We have been fortunate to have experts from Kantar share their insights into many subjects, and we’ve profiled these presentations in pieces such as these:
These presentations are always data-rich and, we’re fortunate that Kantar recently revealed a new study: WINNING OMNI-CHANNEL: Finding Growth in Reinvented Retail.
We are especially delighted to have Stéphane Roger, Global Shopper & Retail Director at Kantar Worldpanel, join us in Amsterdam to explain the study findings and to pull out a special deep dive into the data to highlight special insights about the role of fresh foods in this reinvented retail world.
We asked Pundit Investigator and Special Projects Editor Mira Slott to find out more. Today we are running Part I of Mira’s conversation with Stéphane, in which he details ten key findings from the research. Part II will lay out more specifics in the data mix that has led Stéphane to these conclusions:
STÉPHANE ROGER
Global Shopper and Retail Director
Kantar Worldpanel
Barcelona, Spain
Q: Your new Kantar Worldpanel report Winning Omni-Channel: Finding Growth in Reinvented Retail, is quite substantial and broad in scope. [The report explores global fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and retail trends, looking at how to drive growth through different lenses: geographies, targets, and types of brands, whether local or global, branded or private. It assesses the impact of channels including e-commerce and discounters — the two fastest-growing channels, and it provides an extended vision of out-of-home (OOH) and how the FMCG trade will continue to change with the OO (online and offline) proposition.]
Will you be basing your presentation on the report’s findings?
A: Yes. What I did is extract 10 “ingredients” of how to drive more retail and to help the industry find new ways to grow in an omni-channel environment, which is a big topic now. A major finding in the report is that integration of offline and online is a must-have.
Q: The Amsterdam Produce Summit seizes on this phenomenon. Our goal is to bring key thought-leaders and influencers from the international produce/retail industry to understand omni-channel’s effects on current and future sales and profits of fresh fruits and vegetables and strategize solutions to stay competitive and succeed.
Let’s start with your 10 ingredients… It sounds like you have a good structure for your presentation, and from there we can drill down on how these ingredients apply to the fresh produce industry. As we discuss these issues, I’m hoping you can weave in the role of fresh produce within that offline and online integration, plus tie everything back to what this paradigm is going to mean for the fresh produce industry.
A: OK. I want my presentation to be useful to the leading retailers and diverse global produce supply chain executives in the audience. The report is more comprehensive in its analysis, looking at all CPG categories, one of which is fresh foods and within that segment fresh produce…I will go into some areas of fresh food, but it will be difficult to do that with precision in most cases.
Q: No worries. Our readers are experts on produce. They can draw many connections and inferences as to how things will work in produce from your more general research. It will be helpful when you can hone in on issues that are specific to fresh produce and related items such as prepared meals, etc.
A: I’ll get right into the “ingredients” list then:
FIRST, the big growth in CPG is over. We’ve seen an evolutionary slowdown in the value generated by CPG over the years. It’s much more complicated than ever for retailers and manufactures alike, and this is unlikely to change, based on fact-based data, which I’ll breakdown from the report.
SECOND, we need to see the fragmentations and categorizations in growth. E-commerce is booming with 16 percent growth, and other value models, such as discounters and cash-and-carry, are rising five percent, so the message here is if you want to have growth, you need to have a value strategy.
THIRD, as these categorizations of e-commerce, discounters, and cash-and-carry are growing, it means hypermarkets and supermarkets are on the decline. The challenge is for the industry to build an incremental proposition.
The FOURTH point is to say in terms of winning the market, we need to change the way of approaching it. Ten years ago, we used to do a hypermarket supermarket mix, and it was enough, but now 76 percent of Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) value growth comes from channels outside of hypermarkets and supermarkets. I’m not sure our clients in the industry are looking hard enough at these other channels, so this is a call to action. Taking advantage of this growth should be central to every strategy, but successfully doing so means having an advanced understanding of their makeup.
