How to win in fresh in 2023: Forget one-size-fits-all

How to win in fresh in 2023: Forget one-size-fits-all

How to win in fresh in 2023: Forget one-size-fits-all

U.S. consumers in 2022 were nothing if not channel surfers. Tuned into a widening lineup of local retailers offering fresh food, consumers were willing to shop around and try new retailer categories as they sought to ease the pinch of grocery inflation, which stood at 11.8% in December.

How to win in fresh in 2023: Forget one-size-fits-all

Resonating with the 'not-one-size-fits-all' shopper

And so the idea of—perish the thought—“good enough” came to the fore in the fresh department. Maybe that new discounter or the warehouse club that’s been on the edge of town forever doesn’t have *the* biggest and best assortment of fresh perimeter items in town, but if the price is right both in fresh and throughout the store, is it good enough?

For grocery retailers, a key consideration is that pricing perceptions influence not only the items shoppers add to their cart but also where they decide to shop in the first place.

It can be easy for retailers to fixate on price or some other consumer need—e.g., convenience—and too narrowly focus their marketing and merchandising on how the retailer meets that need. But that fails to recognize the wide-ranging interests and priorities of consumers even within a single, likely overgeneralized demographic group.

You have to hand it to inflation-weary consumers: They maintain some perspective on their higher-than-it-used-to-be grocery spend—especially when they’re looking to justify acceptable indulgences.

U.S. consumers in 2022 were nothing if not channel surfers. Tuned into a widening lineup of local retailers offering fresh food, consumers were willing to shop around and try new retailer categories as they sought to ease the pinch of grocery inflation, which stood at 11.8% in December.

How many memes have you seen about the price of eggs lately? There’s the one about splurging on your valentine with an expensive gift—a few cartons of free-range—or the image of a hen carrying a tiny designer purse, to name a couple of popular posts.

If there’s one key point that Parker wants retailers to remember through 2023, it’s that consumers aren’t in some confounding-but-temporary, intermediate holding pattern—on the cusp of returning to their pre-pandemic or pre-high-inflation selves and shopping behaviors.