Page 20 - January_2019

20 / JANUARY 2019 / PRODUCE BUSINESS
of is that of delivery as an adjunct to pick- up, and pick-up as an adjunct to the physical shopping experience. But people are “omni” in more ways than just how they wish to receive product. They have an “omni” life.
Sometimes consumers want convenience and to run into a convenience store – maybe that is a Wawa or a 7-Eleven or an Amazon Go. Sometimes the shopper wants to express certain values and buys from Whole Foods. Often they want special product ... say they love the frozen meatballs at Trader Joe’s, so they go there. Maybe they want to be surprised by what is on sale so they go to Costco and buy something they hadn’t expected to buy.
At some moments in life, consumers are frugal and go to deep discounters such as Aldi or Lidl; sometimes they are indulgent and go to gourmet stores.
For the produce industry, what Omni- Channel retailing really means is a re-ori-
needs of a dollar store, a delivery service, a warehouse club, an epicurean chain and on and on.
In other words, Omni-Channel refers to a distribution method but also a product channel — all aligning with a speci c type of customer or a customer at a speci c moment in his or her life.
Much is made of demographics — is this an “A” store in an upscale community or a “D” store in a downscale community? Is this store serving a predominantly Latino commu- nity, or do we need to look for a Kosher butcher for an Orthodox Jewish community?
But life is actually more complex. The same person may behave differently the day he gets paid than the day before he gets paid and so is trying to hold things together until the next check arrives. The same person who splurges at Whole Foods to impress a date may economize at the dollar store when there are three kids to feed and they are saving for a Disney vacation.
THINKING OUTSIDE THE RETAIL BOX
In a sense, Omni-Channel calls on the production and marketing sectors to think less like traditional vendors to retail and more like vendors to foodservice. This is complex because most produce rms are not very good at marketing to foodservice.
Retailers traditionally take what is offered for sale and try it out. The product either sells or it doesn’t and thus is either restocked or discontinued. But the initiative typically comes from the marketer, in which a new product is launched and must be sold.
In contrast, in foodservice, a producer/ marketer can knock his head out calling McDonald’s to sell them peaches, but since
For the produce industry, what Omni-Channel retailing really means
is a re-orientation
of production and marketing.
entation of production and marketing — a move away from a commodity focus in which products are produced then sold, to a focus on product development, including packaging, that will align producers with the