Fresh food innovation

In July 2024, Kroger announced the launch of Field & Vine, a new private brand comprised of produce grown by U.S. farmers. 

The fresh produce line currently includes blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries. Kroger said Field & Vine offers high-quality berries during peak U.S. growing seasons.

Farmers pick, pack and deliver the produce under Field & Vine to the grocer’s stores “during peak seasonality,” Dan De La Rosa, Kroger's group vice president of fresh merchandising, said in the announcement.

"Harvesting at just the right time during the U.S. growing season allows us to provide our customers with an enhanced fresh experience, offering the highest-quality, best-tasting berries possible,” De La Rosa said. 

Kroger is sourcing Field & Vine produce from farmers in California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington state. 

Local sourcing decreases transit time and allows for better freshness and quality, Kroger said. Identifying where produce is grown helps customers “feel good about supporting their local growers,” Matthew Giddings, chief operating officer of Always Fresh Family Farms, said in the announcement. 

Fresh food has been a key selling point Kroger and Albertsons have made in support of their proposed merger, with the companies claiming their combination “is expected to advance Kroger's strategy of Leading with Fresh” by expanding their network of stores, distribution centers and suppliers. 

Field & Vine not only ties into Kroger’s emphasis on fresh foods but also builds on the grocer’s extensive work to boost its private label assortment. Earlier in 2024, the grocer revealed a revamp of its pet line Abound and added new oven- and microwave-ready seafood options to its Private Selection, Kroger and Home Chef brands. At the start of 2024, Kroger said it reformulated popular deli and bakery items, including its Home Chef fried chicken and Private Selection cinnamon rolls.

In 2023, Kroger launched a Hispanic-inspired private brand called Mercado and also modernized the branding and website for Murray’s Cheese.

Costco’s famous rotisserie chickens are getting a glow up: The widely recognizable domed rigid plastic containers housing the chickens are being replaced with flexible plastic bags — at least in some locations.

A display sign accompanying the chickens at the company’s Issaquah, Washington, store indicates that the packaging switch will result in a 75% reduction in plastic use, saving more than 17 million pounds of resin annually, according to photos taken by sister site Packaging Dive. It also estimates “a carbon reduction of 4,000 metric tons,” equivalent of removing 1,000 trucks from the road.

Costco did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Packaging Dive about the new packaging, including if and when it will be implemented across the country.

The Flexible Packaging Association noted via email that flexible packaging uses the least amount of packaging that is necessary to protect products by optimizing the volume and weight, which results in the smallest package-to-product ratio. In addition, many rigid plastic containers aren’t currently recyclable, which can result in more material going to disposal than by using flexible, stand-up pouches, Alison Keane, FPA president and CEO, wrote via email.

“FPA is not surprised that Costco made the switch from [rigid] plastic packaging to flexible packaging, as in addition to using less plastic overall, switching to flexible packaging also has other environmental benefits,” Keane said. “It reduces water and energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions during production and storage of the package and reduces the product manufacturers greenhouse gas emissions during transportation.”

 

Last July, Costco said that it had recently adopted packaging guidelines as part of its sustainability efforts, with the initial focus on its in-house Kirkland brand. “The goal is to reduce packaging waste, while still protecting products, ensuring food safety and complying with laws and regulations,” said Tim Wahlquist, who oversees Costco’s packaging team, in a statement at the time.

The guidelines include examining where less packaging material can be used, whether boxes and plastic containers are made from recycled materials and whether virgin box fiber comes from certified forests. They also look at whether new packaging is recyclable or certified compostable and whether the labeling is clear to help consumers properly dispose of packaging.

While the overall goal is to reduce plastic packaging, such as by lightweighting or switching substrates, Wahlquist noted in his statement that sometimes plastic still makes the most sense for product preservation: “Until feasible alternatives are available, Costco’s goals are to have plastic packaging made from recycled content and be widely recyclable.”

WestRock revealed last summer that Costco asked it to develop fiber-based handles as an alternative to plastic ring carriers for multipack bottles and jars. WestRock then developed the EnduraGrip and Cluster-Clip fiber “dog bone” carriers, which it said are curbside recyclable.

