Dept. OTC

  1. Operations & Supply Chain

How to Select the Right Distributor for Your New Product Brand

Launching a new product brand is exciting, but getting your products into stores and in front of customers can be one of the biggest challenges for emerging companies. Even the most innovative products can struggle without the right distribution strategy in place. Choosing the right distributor is one of the most important decisions your brand […]
4 min read
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  1. Department & Category

Food Marketers It’s Time to Step-Up

  Why Branding Food Across Every Channel Is Now the New Battleground for Consumer Migration The battle for foodshare in 2026 is no longer simply about location, price, or convenience. It is about identity, emotion, speed, trust, and relevance. Consumers today move fluidly between restaurants, convenience stores, grocery stores, dollar stores, club stores, meal delivery […]
6 min read
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  1. Merchandising

What Retail Buyers Look for in New and Emerging Product Brands

If you’ve successfully built a direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand with strong online sales and a loyal following, you might feel ready for the next big leap: getting your product onto physical store shelves. But walking into a meeting with a buyer from Target, Sephora, or Whole Foods is very different from running Facebook ads. The retail […]
5 min read
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  1. Data & Insights

Food Delivery Is No Longer a Feature—It’s a Standalone Retail Channel

  The evidence is no longer anecdotal. Food delivery has evolved into a fully distinct retail channel—complete with its own economics, shopper behavior patterns, merchandising strategies, and competitive dynamics. Treating it as merely an “extension” of restaurants or grocery stores is strategically outdated according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. […]
5 min read
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  1. Department: Beverage

Caribou Coffee Targets Starbucks with a Structural Value Play—Not a Promotion

  Caribou Coffee has launched an Everyday Value Menu (starting at $2) designed to compete directly with Starbucks across price architecture, service friction, and flavor accessibility. This is not a limited-time offer—it is a repositioning intended to increase visit frequency, attachment rate (food + beverage), and customer lifetime value.  According to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® […]
4 min read
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  1. Data & Insights

April 2026 Retail Metrics are in!

April 2026 Retail Metrics: April’s numbers are in — and furniture and mattress are moving in opposite directions. In mattress, traffic surged 45% year-over-year and prospecting activity more than tripled, yet conversion fell sharply and time with customers continued to drop. The opportunity is clearly there — closing it is the challenge. April isn’t a […]
2 min read
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  1. Channel: Drug

WIC Authorization at CVS Isn’t Adoption: Why CVS Health, Walgreens, and Drug Chains Still Face a Long Road to Relevance

  The headline sounds like progress—but let’s not confuse authorization with adoption. What CVS Health has accomplished in Rhode Island is operational alignment, not behavioral change. And in the WIC ecosystem, behavior—where and how benefits are actually redeemed—is everything. Meanwhile, competitors like Walgreens and other drug store operators face the same structural friction: WIC shoppers […]
5 min read
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  1. Data & Insights

Are You Stuck Between Attention and Value?

Early on, you were the missing variable. Without you noticing, nothing happened. You walked a location and read it cold. You called the slip before the numbers did. Your perception was the asymmetric input. So attention became the equation. Pay attention, things work. Stop, they don’t. It worked. It’s how you got here. It’s also […]
2 min read
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  1. Merchandising

How to Sell Your Product to Large Retailers

Dreaming of getting your product into major retailers like Walmart, Best Buy, or Home Depot? You’re not alone. Thousands of brands every year try to land shelf space with big-box stores but only a small percentage actually succeed. So what separates the winners from the rest? Let’s explore how to sell your product to large […]
4 min read
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  1. Retail Ecosystem

How to Approach Large Retail Buyers

Most emerging brands believe a myth that holds them back for years: “I can’t get into major retail stores because I don’t know the right people.” While having a Rolodex full of contacts helps, it is not the only way to get your product on shelves. Retail buyers are not gatekeepers hiding behind an iron […]
5 min read
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  1. Data & Insights

March 2026 Retail Metrics are in!