The FIFTH ingredient in driving growth is about activating the right levers in this fragmented environment; geography is a big one; and targeting consumer segments is another way of building growth.
The SIXTH point is related to private label brands growing as discounters expand around the world, and consumers demand less expensive options. Especially with retailers promoting their own brands, the possibilities of selling direct to consumer without middlemen have grown.
Number SEVEN… I’ll talk in more depth about how e-commerce is booming, and the world of contrasts by geography and by categories, and between countries, the big differences as well.
EIGHT, hypermarkets and supermarkets are in trouble; still accounting for 49 percent CPG, they’re struggling but not dead. We see great concepts growing in China, where fresh food is in the center, and there is a better fresh emphasis in the new model.
My NINTH point… clients need to have a strategy to represent many categories, and they need to have a synergistic omni-channel approach.
And TEN, if you’re looking for a strategy to grow and increase value in the industry, it’s about attracting new shoppers more than getting more loyalty of consumers you already have. If the growth is fragmented, the way to capture this growth is with local brands.
Q: Thanks. These are excellent points and guidelines for produce retailers and suppliers to understand. I would now like to dive a little deeper into some of these ingredients. First of all, I know you mention Fast-moving Consumer Goods and sometimes intermix this category term with CPG, but I would like our readers to understand what you mean by this term and how big of a share FMCG has on the overall market…
A: You have grocery, fresh foods, household products, beauty products, beverages and other products… five or six big sectors that you can purchase in store or online.
Fresh food (meats, fish, vegetables, fruits) represents 28 percent of value generated. This is the share of the global market, so it is a big sector. What’s really interesting is there are lots of differences between regions. In the U.S., this segment only represents 12.6 percent; in Europe, it is 22 percent; and in China, it is a whopping 66.
Q: That’s a huge difference…
A: In China, fresh food trade is very important, and the frequency of purchase of fresh food is completely different. In U.S., you have average 39 occasions, or trips, per year to buy fresh, but in Europe, it is 107, and in China, it is 116 occasions per year, a massive difference.
In terms of shopper profile, it is interesting to see the most important target for fresh food is the senior market. For the global population, the value generated is 28 percent share of people overall, but fresh food represents 31 percent for seniors.
Again, there are very important differences in various regions. At the Summit, we will go through, Europe, China, North America – the differences can be striking.
Fresh produce is over-indexed for seniors in population as well. Globally, highlighting the growth in fresh produce, avocados represent 11 percent growth; berries 8 percent; spinach 4 percent; and broccoli 4 percent growth. I’ll have a lot more to discuss at the Summit.
In many countries, organic produce is still a niche, representing 5 percent of fresh food, but it is growing very fast in countries, such as Germany, Spain, the UK and France, where there is clear demand on this type of products.
When talking about senior people compared to younger households, in terms of channels used to buy fresh produce, such as e-commerce or hypermarkets, proximity is really important when talking about channel. Supermarkets represent 46 percent of the seniors’ spend, but for younger people/households, supermarkets represent only 36 percent.
For fresh food specialty stores (special fish, butchered meat, etc.), seniors represent 29 percent of the global spend, younger people account for 7.3 percent.
These are the channels where the industry should focus on. This is where the main target is shopping.
When comes to e-commerce, only two percent of the spend comes from senior people, while 10 percent of target comes from Millennials. That is a big difference.
This is to emphasize the need to focus on fresh foods, this is a different proposition to have when we talk about fresh food because senior people are a big target and have a different way of shopping. They are not into e-commerce as much, but that may be changing.
There certainly is big room for big potential for fresh food in e-commerce. Technology will continue to change that, and we see some evidence the industry is moving more fresh food.
Many thanks to Stéphane for sharing a broader context for Omni-Channel Retailing. Keep your eyes out for Part II and a deeper dive into the data.
When we read his Top 10 insights, we draw this: If Consumer Packaged Goods are in decline, then this makes the case for prioritizing fresh food all the more compelling.
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