Last October, Costco reached an agreement with ESG investing firm Green Century Funds and pledged to release data regarding Kirkland’s total plastic footprint, broken down by plastic type, and how much recycled content is in its plastic packaging; the data release is expected by July. Costco also committed to developing a five-year action plan detailing steps to reduce Kirkland’s plastic use, which is scheduled for release in December.

“Despite Costco’s recent commitments, more work is needed to address the company’s exposure to single use plastics,” Green Century said in a statement at the time.

Costco operates more than 850 warehouses globally and sold 137 million rotisserie chickens in 2023, an increase of 20 million chickens compared with 2022, according to executives at January’s annual shareholders’ meeting where they discussed full-year financial results.

SpartanNash’s Family Fare chain is getting a makeover designed to give the decades-old banner a modern look and feel.

The first refreshed Family Fare store, located at 993 Butternut Drive in Holland, Michigan, opened in August 2024 and will serve as a model for future Family Fare remodels, SpartanNash said in its announcement about the location’s reopening.

The store stays true to the chain’s original pillars — fresh, value and convenience — while making strides to elevate the in-store shopping experience and expand offerings, Bennett Morgan, SpartanNash’s chief merchandising officer, said in an interview. 

Family Fare’s Holland storefront, which spans nearly 34,000 square feet, includes a wide array of foodservice options that cater to consumers’ growing demand for grab-and-go meals. Beyond flashy meal offerings, the store has also lowered prices on more than 6,000 fresh and center store products as well as goods from SpartanNash’s Own Brands line, Morgan said.

Fresh & foodservice-focused

Offerings in the newly revamped Family Fare location pull inspiration from the local Michigan community as well as bring in staples from other SpartanNash banners, Morgan said. 

The bakery features 10 SKUs of freshly baked artisan bread and will serve tres leches cake and scratch-made bolillos, staples from SpartanNash’s Supermercado chain, Morgan said.

The nostalgic vintage candy section gives a nod to Family Fare’s 1960s history, he added. And the grocer tapped the Ludington Meat Company, a local Michigan business, to supply and co-develop the store’s beef jerky bar. 

“The Ludington folks are quite well known for their jerky, and we partner with them,” Morgan said. “And they basically experiment with us to put this jerky bar in and brought in their product.”

The Holland Family Fare is also providing offerings for shoppers who are looking for hot-and-ready meals. 

One meal option is grain bowls, Morgan said. Family Fare is currently piloting eight grain bowl meals in numerous flavors with proteins like salmon, flank steak and chicken. 

Shoppers can also opt to indulge in the grocer’s three fried sandwich options: a crispy chicken sandwich with hot honey, a pork loin sandwich and a wild-caught fried cod sandwich, Morgan said. The sandwich offering, in particular, is performing well and fueling Family Fare’s convenience image for busy customers, he added.

While customer perceptions of “fresh” and “value” were the areas Family Fare primarily saw the need to revamp, “convenience” was an area the chain already felt it catered well to as it readied to reopen the Holland store, Morgan said. 

SpartanNash struggled in the past with enticing customers with its meal kit offerings, according to Morgan. In the remodeled store, messaging highlights that meal solutions cost $20 and take just 20 minutes to cook. The kits are displayed in coolers at the store’s entrance to increase visibility.

Fresh cut fruit is another offering highlighting convenience at the Holland store. The seasonal fruit, cut fresh in-store comes in various container sizes and is ready for shoppers to eat, Morgan noted.

Getting the message out

Family Fare is leveraging in-store retail media to drive its core values of fresh, value and convenience home to shoppers, Morgan said, adding that the upgraded Holland store features additional in-store TVs and is testing digital end-caps. 

“One of the things we’re trying to do with the TVs is try to put some of the preparation of the items on the TVs, so the customer really understand that that tres leches cake that you’re buying, it’s actually made there, the artisan breads are baked fresh, the cut fruit was cut fresh,” Morgan said. “Those things are really important to customers to understand in terms of the quality of the product that they’re getting and the craft of what we’re doing in the stores.” 

