Articles

The New Normal in Alberta’s Food Industry By Deb Draper In December 2020, there were 1,627 grocery stores in Alberta. Combined with beverage stores the food retail sector took 20 per cent of total retail sales, showing an increase of five percent in the last quarter of the year. During …

Back to school merchandising and products have changed – for the better By Robin Brunet Traditionally, the back to school season has been a merchandising bonanza for grocers, with several weeks prior to the September date spent heavily promoting anything that can be crammed into a lunchbox. But the dynamics …

Consumers are Back in the Kitchen By Karen Barr With the onset of COVID-19, Canadians stockpiled their pantries with baking ingredients. Consumers were buying in bulk to avoid frequent shopping trips. Lockdowns forced the country to stay home, which allowed for more time in the kitchen. According to the FCC …

What consumers want from convenient foods is changing, and suppliers and manufacturers have some great options to meet those expectations. By Carolyn Camilleri The trend towards convenient foods is by no means new, but it is evolving in new and interesting ways — so much so that “convenience” warrants a …

Western Canadians are closer to their homegrown food more than ever By Carly Peters Love for local in not new. However, in the past year, consumers eagerness to source and shop Canadian, and awareness of the importance of domestic products has only increased. Field Agent’s Local Grocery Study 2021, shows …

Freshco Expansion Breathes New Life into the Format By Jeff Doucette When I started my career in the CPG industry, I was based in Toronto and managing Loblaws national procurement for one of my employers major categories. While we always were keen to jump on the plane and head to …

As the country emerges from the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, every industry is facing questions.Questions like: what is the new normal – and what does the future hold?Nowhere are these questions more relevant than in digital grocery. The IBM Retail Index reports that the shift from brick-and-mortar retail to …

Independent and Proudly Community-Based Vancouver Island’s 49th Parallel Grocery has a long-standing family history of putting customers and community first. By Ronda Payne Most people get to a point where they chafe under the watchful eye of a parent. Peter Richmond is one of the few who thrives in these …

By Carly Peters There’s no playbook when it comes to a pandemic and when COVID-19 hit, grocers had to pivot in every direction. From finding solutions to supply chain disruption, setting up e-commerce solutions, to protecting employees and customers, this essential service had to rise to the occasion to ensure …

By Sylvain Charlebois on June 2, 2020 The economics of pay increases in the retail sector are always weak, especially in food retailing, which has low margins ‘Hero pay’ is quietly fading away in grocery stores and food distribution centres. That’s quite the reversal from 10 weeks ago. The American-based …