Category: Thought For Food
Posts Archive
Rethinking a Facts-First Approach
Sanderson Farms isn’t backing down from its antibiotic use in poultry, despite most major players in the poultry industry moving toward “no antibiotics ever”. Faced with mounting customer—and shareholder—criticism, the company released a comprehensive infographic backed by outside professional resources explaining its position. (click to see full graphic) The experts are reputable. The facts are […]
Winning With Big Food: Part 1
‘How can ‘Big Food’ win?’ was a question on everyone’s mind at this year’s Iconosphere conference in Las Vegas. As one of the industry’s leading consumer insights conferences, hosted by Gartner (formerly CEB), food & beverage strategists reiterated arguably the biggest challenge ‘Big Food’ faces in today’s marketplace: small and medium manufacturers are driving half the growth in […]
The Customer Insight Behind Lidl’s Success
German grocery-discount chain, Lidl, recently announced the locations of its 20 six-aisle small-format stores opening this summer. But what struck me most was Lidl’s U.S. CEO’s comment on the new stores: Lidl’s new U.S. small-format store Less complexity. Meaning, fewer choices. At first this sounds counterintuitive to what we know about customers demanding choice and […]
GPO Traction with Independents Changing The ‘Street’ Game
In late April, I attended a summit in Chicago exploring the rise of Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) membership among independent restaurant operators and the statistics surprised many of us in the room: Source: “The Fight for Foodservice ‘Sweet Spot’: GPO Traction with Independents.” Pentallect. April 2017. Nearly 40,000 independent operators belong to a GPO Independents […]
The Case for ‘Product Narratives’ in Today’s Marketplace
Narratives in marketing are nothing new; we’ve been telling stories to customers since the invention of our trade. But the narratives that resonate with our target audience has shifted substantially over time. At their latest A.C.T. (Anthropology, Culture, Trends) Conference, “Telling the Story of Food,”, The Hartman Group asserted that brand-focused narratives are quickly being […]