When it comes to retailing, maybe the most unexpected surprise is that food retailing is just about the only enterprise that remains more or less as it was in the B.C. era (Before Corona). Consumers can still go to supermarkets and other food-retailing venues in person to shop for the goods they need, if they accept the degree of hazard associated with that. They can also order product online. And sales at the major retailers selling food are surging, in a good way. But that doesn't mean everything is exactly the same for food retailing and …
Food Fight: Self Feeding Shortages
Is it time to panic? The answer isn't farther than your nearest supermarket. You'll find that shoppers are voting with their shopping carts. Driven by the fear of being quarantined inside for who knows how long to shelter against coronavirus, they're stripping shelves bare of shelf-stable items such as rice, canned goods, cleaning supplies, paper goods, bottled water and just about anything that can be easily stored for future use. It all started with the recommendation of increased personal sanitation, such as frequent hand washing and …
Earth Fare Gone
Earth Fare, the chain of 50 natural and organic supermarkets, is as good as gone. The company has filed for Chapter 11 and announced that it will liquidate all store inventory and fixtures and close each store as it empties out of product. It will also shutter its corporate headquarters in Asheville, N.C. What happened? Earth Fare represents just the latest chain of healthy-eating supermarkets that are in trouble or failing. In fact, there's an epidemic of supermarkets in the healthy eating sector that are struggling or failing including …
The Strange Ever-Growing Walgreens-Kroger Alliance
The Walgreens and Kroger alliance started nearly a year and a half ago when these two retailers agreed that a selection of Kroger private brand products - mainly health and beauty lines - would be placed into a few Walgreens stores. In turn, a selection of Walgreens' products would go into a few Kroger supermarkets. Then, as was reported in The Robin Report, the two retailers accelerated the joint venture late last year by cross-pollinating additional product into about 50 stores. Although the arrangement still involves relatively few …
Lights Out at Fairway or Fairway’s Last Stand?
Fairway soon files for bankruptcy for the second time in recent years. Could total liquidation be far behind as reported by the New York Post? To generations of shoppers in New York City and its environs, Fairway has been a much-beloved food retailer that for many years managed to bring high-quality fresh product, especially produce, to consumers' tables at low cost. Beyond that, it offered a wide range of grocery and other perishable product making it an essential destination for discriminating foodies and a full shopping experience. In …
Kroger vs. Wegmans
This is the tale of two paths to brand building. One approach is through careful message management and paying a lot to keep that control. The other way is to depend on free media - publicity generated by news coverage and social media. Which of these ways works better? Let's find out by taking a look at two major grocery companies. Full disclosure: Free isn't always best. One company is Kroger, which has hired its first-ever agency of record with the intention of putting a new face on the company. The other is Wegmans, which has been …
Amazon’s New Food-Store Rollout
There is a lack of clarity of details surrounding Amazon's upcoming development of a food-store format that will be entirely distinct from its Whole Foods stores. This seems to be Amazon's M.O. when it comes to its new initiatives. That such a format is under way comes as no great surprise since Amazon said two years ago it was the beginning of its intentions for brick-and-mortar food stores when it acquired Whole Foods. And we've been waiting. What we do know is that this new fleet of Amazon food stores will be intended for middle-market …
Walgreens’ Drones Will Make Your Personal Deliveries
Surprisingly, Walgreens has a few new tricks up its sleeve. In fact, there are two major new-world developments in the works. Walgreens is poised to become the first retailer to fulfill product orders directly to consumers' residences by means of airborne drones. Not many retail observers would have predicted that Walgreens would be first off the ground with that capability. Secondly, Walgreens will soon start to offer a range of Kroger's successful private brands for sale in its stores. This is a highly unusual arrangement given that …
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