The Evolution of Food Broker to Food Marketer

John Carroll is Acosta Group President, Digital Commerce + Advanced Analytics. John has more than 30 years of experience in CPG, food and beverage and has held senior leadership positions in brand, sales, commercial, e-commerce and operations. Before joining Acosta in 2020 (then as chief growth officer) he was with The Coca-Cola Company for nearly 25 years and before that, P&G. John is here with us today to discuss some of the big topics for brands and retailers. 

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Phil 0:14

John Carroll is Acosta Group president, digital commerce + advanced analytics. John has more than 30 years of experience in CPG, food and beverage and has held senior leadership positions in brand, sales, commercial, e-commerce and operations. Before joining Acosta in 2020 (then as chief growth officer) he was with The Coca-Cola Company for nearly 25 years and before that, P&G. John is here with us today to discuss some of the big topics for brands and retailers. John, welcome to Lost in the Supermarket.

John 0:57

Thanks Phil, it's a pleasure to be here today.

Phil 1:00

So when we take a look at what's going on, 2023 is certainly gonna be an interesting year. We're coming out of hopefully the pandemic. we've had major supply chain issues. We have major price increases going on. And so I guess my question is, will 2023 be year of choice? Chaos? Opportunity? What's in your crystal ball?

John 1:25

I think a little bit of everything you just mentioned, Phil, I like to say that the last five years in retail have been the most progressive and disruptive in the last 50 years. And it's all driven by really three things. Number one, the changes in technology, without a doubt consumers needs for convenience and a focus on convenience. And then also the pandemic. It really brought retail, which I always said was a little bit behind from a technology perspective. I think it really forced the industry to make the massive changes that were necessary to keep up with the consumer. So I do think there's gonna be a little bit of everything. I think the economy is still uncertain. Inflation is a bit uncertain. I think it's a bit of a Tale of Two Cities from a consumer perspective. You have people that are doing fine from an economic perspective. You have people that are making more money based on what happened from a pandemic perspective in the labor shortage. But you have people that are still struggling based on all the price increases in inflation from an economy standpoint. So I think it's gonna be an interesting year. I think what we've all learned through the pandemic in the last few years with the advent of technology is that we have to be agile as a CPG company, as a fast consumer, fast moving consumer goods company. And as retailers we have to make sure that we understand that there's always gonna be changes and those changes are really gonna be led by the consumer and the shopper.

Phil 2:45

I'm glad you brought up technology because one of the things that I've noticed as well is in the past two or three years, retailers in particular have been throwing lots of money against technology. I agree with you, I think that the grocery industry was way behind on technology. But I guess my question to you and looking through your lens has the money that they've thrown at technology been effective or have they just been throwing money? Because now we're seeing companies pulling back on robotics and some of the things weren't working. Did they just try to bandaid approach or were they really strategic about it?

John 3:29

I think there's different examples with different retailers. I think there's some great examples of retailers like Walmart and some of the larger retailers, larger regional supermarkets that have really stepped up to the challenge and made changes from a technology standpoint and made the investments that are necessary. I listened to a few of your other podcasts and there were some feedback and some stats that I agree with you. If you're a retailer at this point of your e-commerce or digital commerce journey, you're actually losing money, especially if you're doing delivery or pickup. So I do think there's been a lot of experimentation and I think there's two things that really need to happen. I think we need to scale this overall. And I think we need to make sure that we understand that the technologies that are developed are really through the eyes of the consumer and the consumer lens. And we do a lot of research at Acosta, and what we're finding is most consumers are doing a little bit of both. They're shopping in store and they're shopping online. It's not mutually exclusive. They're doing both things. So making sure that you add the options to make a consumer and shopper's life easier through technology, whether that's an improvement in your app or the shopping experience in store. Giving them the information that they need, making sure that they have the opportunity to take advantage of deals, not only in store but also on the app is really the opportunity for both CPG companies as well as the retailer.

Phil 4:53

And how do see Acosta Group really help CPG brands and retailers understand that? My dad was a food broker. Acosta started out as just being food brokers. It's changed a lot since that point. Now I I would probably say you're more a strategic partner to people than you are a broker.

John 5:17

You know, Phil, I think that's really well said. And that's been a journey for us over the last three years. Acosta is a 95 year old company, started in Jacksonville, Florida and really serve a really strong purpose from an industry perspective, which is helping CPG companies get their brands on the shelf of retailers. That was the basic purpose of any broker out there. And the business is changing dramatically. So we're both a sales and a marketing agency. And so what we do and what our purpose is, we connect people to the brands they love. So we don't own brands, we don't own factors, we don't own trucks, but we work with large, small and mid-size CPGs to help connect their brands. Whether that's a Walmart or a Publix or a CVS or Walgreens, whether that's in a restaurant from a food service standpoint, whether that's in a Best Buy if you're a consumer electronics brand, or helping you drive your business with consumers and shoppers through inspirational marketing. So everything from design to great work, from a positioning perspective and branding. We do that all, we do that all at every step of the consumer's journey overall. So I think you said it really well. Brokers have be, need to become much more strategic. They need to be much more focused on the insights, the analytics and the data they need to be up to speed on what's going on with both the shopper and also the retailer to help position the brands that they're working with, the partners that they have to really drive those businesses and grow those businesses for those partners with retailers and consumers and shoppers.

Phil 6:45

You bring up data and there's still retailers in, in the us that have loyalty programs and they've got rings of data and they don't even know what to do with it. How do you approach a retailer, in particular that has the frequent shopper card program, they're just using it for discounts not much more than that. How do you bring them along to say, okay, you've got some really rich data here, we can really help you understand your shoppers better and as a result of that we can increase basket size, we could increase private label sales, whatever those things are. How do you hold their hand through this?

