top of page
Top Nav.jpg

Solutions

Solutions-bg-image.jpg

Not sure where to start?

Now you can uncover the right solution for your business within a few clicks.

We measure demand so our clients understand where they have risks and opportunities.

FEATURED

Analyze sales performances across channels.

Consumer demographics and preferences.

See actual behaviors for actionable results.

Consumption — in and away from home.

We help our clients accelerate demand by focusing on the best opportunities for the greatest impact on their business.

FEATURED

Diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive insights.

Reach the right audience at the right time.

Maximize every media dollar.

Improve retailer-supplier efficiency & effectiveness.

Resources

purple-gradient2.jpg
Spend-Tracker-Thumbnail.png

CPG Consumer Spend Tracker

Download our weekly U.S. consumer packaged goods sector monitoring report.

New strategies and tactics.

Circana's official announcements.

Circana in the press.

Industry rankings vs. previous data period.

Deep expertise from global industry leaders.

Perspectives from our industry and thought leaders.

A curriculum to address your needs.

Solving challenges that matter to your business.

Growth-Insights-header1.jpg

Join Circana thought leaders, industry partners, and guests to learn how opportunities, trends, and market disruptions will impact your business.

3 Solutions for Managing Supply Chain Disruptions in Grocery Retail 

Posted in:

Category

Jonna Parker

Principal II, Fresh Foods Client Insights Group

...We always recommend manufacturers monitor their volume data on a weekly basis, rather than waiting for slow, high-level...updates...

  • Writer: Jonna Parker
    Jonna Parker
  • Dec 9, 2024
  • 3 min read

Updated: Apr 2

By Jonna Parker, Team Lead, Fresh Foods Group


As the pandemic faded into the rearview mirror and U.S. consumers grappled with two years of historic inflation, 2024 was to be the year grocery retailers and manufacturers got back to normal. But the summer and early fall brought disruptive events in the form of headline-dominating food safety issues and the threat of a dock workers’ strike. An issue with deli meat left cases empty in some of the highest-volume U.S. retail chains in late July, and news of the pending strike in October led people to hoard toilet paper. Significant supply chain disruptions – whether caused by a strike, a recall, or a viral video-induced influx of consumer demand – can happen at any time to anyone in the retail food industry.


While it’s impossible to be fully prepared for these kinds of disruptions, there are questions manufacturers and retailers need to ask themselves during a disruption to help them move from a reactive posture to a proactive one. The answers to these questions will help determine what the disruption means for consumers, and it will help manufacturers and retailers identify strategies to regain or even increase sales.


Strategy 1: Look at the most current and detailed market sales data for the affected period.


We always recommend manufacturers monitor their volume data on a weekly basis, rather than waiting for slow, high-level monthly or quarterly updates. When major supply chain disruptions occur, organizations need access to the latest granular data about market dynamics. Point-of-sale data is now available eight days after period close, even in fresh and random-weight categories. During a period of unprecedented disruption, upgrading to weekly data deliveries can help organizations act faster and minimize guesswork about where and how consumers respond.


Strategy 2: Categorize your shopper types and understand how they impact your products’ volume.


How does your product’s volume change based on different types of shoppers, such as new, lost, retained, and whether they are heavy, medium, or light users?


It’s critically important for manufacturers to understand what’s happening to their volume – including knowing their products’ heavy, medium, and light consumers – before and after a disruptive event. Understanding how much volume each consumer type drives will be a clue about how fast (and how difficult) it will be to recover.

For example, in the spring and summer preceding the U.S. deli meat disruption, the service deli industry was already trending lower in pounds and dollar sales versus the prior year. At the time, few realized more shoppers were leaving deli meat than were entering the category. 


Diagnosing the category’s retention and buy rate problem prior to the emergency of food safety concerns signaled that recovering to pre-disruption pounds would take more than just getting product back on shelf. It will require a longer-term effort to earn back the heaviest buyers’ trust and assure them the category still offers value. 



Source: Circana, Integrated Fresh Scan Panel, 9/12/21-10/6/24 


Strategy 3: Consider how grocery supply chain disruptions are impacting other products.


Disruptions to demand don’t just affect the item at the center – they also affect companion items and behaviors related to how that item is consumed or used. Brands shouldn’t assume they know with what other products their consumers use their product, what else they buy in the same basket, or products for which they are substituting. Instead, they should review co-purchase and switching data before, during, and after an event to update their knowledge of their own products. 


For example, many thought deli’s loss would be a gain for packaged lunchmeat in the meat department, but at Circana, we knew very few packaged lunchmeat buyers also buy deli meat. The two spaces have very little overlap in the same trip and retailer. When deli meat was disrupted, it might’ve been easy to assume consumers would view these products interchangeably, but behavior and switching data told a different story.




Source: Circana, Integrated Fresh Scan Panel, for the 4 weeks ending Oct. 8, 2024 vs. a year ago


When a major disruption impacts a category or a retailer, many organizations opt to just weather the storm and adjust their strategies as events unfold. But organizations that proactively monitor their new, lost, and retained consumers, their volume data, and consumer switching behaviors can respond quicker and, in some cases, recover their costs. 


Do you have any questions for Circana? Email GrowthInsights@circana.com.  

Want to be prepared for the next disruption? Consider Circana’s Liquid Data Go™ to bring the power of big data insights to any size company or budget. Request your free trial today! 

About the author

Jonna Parker has been an innovator in the fresh foods space for nearly two decades, driving the evolution of consumer-centric decision making and big-data analytics throughout the perimeter. Since joining Circana in 2016, Parker has led the development of fresh foods with a focus on bringing the big-data power enjoyed by CPG departments and manufacturers to the fresh perimeter departments. She also spearheaded the development of the Integrated Fresh solution, which  harmonized all food and beverage code types across Circana’s Liquid Data platform. Integrated Fresh modernized food and beverage sales data into a single easy-to-use tool, becoming the industry’s system of record and a 2020 SIIA CODiE Award finalist for business technology.


A top industry thought leader, Parker regularly contributes content to and is quoted in trade publications such as Produce Business, The National Provisioner, Winsight Grocery Business, and CSP Magazine. She has also been a speaker on fresh food industry trends and strategies at several top industry events and has partnered with FMI as a cohost of Top Trends in Fresh webinar series for more than 5 years. Progressive Grocer named her a Top Woman in Grocery in 2021 and 2023.

View all solutions that

bottom of page