SpartanNash works with different retail media providers and is not currently able to disclose specific partners, a spokesperson for the company said.

SpartanNash plans to debut a second revamped Family Fare location in the Sparta neighborhood of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in early October, Morgan said.

Dollar General now offers fresh fruits and vegetables at more than 5,000 locations, pushing the discount chain past a goal it laid out early last year.

The retailer is also deploying AI-based perishable food-ordering technology from Shelf Engine and plans to bring the platform to about 3,000 stores by the end of fiscal year 2023.

This push to bring fresh food to more stores has come as the retailer has shaken up its strategy in a bid to improve its financial performance. The company runs more than 19,000 stores in 48 states and is continuing to expand its footprint, although it plans to add fewer stores in 2024 than it did last year. Dollar General posted better results than analysts had expected during its latest quarter, when it opened 263 stores, but would have lost market share during the period without the new locations, according to analysts.

Jeffery Owen, Dollar General’s former CEO, announced the company’s intention to offer produce in at least 5,000 stores by the end of 2023 during an earnings call last March — just a few months before he was dismissed from his post “to restore stability and confidence.”

In a January press release about its produce expansion, Dollar General drew attention to the role it plays in providing access to grocery staples. About 80% of the retailer’s stores serve communities with a population of 20,000 or less, and people in these areas often depend on Dollar General to purchase essentials like milk, eggs, cheese, and frozen and canned vegetables, the company said.

“We are constantly looking for ways to better serve our customers and one of our top priorities is to ensure the communities we call home have access to fresh, affordable, and convenient food options,” Emily Taylor, Dollar General’s executive vice president and chief merchandising officer, said in a statement. 

Dollar General added that it now distributes produce at more individual locations than any other grocer or mass retailer in the United States, although the company offers consumers a much smaller selection of perishables than its competitors. The retailer’s “curated assortment” of fresh fruits and vegetables includes tomatoes, apples, strawberries, potatoes, lemons and salad mixes, according to the press release.

In addition to adding fresh foods to additional locations, Dollar General has taken steps to boost sales of frozen and refrigerated items through an internal distribution initiative known as DG Fresh. The company believes DG Fresh could allow it to eventually bring produce to more than 10,000 stores, Owen said during an earnings call last August.

Whole Foods Market has partnered with Too Good To Go to make excess food available for purchase at a reduced price for customers, according to a July 2024 announcement.

More than 450 of the specialty grocer’s stores are now connected to the food waste company’s app.

This partnership is Whole Foods’ latest effort as it works to cut food waste in half by 2030 and comes as other grocers have forged similar partnerships aimed at reducing the amount of perishable food they throw away.

Whole Foods’ tie-up with Too Good To Go stretches nationwide, allowing customers to purchase “Surprise Bags” containing surplus food from nearby Whole Foods stores. 

Too Good To Go, a Denmark-based company, provides food retail partners a platform to sell bags of soon-to-expire but still edible excess food through its mobile app. The company uses its app to notify customers when stores have available bags and let them confirm they will pick up the food.,

Whole Foods customers can choose between Prepared Foods Surprise Bags that offer soups and ready-to-eat meals, or Bakery Surprise Bags that include breads, muffins, scones and cookies. The prepared food bags will be priced at $9.99 for $30 worth of goods, while the bakery bags will be sold for $6.99 for $21 worth of items, according to the press release.

Too Good To Go, which has more than 100 million registered users across the globe, noted that its work with Whole Foods will simplify surplus food management for the specialty grocer. Along with Whole Foods, Too Good To Go has partnerships with New York City-based grocer Gourmet Garage and convenience store chain Circle K. 

This partnership builds on Whole Foods’ food donations efforts, which include nearly 34 million pounds of food given to food programs across the U.S., Caitlin Leibert, the grocer’s vice president of sustainability, said in a statement. Recently, the grocer revised its standards for animal welfare and third-party certifications for meat products sold in its stores.

