This week’s lineup captures a grocery industry being reshaped from multiple angles — supply shocks, shifting consumer behavior, and a decisive power shift toward private label.
Start in the cocoa belt, where climate pressure and structural challenges are forcing a rethink of one of the world’s most entrenched supply chains. Greg Madison explores how emerging technology could move beyond alternatives and toward a true (and tasty) replacement. He also returns with a clear-eyed look at GLP-1s, arguing they’re not creating a new shopper so much as accelerating changes already underway — and that grocers have plenty of room to adapt and profit.
Meanwhile, the battle for dinner is far from settled. Michael Rathburn outlines how supermarkets could claw back share from restaurants with a surprisingly straightforward playbook.
On the ground, Maria Maggio captures the industry in motion at a recent Eastern Produce Council Top Golf event, while the Food Trade News Team reports on Walmart’s once-a-decade Great Value overhaul — a move that underscores the dramatic surge in private label.
Global Chocolate Supply Is in Trouble… And Tech Is Moving In
There’s a relatively narrow, tropical belt where commercial quantities of cacao — the principal ingredient in chocolate — can grow. Most production comes from the West African countries of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana… where all is not well on the ground. The ravages of climate change, the threat of vicious plant diseases, and alarming allegations of child labor and slavery are severe structural vulnerabilities to the market.
Quite a few “Big Food” players are working on alternatives, on their own or with strategic partnerships, but one small, Mondelez-backed tech firm is working on a genuine replacement for the good stuff.
Greg Madison has the details of this intriguing story…
An Opportunity for Supermarkets to Reclaim Dinner
Americans spend around half their total food outlay on food-away-from-home — a category where restaurants have a natural edge. But inflation, surging food prices, and life in general are making dining out an increasingly un-appealing proposition.
Here is where grocery retail can make up some ground and capture some dollars that are very much in play right now.
Michael Rathburn lays out the simple strategy…
ICYMI: The GLP-1 Drugs Are Accelerating a Trend That Was Already Unfolding
Media coverage seems to treat GLP-1s like the herald of a brand-new kind of shopper — at best — and at worst, as the death knell for traditional grocery.
The reality is… they’re simply quickening the pace of shopping habits Gen Z and younger Millennials were already changing. And there’s real upside in learning how to “speak” to these health-conscious shoppers.
Greg Madison cuts through the GLP-1 hyperbole here…
Gallery: Eastern Produce Council Top Golf Event
The Eastern Produce Council held a Top Golf event in Edison, NJ, sponsored by the South Carolina Department of Agriculture.
At left are produce mavens Rich Martin of JOH, Noelle Neary of Wakefern, Patrick LePere of Procacci Bros., and Theresa Lowden of JOH.
You can view the entire gallery of Maria Maggio’s photos right here on foodtradenews.com…
Walmart Launches Rare Redesign of Its Great Value Brand
It’s been more than 10 years since Walmart revisited the design of its massive Great Value private label.
In the meantime, the brand has grown to top 10,000 items, and more than 87% of American homes purchase at least one of its products. With private label surging nationwide, the time is ripe for the mega-retailer to update its huge design portfolio.
