GROCERY GAME
Grocery Innovations Canada conference gets underway this week in Toronto,
The battle to bag your supermarket business is fiercer in 2013 than it has been in years, with grocers pulling out all the stops to get both pricesavvy and health-conscious consumers through the checkout.
The virtual overhaul of food retailing this year is the backdrop to the Grocery Innovations Canada conference, which starts Monday in Toronto. For two days, Canada’s largest grocery industry trade show will host 5,000 retailers and experts who are dealing with megamergers, rapid floor-space expansion and new entrants into the once quiet sector.
“It’s a tough game to be in now,” says Kevin Grier, senior market analyst at the George Morris Centre in Guelph.
Some new items on offer among the 500 booths include a “happy” bottled water (containing natural lithium salts), a frozen banana-flavoured treat with an edible gummy peel, a healthy fruit juice water enhancer and a “sustain lane” of eco-friendly products for fruit ripening and food disposal.
Premier Kathleen Wynne will also take part in a grocery bagging competition at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, facing off against Joey Longo of Longo’s and representatives from Summerhill Market and sponsor Interac.
The grocery market has undergone big changes recently, with discount retailers Walmart and new entrant Target duking it out in the food aisles with established grocers like Loblaw, Sobeys and Metro.
The increased competition has helped prompt the big players to get even bigger, with Loblaws moving to take over Shoppers Drug Mart and Sobeys’ announcing plans to merge with Safeway. Observers are waiting for Metro to follow suit.
“The industry used to be peaceful place to set prices and make margins,” Grier says. Not so now.
“Margins are more stressed and they (grocers) certainly know they can’t just hoist their prices and not expect to lose customers.”
He notes that almost half of Canadian grocery shoppers are now buying things on sale, with a coupon or during a promotion.
Loblaw is set to open its first Nutshell “Live Life Well” store on King St. just west of Spadina Ave. in an effort to carve out a piece of the lucrative health and wellness pie. It’s competing against Whole Foods Market Inc., the world’s largest natural foods retailer based in Austin, Texas, which announced in June it hopes to open 40 new stores in Canada. “It’s been a tough year for the
“Margins are more stressed and they (grocers) certainly know they can’t just hoist their prices and not expect to lose customers.” KEVIN GRIER SENIOR MARKET ANALYST
grocery industry,” says Rob Gerlsbeck, editor of Canadian Grocer.
“Canadians have become more deal hunters. People have gotten used to things being on sale,” he says.
As a result, brand positioning — simply standing out — has become more important than ever.
For example, Canada’s No. 2 grocer, Sobeys, just launched its “Better Food For All” campaign featuring Brit celebrity chef-turned-health crusader Jamie Oliver.
Essentially, the supermarket is being reinvented, with an emphasis on price at one end and a focus on local food and health and wellness at the other, adds Gerlsbeck.
A panel of industry players will discuss the future of online grocery retailing, which hasn’t caught on in Canada the way it has in the U.K.
But that could change with Amazon.com reportedly aiming to expand.
Considering all the activity in the sector, “Who knows what’s going to come next,” says Gerlsbeck.