Grocers are building out their fresh meat offerings through full-service counters as shoppers continue to seek the classic butcher shop experience from their local supermarket.

As ramping up the in-store experience becomes a vital step for grocers post-pandemic, full-service meat counters has become a way to beef up their offerings and draw in customers with fresh cuts as well as human connections.

Fresh meat sales in December ticked up 2% compared to the same month last year, reaching $5.9 billion while processed meat sales dipped 4.4%, totaling $3 billion, according to Circana data cited by 210 Analytics.

As grocers face growing competition from mass retailers for meat department sales — the latter gained 2% in meat department sales from 2019 to 2023 while traditional grocery saw sales shrink 3% — meat counters are one way they can cut a larger slice of fresh meat sales.  

Fareway Market, for example, has been capitalizing off the growing meat industry in recent years by opening Fareway Meat Market stores, each with a “second-to-none, full-service butcher counter,” according to a recent press release. Shoppers don’t have to go to a Meat Market location to get the full-service counter experience: Fareway’s regular grocery stores have a virtual meat counter so customers can “learn how to be best prepared for [their] next trip to Fareway,” the grocer’s website noted. 

Fareway’s butchers, like many meat experts staffed behind other grocers’ full-service counters, are available to assist customers. Butchers and trained meat associates offer guidance on making premium selections, provide advice or inspiration and address special requests, FMI — The Food Industry Association’s 2023 Power of Meat report said. 

Here’s a breakdown of the most popular items shoppers purchase from grocer’s full-service meat counters, and a look at the category’s sales over the past few years.

Data insights

Consumers gravitate towards full-service counters rather than self-service cases mainly when they are seeking out advice or have questions for the butchers, such as the thickness of cuts or how much they should purchase. Aside from communicating with a grocer’s meat experts, a full-service counter provides a place for “premium” meat cuts to stand out, according to FMI’s findings. 

 

Fresh meat sales skyrocketed in 2020 to more than $55 billion, according to Circana data. While still increasing slightly for the last two years, meat sales saw slower growth just shy of 5% in 2022 and less than 1% in 2023. 

 

Stand-out grocers

A peek into the cutting room

One of Whole Foods Market’s most show-stopping locations resides in Manhattan where the retail destination has not only grab-and-go meals and opportunities for in-store dining and education but also a meat-cutting room on full display. 

The window puts full-size cuts of meat as well as the grocer’s trained butchers in full view of customers to both inspire and educate. Shoppers have the opportunity to ask the butchers questions about selecting cuts, portion sizes, thickness, marinades and cooking guidance.

Carrying on a North American butcher legacy

Canadian grocer Freson Bros. views its meat department as not just a counter but as a part of its history. Alongside meat cuts like cross rib roasts, porterhouse steaks and bone-in sirloin steaks, Freson operates a dry age hanging beef program in every store. 

The grocery chain offers custom orders of Alberta dry-aged carcass beef and sources from Alberta’s livestock for its beef, pork, chicken and turkey selections. Freson also exclusively offers sausages made in-store.

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Freson Bros. (@fresonbros)

 What's trending?

When faced with the choice between fresh meat and processed meat, customers seem much more likely to select fresh meat. While both categories saw year-over-year dips in volumes in 2023, processed meat saw a steeper decline of 3.2% compared to fresh meat, which dipped just 1.4%, according to Circana data cited by 210 Analytics.

With grocers eyeing ways to offer in-store experiences and shoppers gravitating toward fresh meats, establishing an eye-catching full-service meat counter could be in grocers’ best interests. FMI’s 2023 report noted that these full-service counters give food retailers a “perceptual advantage.”

Walmart announced June 2024 it will pilot agriculture technology to get real-time information on crops and improve sourcing decisions around produce.

The partnership with crop supply intelligence company Agritask will deploy remote sensing and data analytics tools in various regions in the U.S. and Mexico and provide hyperlocal information on blackberry and cherry crops grown by certain Walmart suppliers.

The pilot comes at a time when the grocery industry is seeking out more ways to streamline their supply chains and better react to fast-changing climate conditions that can affect prices and product availability.