John 7:33

Yeah, I think it's the biggest opportunity that we have as an industry. And now's the time to really think through how we do it best together. And I remember the days when Category Management was started in kind of the early to mid nineties industry came together, both retailers and CPG companies to say, okay, "how do we work together on behalf of the consumer and the shopper to develop strategies that make sense and work for them, but also our win-win for retailers and also from the CPG company standpoint?". So the good news is we do have the technology and the means to actually reach consumers and shoppers better than we've ever had before. And I remember starting with Proctor & Gamble and working my way through Coca-Cola, the old days of sitting across from a buyer and saying, here's the price I'm gonna give you. Give me an end cap. Let's put a sign up. Let's stack it high and sell it well. That's evolving and changing very quickly. And the good news is, and you said it earlier, retailers have great data on what's going on at who their consumers and their shoppers are loyalty card data. They're also building these amazing retail media networks. So there's a real opportunity to change the dialogue to say, "okay, who is your best shopper?". Which brands from a CPG company match with those shoppers? And how do we develop personalized offers and communication to those shoppers to drive the business in the best way possible? And I think that's really the opportunity that we have as an industry to work strategically together. And we talked a little bit about profitability. From a retailer perspective, what are the best opportunities retailers have? And it's one of the reasons why they're pushing so hard on these retail media networks is to monetize the retail media networks. And if I think back 10 or 15 years ago, these retail media networks were just really add-ons. But now what we've seen with Amazon and to the success of Amazon and Walmart and Target, these retail media networks are absolute must-haves in your arsenal from a trade spend in a marketing spend standpoint to reach the shopper and consumer and do that in a very personalized way versus just doing the digital deals, reaching the consumer with the right message about the brand that makes sense for the retailer and the CPG company. To me, that's one of the biggest opportunities we have as an industry.

Phil 9:50

Besides technology, what do you think the pandemic did to retail and C P G as a major wake up call that they hadn't been thinking about now?

John 10:01

I think what's interesting is we're getting back to some of the things that make this industry so powerful and so great. It's one of the reasons why I joined this industry 35 years ago and why I love it so much. It's a people business. It's part of popular culture. You're introducing a brand, you see it at store level, it's got a lot of scale. You see it on an ad, you see a retailer promoting it. It's really about not just the technology and the insights which really are important. They're important ingredients. It's also about the really close relationships that CPG companies and retailers need to have to drive that business. It's the experience and the relationship that you have with that buyer or that senior executive. So I think what's happening has happened is there is a real focus on technology and what's next, but there's also kind of a regrounding since we weren't able to see each other for a long time of getting together and having those interpersonal discussions about the business, not just from a Zoom perspective, but getting together in a show, getting together in a store, walking an aisle together, having those relationships and deciding on what the best cause, best thing to do from an action perspective to satisfy the consumer in the shop. To me, that's one of the biggest refocuses on the industry that I'm so excited about. So it's the great relationships that we have combined with the awesome new technology that I think is the secret for our success in the future.

Phil 11:18

What's the biggest challenge for CPG brands and retailers? Are they the same challenge or do they both have different challenges?

John 11:28

Yeah, I think there are different challenges on each side. I think supply and chain really, the supply chain issues really showed us that. I mean we spent a decade and a half figuring out how to get our backroom rooms smaller and how to get our supply chain just in time. And that shocked us during the pandemic. So I think what we're focused on now at a cost with our clients and what we're hearing a lot from a retailer perspective is inflation is driving price up. How do we become more efficient from a unit perspective? How do we get more throughput overall? And again, I think the secret and the focus on that is really understanding what the consumer and the shopper needs. So how do you differentiate yourself as a brand? How do you provide the right service or the right features from a branding perspective to satisfy the consumer? And then from a retailer perspective, how do you offer that right experience to the shopper and consumer and that right experience today is not just that I'm walking in-store experience, it's that omni-channel experience that we talk about so much. It's the mobile phone experience, it's the screen experience and it's to the in-store experience. And what we talk to our clients about today and what we're uniquely positioned to do in the Acosta group is help CPG brands and retailers develop a plan that is a physical and a digital plan that work together. Because that's how consumers and shoppers are shopping now. You just can't have a brick and mortar plan and an afterthought on, on an online plan. It all has to work together. So I do think that is the secret from a success standpoint is to make sure that you're understanding that and you're building plans against the consumer and the shopper.

Phil 13:05

What are you most excited about from a consumer standpoint over the next two, three years?

John 13:12

I'm excited. Just got back from Expo West and that show always gives me such energy, but but more energy this year than it has in the last several years. There were over 3,000 brands represented. 800 of those 3,000 brands were new brands, Phil. And what excites me the most about the industry is what I saw at Expo West. The thing about Expo West versus a lot of other shows in the industry, and there's great shows, whether it's FMI or NCDS or or National Association of Convenience Stores, the great thing about Expo West is you got diversity that you don't see and many of these other areas in the industry. So you have women that are leading companies, you have people of color, you have young people, entrepreneurs that are developing these new brands based on what's going on from a newness standpoint, from a consumer perspective. So that really excites me a lot. The understanding what's going on with new emerging brands and whether that's plant-based snacking, whether that's the focus on sustainability that most big and big and small brands really are thinking about today. Because that's where the consumer is thinking about that really excites me. So it's the energy in the business, the diversity of the business combined with what's happening with some of these new technologies. Whether that's chatGPT and how that's going to change the world and how we're thinking about the business or robotics that you mentioned earlier. It really is a brave new world for all of us.

Phil 14:37

Well John, great insights as always. Thanks for joining us today on Lost in the Supermarket.

John 14:43

Okay. Thanks Phil. Appreciate it.