The Grocery Industry Also Goes Green

Professor Lamel   Section 001

Ethic is such an important player in business. As I read in the report, the grocery marketplace has been moving towards food and drinks produced organically. Lately, customers are more likely to pay attention to the ingredients labelled on everything they consume. Although The Grocery Industry has intrinsic integrity codes, I believe that this shift have been driven in a greater extent by the mentioned tendency of customers.

As I analyze the industry and this topic in particular, I would like to find out why are people moving towards green zones at a higher rate in the past decade. Furthermore, it intrigued me that the demand for socially-responsible products is concentrated in different demographics as geographical location changes. For instance, in the UK, young people are the ones that fuel the consumption of green products, whereas in America and the rest of Europe, the demand is led by older people. Does it have anything to do with the media or the way this sector of the industry is marketed?

As the awareness of customers in environmental and ethical topics grows, also does the number of producer and suppliers of green products. However, it is considered that the leading influences in this aspect are the consumers and the media.

The ethic sector of grocery is meant to grow exponentially in the near future. Let’s look at some of the results of the survey in the report that demonstrate so:

·          Nearly 27% of European consumers and more than 25% in the US bought more socially-responsible groceries in 2006 than the year before.

·        The pioneering organic sector of fruit and vegetables still holds over 30% of the market, but faster growth is stemming from other major sectors such as bakery and cereals and dairy. Movement into added value areas such as ready meals is evident in the UK and US.

·        More leading food and drink companies are developing ethical products, signaling movement of ethical food and drinks into the mainstream. Retailers and ethical specialists are still very active, with private label featuring as one of the top ten packaging tags for 2007.

·        Food quality, waste and pollution, and food safety are rated as the most important consumer concerns in driving uptake of ethical food and drink. The enviromentally good factor of buying ethical products also features as a factor shaping demand.

For further information on the survey and the report click on the link bellow.

http://360.datamonitor.com/Product?pid=BI00014-005&view=d0e30

Grocery Store Industry Overview

Beatrice Teston

Professor Persily Lamel

September 26, 2012

Section 001

            The Grocery Industry is one of the most profitable industries in the world. According to the article “The Top 10 Snacks Companies,” the snack industry has a forecast value of $89 billion in the year 2013. What had fascinated me about this article was reading that the three companies that had majority control of the global snacks industry were PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, and P&G. You never really realize the global scale these companies have taken on while eating your food at the kitchen table.  The most intriguing part of this article to me was how the actual top 10 snack companies had been chosen. It was more than just who had the most revenue in the past decade or which company had the most innovations. The article had stated that companies had been compared in terms of market size, competitive positioning, key drivers and resistors, and trends.

            While furthering my research on the grocery store industry, I hope to go more in depth about the background concerning the actual marketing and advertising of supermarkets and companies that provide their products. Additionally, I want to examine how coupons and discounts work and affect grocery stores without hurting the industry as a whole.

            One interesting fact is that PepsiCo had formed a business alliance with Calbee Foods in 2009. They had let Calbee Foods take full control of Frito-Lay Japan while they were able to obtain 20% equity of Calbee Foods. I feel as if the grocery store industry has a very steady future ahead of it filled with innovations in snacks, product flavors, marketing, and customer quality. Grocery stores are the number one way to distribute products directly to consumers. 

http://360.datamonitor.com/Product?pid=BI00012-033&view=d0e11  

Blog #1 Weis Markets, Inc.

Sofia Klotz

Professor Lamel

Sept 25^th 2012

Section 001

  Blog #1 Weis Markets, Inc.

             

 New Weis Market is a large company that operates in Pennsylvania and employ’s over 17,000 people. I realized two really interesting things while reading the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis for this company.  

The first interesting fact that I found was that one of the strengths in this company’s analysis stated that they are a debt free capital structure. The benefits of this are that the company has the ability to reinvest profits back into the company, versus allocating the money towards paying off a loan.  The second benefit , which is even more beneficial, is that the company does not have to worry about the fluctuations and increases in interest rates.  This is good for two reasons, the first being that they do not have to pay more for money that they borrowed when interest rates increase. The second reason is that without the added pressure of owing a third party money, the company does not have to stress about earning a certain quota in order to pay the loan back. This makes it so that the company does not have to make their products cheaper in order to gain a higher profit and therefor can maintain high quality product standards.

I was not only impressed that this company had managed to grow and become profitable without any sort of loan from either banks or investors but curious as to how that is possible. This idea of a debt free capital structure is defiantly something I would like to learn more about as I explore the grocery market industry.  It also got me thinking that if more company’s conducted their business with a debt free capital system it could, in the future, increase the quality in not only Weis Inc. but also in all grocery company’s.

            The second fact that I found interesting was in the company’s opportunity section.  The report stated that the rapidly growing Hispanic population in the United States creates a large opportunity for this company. This is because the Hispanic population has nearly doubled in ten years and is expected by the year 2050 to account for 29% of the total U.S population thus creating an enormous market for producers like Weis Markets, Inc. to fill.  It will be fascinating to see what this large Hispanic influence does to the Grocery market in the future.

             http://360.datamonitor.com/Product?pid=50F3A7BC-A243-4A71-AE91-B90B73155A80&view=SWOTAnalysis

           

Reports and B

Grocery Store Industry Overview

Cody Guyer
Professor Lamel
September 26, 2012
Section 001

When reading the article "Supermarkets and Grocery Stores in the US" in the IBUSWorld Industry reports I found a number of things interesting. One that stuck out the most to me was the fact about how the Grocery Store and Supermarket industry makes up the largest food retail channel in the U.S. They are accounting for more than 72% of a $680 billion industry. I guess if I think about it it does make sense because I cannot think of any other large food retail chains that could surpass this huge competition. 

Some other information I found that was great was the graph charts displaying per capita disposable income. I found this intriguing because they had statistics for the past eight years but also the next four years as well. I would like to know how they found that data and maybe learn how to figure it out for myself.

It was hard to tell what my initial thoughts were about the future of this industry because there were graphs that showed expected data for the future. One of the graphs displayed the index of consumer sentiment in years. Consumer sentiment is basically when people choose shop at grocery stores versus eating out. Though eating out can be cheap, people still chose to buy their dinners at supermarkets than restaurants in 2004, with an index of about 95. During the recession of 2008-09, the index plummeted to roughly 65 because times were tough and people only had the money to spend on cheap fast food. Since then, it has slowly crept back up to about 70 now and is expected to keep rising up to 85 by 2018. All in all, the future looks bright for grocery stores and supermarkets seeing that they have had very few, if any, drops since the recession.

Another fascinating detail of information that caught my eye in this report was that in 2007 and 2008 were this industry’s most successful years, in which revenue grew 1.7% and 2.5%, respectively. I found this to be interesting because the recession started in 2008 and revenue actually did not start to fall until 2010 and 2011, according the the graphs. The reason for this is that consumers did not start widening their budgets until this time and they returned to pre-recession food habits, including visiting restaurants.

This is just a brief summary of our industry from the prospective of the article I found called "Supermarkets and Grocery Stores in the US." 

http://clients1.ibisworld.com.proxyau.wrlc.org/reports/us/industry/default.aspx?entid=1040