Walmart said the first-of-its-kind Agritask initiative aims to reduce food waste, provide fresher produce to customers and improve supply chain management by giving sourcing managers more information about factors impacting seasonal crops. 

Climate, especially, is playing a major role in supply chain disruptions. A recent report from Everstream Analytics said extreme weather events are the top risk facing supply chains in 2024.

The USDA has estimated that 30% of food loss occurs during agricultural production and harvest. The agency noted in a report that weather, disease and pests are major factors impacting food loss and quality in the food supply chain, flagging unpredictable weather as a key driver of food loss. 

"This pilot offers innovative solutions to address climate change and improve industry sustainability,” Kyle Carlyle, vice president of sourcing innovation and surety of supply at Walmart, said in an email. “Amid changing weather patterns, these technologies help us adjust sourcing strategies, ensuring product availability and quality despite climate challenges.”

Walmart and Agritask said they selected cherries and blackberries for the pilot because those fruits are highly sensitive to temperature fluctuations and moisture levels, which can impact their growth and quality. The information the companies gather could, for example, allow managers to receive information about unexpected frost harming cherry production or information about harvesting delays, which could result in inventory changes. 

"Dealing with challenges in purchasing and planning accuracy in agriculture due to data discrepancies and environmental uncertainties can be tough," Carlyle said in the announcement. "Agritask’s technology has the potential to fill vital information gaps that sourcing managers often face when predicting yield." 

Israel-based Agritask positioned its technology as a scalable and “climate-smart” solution that taps into 15 years of agricultural supply chain insights. 

The pilot is happening in collaboration with Walmart Global Tech’s Sparkubate program, which supports startup innovations. Depending on how the pilot goes, Walmart may consider using Agritask solutions and insights at scale for a second season, the announcement said. 

Walmart noted that the Agritask tie-up joins a growing roster of tech-driven supply chain projects the retailer has undertaken. Those initiatives include a 3-D weaving tech pilot with fashion company Unspun and a carbon capture pilot with Rubi Laboratories.

Trader Joe’s has increased its banana prices from 19 cents individually to 23 cents. The price change occurred recently and “still represents a tremendous everyday value” for bananas, the spokesperson, Nakia Rohde, wrote.

“We only change our prices when our costs change, and after holding our price for Bananas at 19¢ each for more than two decades, we’ve now reached a point where this change is necessary,” Rohde wrote.

The 21% increase for individual bananas at Trader Joe’s is notable as grocers have long spotlighted bananas in their marketing efforts as a way of signaling low prices to shoppers. 

Over the years, Trader Joe’s proudly touted its previous individual banana price. The grocer’s website shares the story of a long-time customer in Sun City, Arizona, who nearly 25 years ago told then-CEO Dan Bane that she wanted to be able to buy bananas individually.

“Back then, we thought 19¢ was a fair price for one banana,” the grocer noted. “Decades later, Bananas are still only 19¢ each, every day, in every store. Heck, if you’re feeling really wild, you can buy a big bunch of five beautiful bananas for less than a buck!” 

Now, five bananas cost $1.15.

Keeping prices the same over many years is difficult to do in an industry where inflation, supply chains and consumer promotions are constantly changing. But it does happen in rare cases. One other notable example is Costco’s $1.50 deal for a hot dog and a soda, which has been in place since 1985. 

While the banana prices are now higher, Rohde noted that Trader Joe’s has lowered prices for other items.

“[W]e have been able to negotiate costs for a number of our products, and have lowered our retail prices accordingly. A few examples: Raw Almonds are now $3.99 a pound, down a dollar; Romaine Hearts are now $2.99, down 50¢; Organic Tri-Color Bell Peppers are $4.49, a reduction of 50¢; and Green Onions are now 99¢, our lowest price in at least a decade,” Rohde wrote.

While consumers continue to worry about food prices, grocery inflation has calmed in recent months. In February, food-at-home prices rose at a 1% annual rate — the slowest rate of grocery inflation since June 2021 — according to Consumer Price Index data.