Village Farms has found retail grocery consumer scanner data to be a strong asset in building partnerships with its retail customers using category management. For example, most recently, Village Farms added a number of new value added pack sizes to its product offerings as a direct result of analysis from this market data.
Village Farms has for the past several years worked with the Perishables Group to develop customized reports based on quarterly retail scanner data aggregated by AC Nielsen for key commodities across 60% of the actual grocery channel base in the US. Village Farms, an industry leader in the hydroponic greenhouse tomato, cucumber, and sweet bell pepper categories has noted these data category segments have shown sustained growth.
Further analyzed by Village Farms for market trends, the data is utilized as a key planning tool both internally and with its customers. Doug Kling, SVP & Chief Marketing Officer says, "Village Farms fosters retail partnerships that add mutual value and build growth driven by actual results derived from this hard trend data."
Building on category management dynamics with key accounts throughout 2010, Village Farms has seen significant growth with core retail partners as well. Helen Aquino, Marketing Manager says, "Our partners find value in comparing overall market data with their own as competitive benchmarks on such measures as sales and volume."
Village Farms category management has helped drive decision making for its retail partners in areas such as; best pack size for growth, targeting price points, and building retail advantages that reduce shrink and provide a fresher product to its customers.
Village Farms looks forward to strengthening partnerships through its category management efforts into 2011 and growing its ability to customize this process with retailers for the future. Doug Kling adds, "It is our goal to build strong partnerships with our customer base that will continue to evolve in a challenging global economy thru information sharing that can mitigate risk by targeting future trends."
Source: Village Farms