Food waste remains a problem, and what better day to highlight new solutions than Earth Day? A new app from Cornell University, FMI, and USDA aims to alleviate food waste by removing the uncertainty about whether or not food is still safe to eat. David Fikes of FMI reports that 20 pounds of food per person is wasted each month in the US, a staggering amount. Much of this waste is caused by consumers who are concerned with food safety and would rather throw out an item they are unsure about than risk eating it. The new app is targeted at these consumers, and provides guidelines for how to determine if a food is past its shelf life, or if it is still safe to…
Retailers are Going Green Today for a Greener Tomorrow
Earth Day acts as a reminder for each of us to consider ways we can help to green up the planet, but Stop & Shop and Wegmans are one step ahead of us. Stop & Shop has recently made public their work on an anaerobic digester. This machine will turn once wasted food scraps into usable energy for its distribution center located in Freetown, MA. Instead of waste such as out of date products, fruit peels, and flower stems going directly to landfills, these scraps will be upcycled with the long term goal to divert 90% of once wasted food. Wegman’s Food Markets already has several stores in New York state participating in a similar program, and plans to up the number of stores to 32…
Rockline Industries Wins an Award
Family owned since 1976, Rockline Industries based in Sheboygan, WI wins the Manufacturer of the Year Award for 2014. This was awarded by the Sheboygan County Chamber, who recognized Rockline Industries for their continued commitment to job creation, community investment and growth. In the past three years Rockline has added nearly 250 jobs that have benefited the Sheboygan County community, while employees continue to volunteer at a number of local non-profit organizations. Rockline Industries is one of the largest producers of consumer products specializing in wet wipes and coffee filters. Rockline continues to be an industry leader in creating first-to market product design solutions for wet wipe consumers. They employ nearly 2,000 people worldwide and currently have manufacturing facilities in Wisconsin, Arkansas, New Jersey, England and…
Distribution 3.0: The Physical Internet
The below is an excerpt from ES3’s “collaborate.grow.win. how smart devices create smart supply networks” whitepaper. Receive your copy today to understand the impacts of the convergence of the Internet of Things and the Physical Internet on retail’s future state. The Physical Internet provides a global framework for collaboration, enabling scale and cost-savings. Designed to incorporate learnings from how packaged bits of data flow on the internet, the Physical Internet connects logistics systems through shared resources, collaboratively handling, storing, and transporting goods. Inventory is stored close to end users, shortening response times and increasing service levels. All users leverage the same platform, reducing costs and infrastructure. Essentially, the Physical Internet is a shift to a many-to-many distribution network, a drastic change from today’s current strategy…
Organic is Here to Stay
83% of families purchase organic products, says a new study from the Organic Trade Association (OTA). In the sixth year of the study, this number has climbed 10 percentage points, aligning with the overall increase in consumers’ awareness and trust in the organic seal. The majority of American households have purchased organic at least once; only 17% of those surveyed reported never having purchased organic. According to OTA, this number has declined each year; in 2014, 50% of consumers reported purchasing more organic products than they did in 2013. Transaction data backs up consumers claims; OTA estimates that organic sales across all verticals hit $35.1 billion in 2014, a 12% increase over 2013. Given the consistent trends reported over the past six years, it comes…
Food Industry M&A Picks Up
The Food Industry recorded 503 mergers and acquisitions in 2014, not including the recently announced Kraft and Heinz merger, a 61.7% increase from the previous year. The Heinz/Kraft deal is the biggest on record for the Food Industry, at about $49 billion. Speculation had been ripe for which food company 3G would acquire next, pushing up multiple food companies’ valuations. Merger advisors predict that the Heinz/Kraft merger will cause food companies to look for potential combinations that will help them emulate 3G’s success. Food giants are actively working to improve profits and reduce expenses. Campbell’s has already adopted zero-based budgeting, a 3G tactic used to cut expenses. Coca-Cola recently adopted the technique as well. However, cost cutting can only go so far. Established food companies,…
Shipping from Store Adds Cost- Lessons from Apparel and Accessories
DSW, the footwear and accessories retailer, shared its experience with omni-channel retailing on a call with analysts yesterday. Discussing fourth-quarter earnings, Mike MacDonald, president and CEO, reported revenue of $640.2 million in the fourth-quarter, $100 million of which was from omni-channel. According to MacDonald, about half of those omni-channel sales are fulfilled from in-store stock. “It costs us more to ship from store than it does to ship from our fulfillment center,” said MacDonald. Fulfilling from stores is nothing new, but it gained popularity in the last year as retailers leveraged store-deployed inventory to reduce last-mile distances. However, shipping consumers inventory from store shelves does come with added costs. Not only is the retailer paying employees to stock the shelves, they are paying employees…
Is Virtual Reality the Reality of the Future?
With online shopping becoming ubiquitous, US consumers are willing to take online shopping to the next level. An emerging technology poised to change the face of retail is that of Virtual Reality (VR). Originally developed for the gaming industry, retail is beginning to see the value of enabling the customer to virtually interact with their product without leaving home. By using a device akin to Google Glasses, but without the maneuverability, customers would be able to virtually travel to a store where they could interact with products via an avatar. This has all of the advantages of online shopping with the added benefit of allowing the consumer to interact with the product prior to purchasing. In Walker Sands’ new white paper, Reinventing Retail: What Businesses…
Walmart Launches Sustainability Leaders Shop
Walmart has unveiled its newest initiative to help consumers “live better,” a dedicated online storefront filled with more than 3,000 items produced by 100 leading sustainability companies. In order to sell via the storefront, a manufacturer must be a leader among its peers in the Walmart Sustainability Index. The store spans multiple categories, including grocery, household, electronics, baby, and health and beauty. It is too soon to understand if Walmart’s transparency will change shopper’s behavior, but studies suggest that all else being equal (especially price), consumers will choose a more sustainable product. This is good news for the manufacturers featured on the site, including Unilever, Musco Family Olives, SC Johnson, Ocean Spray, Mondalez, Kraft, Nestle. In addition to the storefront, Walmart has also launched fact sheets…
Grocery Tops Mobile Shopping in PwC’s Total Retail Consumer Survey
PwC’s Annual Global Total Retail Consumer Survey is in, and the results are quite interesting. Grocery topped the charts as the category with the highest sales on mobile (tablet and smartphone), beating out apparel and electronics by a large margin. These results coincide with the explosion in grocery e-commerce this year, with startups like Instacart grabbing more volume. The study had some good news for bricks and mortar retailers- consumers were asked why they liked shopping in stores, and they cited three reasons which online retailers cannot currently compete with: the tangibility of product in brick and mortar stores, instant gratification (not 1 hour), and ability to assess size and fit. The online channel is working hard on overcoming these challenges; even having delivery people…