Oct 27, 2017

By: Doug Baker, Vice President, Private Brands & Technology, Food Marketing Institute
Crossroads

As we advised earlier this year in our report, The Power of Private Brands, one of food retail’s most effective strategic competitive tools and primary differentiator is under threat. Understanding disruptive consumer behavior as the competitive battle between food retail channels intensifies is critical to the success of your brand. Private brands effectively build customer loyalty when FMI members find the right balance, combining basic needs for which shoppers will return in combination with innovation and excitement. Finding the right balance requires creativity, experimentation and trial and error. RevenueShield® will protect FMI members as they find the right balance and achieve success for their private brands.

According to The Power of Private Brands, ninety-six percent of U.S. households bring home private brands. Millennials in particular are embracing private brands with a greater propensity to be heavy buyers, critical to long-term growth. On social media, those same customers are very willing advocates of private brand products. However, food and product safety issues are one of private brand’s biggest threats.

A single product recall combined with a foodborne illness outbreak will devastate your brand. The long-term growth derailed, if not lost. The social media advocates will advocate for another private brand while criticizing your brand for failing to protect their and their friends’ families. The right balance quickly destroyed.

RevenueShield is designed to support your team as you find the right balance and protect the necessary investments in operations and supply chain. Supported by Berrian’s industry experts and its Strategic Partner Network, RevenueShield assists your efforts in addressing the gaps that can create opportunity for your private brand success.

RevenueShield can also assist FMI members by addressing another opportunity gap, diversity of private brand portfolio. In order to achieve a diverse product portfolio, food retailers must work with trading partners to optimize supply chain efficiency. Changes in supply chain efficiencies and new trading partners will produce private brand portfolio diversity while introducing new and different exposures to your own risk portfolio.

RevenueShield’s Strategic Partner, ReposiTrak®, can assist your supply chain optimization by automating the collection and management of documents from approved suppliers to prove their compliance with business and regulatory requirements. With ReposiTrak in place, RevenueShield experts can easily review vendor contracts and ensure your insurance coverage comprehensively protects you against the new exposures. Establishing this level of visibility into your supply chain will not only reduce risk, but also the insurance premiums you will pay in a new RevenueShield program.

The pace of change is unprecedented for food retailers, distributors and suppliers. The industry disruptions are bringing extraordinary opportunities and exceptional challenges. To support our members in this intensifying competitive environment, we partnered with Berrian to create this new FMI Member Plus Program. RevenueShield can protect your brand, balance sheet and investment as your team seeks the right balance to achieve private brand success.