and acute responsiveness to retailer needs.

Compared with previous years, the leaders in 2007 have also been able to drill deeper to focus on understanding individual shopper behavior, rather than national or average trends. Effective category management execution now must be customized, and must penetrate to the retail, cluster, and even store level with solutions. To read more, click here.