By: Doug Baker, Vice President, Private Brands, Food Marketing Institute 
At the recent FMI Private Brands Business Conference, I heard from FMI members and attendees one very common theme—it’s time for change. As a category, U.S. private brands are seeing slowing growth, especially compared to the private brand industries in other countries. What’s needed is to move our private brands industry from transactional-based relationships to more collaborative relationship.
To help do this, FMI is teaming up with The Partnering Group to build a Collaborative Private Brands Business Planning tool. This is a retail and supplier business planning process that helps accelerate and drive private brand development.
Collaborative Business Planning (CBP) is not Category Management, Joint Business Planning or a Private Brands corporate strategy. Clearly these are all important planning programs. However, a CBP specifically focuses on how a retailer and private brand supplier drive sales, profits while supporting category goals and retailer corporate PB strategy. The end goal is a series of resources that help food retailers and manufactures become more efficient with strained resources.
We have received strong early commitment from the retail community. We invite interested retailers and suppliers to join the project to develop and pilot test this Collaborative Business Planning process. If you are interest in participating or wish to learn more, contact me at dbaker@fmi.org.
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