Celebrating 125 years of service to grocery retailers, California Grocers Association is recognised as a leading resource in government and industry relations for grocery retail. Grocery stores are a huge part of our communities and can easily be impacted by legislative changes every year. In the latest episode of Digital Grocer, hosts Sylvain Perrier and Mark Fairhurst are joined by Doug Scholz, Senior Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer at California Grocers Association. Advocating for a state with over 39 million people, California Grocers Association works at the state level to acti ..read more

Digital Grocer hosts Sylvain Perrier and Mark Fairhurst are back for season 6! In this first show of the season, the duo discusses the latest research findings from Mercatus’ grocery eCommerce forecast, published in partnership with Brick Meets Click. They reveal how the grocery eCommerce forecast will impact grocery retailers’ ability to retain customer loyalty. The show features Joel Percy, Regional Director at Eagle Eye, and formerly Director of Loyalty Marketing at Loblaw Companies Limited, who shares his thoughts on key elements defining grocery retail loyalty today. Throughout the segmen ..read more

The beards are back with Between2Beards tales from the road. This time Sylvain Perrier and Mark Fairhurst are on the west coast and travelled out to Coquitlam, BC to visit a brand new Save-On-Foods location that recently opened September 1 2022. Come along as they check out the new grocery store design and layout, and the 16,000 sqft on site MFC that will fulfill online orders come November 2022. (Thanks to Jamie and the store staff for a great tour!) The Digital Grocer hosts compare this store model to ones they’ve seen in the US, and how they think hybrid store and MFCs models could be the f ..read more

David Hardiman-Evans, SVP, North America for Ocado Solutions, dials in from the UK to speak with Sylvain and Mark about how grocery technology is reshaping the landscape. David talks about Ocado’s origins in 2000 as an online-only company, which aimed at the outset to find a different way of operating. Their approach includes an emphasis on aggregation, automation and grocery technology, for the purposes of optimizing operations and delivering a compelling customer experience.  Much of the benefit to Ocado’s grocery retail partners is around cost reduction, which is necessary to run a sus ..read more

Sylvain and Mark begin by discussing two big developments in the grocery industry. One is Amazon’s launch of “pay-by-palm” technology at Whole Foods. The other is the entry into the market of what Mark calls “pure eGrocery” companies — online companies that sell food direct to consumer. The pair look at the example of Misfits Market, which recently raised $200 million in series C funding, speculating on the implications for other industry players as well as how the valuations are derived. To shed some light on the issue of valuations is this week’s guest: Dan McCarthy from Emory University, wh ..read more

Mark and Sylvain start by covering the latest news in grocery. Canadian grocer Sobeys’ acquired regional grocer Longo’s in another move by this fast-growing retailer. And in the US, the NGA urges investigation of large US grocers for “illegal and anticompetitive business practices.” As we consider how the market continues to evolve each month, Mark quotes David Bishop from Brick Meets Click who noted the two key success factors for regional grocers. "Why is it that a shopper goes to a local regional grocery as opposed to a large mass merchant chain?...It's two things. It's their product assort ..read more

Sylvain and Mark kick off this show with a chat about hot industry news: Marc Lore is leaving Walmart and Instacart is hiring a veteran from Goldman Sachs as CFO.  The duo then welcomes back to the show David Bishop, Partner, Brick Meets Clicks, who’s here today to share key results from his firm’s latest survey: State of the US eGrocery Market, November 2020. David points out that: “customer satisfaction is a leading indicator for repeat purchases. And it also tells us a lot of other things around the fulfillment methods and areas of opportunity that the retailers can really explore to c ..read more

Groceryshop 2019: Interview with Bernardine Wu, CEO of FitforCommerce. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information ..read more

Groceryshop 2019: Straight from the Mercatus booth -part 1. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information ..read more

This episode features a wide-ranging conversation with Sylvain and Kevin Coupe, The Content Guy over at MorningNewsBeat.com.  Sylvain opens the conversation by asking Kevin why retailers don't always think of themselves as a brand and don't use their own data to the greatest possible degree and using Walmart's evolution as an example. To a great extent, Amazon has woken everybody up to the value of customer data in growing customer affinity through suggestive selling. The conversation turns to a timely topic, which is the risks that come with using gig workers as an extensi ..read more