March 2026 Retail Metrics: March gave us a tale of two floors — more opportunity, but less to show for it. In mattress, traffic and prospecting surged, but conversion fell sharply as time with customers dropped, turning more conversations into missed closes. In furniture, the opposite pattern showed up — teams are converting slightly better, […]
2 min read
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  1. Technology & Innovation

Your Views:  A Surge In Dynamic Opinions

Got a lot of responses to our coverage of the national backlash against electronic shelf labels, and concerns about dynamic/surge pricing. MNB reader Rudy Dory wrote: We have had ESLs for over twenty years. We have never had a complaint about surge pricing. Wanting to ban ESLs in smaller units like ours would penalize people […]
9 min read
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  1. Shopper & Customer

Gen Z Eats on the Move: Why Value, Convenience, and Brand Trust Are Reshaping Every Meal Occasion

  Gen Z isn’t abandoning brands—they’re recalibrating how, when, and where they spend. New data from First Insight reveals a nuanced shift: while national brands still dominate preference across food and beverage categories, Gen Z is actively reallocating spending, prioritizing value in everyday consumables while trading up in lifestyle-driven categories. For food marketers, operators, and […]
5 min read
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  1. Technology & Innovation

Anthropic Takes The Pentagon To Court This Week. Here’s What Could Happen.

On Tuesday, a federal judge in California will hear Anthropic’s argument to freeze the supply-chain risk designation the government slapped on it after it refused to grant the Pentagon the right to use its Claude models for domestic surveillance or autonomous warfare. The hearing is a key next step in Anthropic’s parallel lawsuits against the […]
7 min read
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  1. Trends & External Forces

Your Views:  As Time Goes By

On the subject of dynamic pricing as reflected in electronic shelf labels – which some states want to ban – MNB reader Donald C. Taylor wrote: Probably a poor comparison and sure, the industries are different, but aren’t our local gas stations doing this exact same thing?  Prices change, prices are digitally displayed roadside, the […]
8 min read
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  1. Data & Insights

February 2026 Retail Metrics are in!

February 2026 Retail Metrics: 2026 is already taking shape. This week we’re digging into February’s data to see how traffic, conversion, and demand are trending across furniture and mattress retail. Here’s what the numbers are telling us about where the year may be headed. Today’s Rundown Q4 Home Furnishing Benchmark Report: Sign up to receive […]
2 min read
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  1. Department: Nonfood

How to Get Your Product into Staples or Office Depot: A Step-by-Step Guide for Product Manufacturers

If you’re a product manufacturer looking to scale beyond DTC and online marketplaces, landing on the shelves of major office supply retailers like Staples or Office Depot can be a game-changing move. Getting into Staples or Office Depot provides: National brand exposure Instant credibility Access to both brick-and-mortar and eCommerce distribution Large-volume purchase orders But […]
4 min read
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  1. Trends & External Forces

Selling Chicken:  Using Information To Get A Leg Up On Competition

MNB often likes to point to retailers that use information as a sales tool – a defining mantra around here for more than 25 years has been that retailers need to be more than a source of product, but a valued and essential resource for shoppers. A great example of this is a new LinkedIn […]
3 min read
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  1. Data & Insights

AI Is the New Line Cook, Category Manager, and CMO: A Grocerant Guru® Perspective on the Future of Food Sales

  Circana recently reported in The Evolving Ecosystem that 86% of U.S. adults are aware of AI in their devices, yet 35% are not interested in AI features. Nearly two-thirds of detractors say their devices already do what they need. 59% cite privacy concerns. 43% don’t want to pay more. Only 15% think AI sounds […]
6 min read
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  1. Trends & External Forces

Commercial Refrigeration Markets & Technologies to 2030

Commercial refrigeration equipment plays a critical role in modern food supply chains, healthcare systems, and retail infrastructure. From supermarkets and cold storage warehouses to hospitals and pharmaceutical facilities, reliable refrigeration is essential for preserving quality, safety, and compliance. As global demand for temperature-controlled solutions rises, the commercial refrigeration market is entering a phase of steady […]
< 1 min read
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  1. Data & Insights

January 2025 Retail Metrics are in!

January 2025 Retail Metrics: 2026 is officially in motion. To set the tone, we’re digging into January’s data to see how traffic, conversion, and demand are shaping up right out of the gate. Here’s what the furniture and mattress numbers are telling us about where the year may be headed. Today’s Rundown Q4 Home Furnishing […]
2 min read
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  1. Data & Insights

World Building

I’ve always loved world building. Not the fantasy novels kind—though those too—but the business kind. The whiteboard exercise where you ask: what if none of the current rules applied? What if everything we assume is fixed could be different? Great authors like J.R.R. Tolkien built entire worlds—languages, histories, cultures—that teach us something about ourselves by […]
2 min read
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  1. Trends & External Forces

Stew Leonard’s Snow Job

Millions of people in 17 states spent the weekend dealing with a massive snowstorm and dangerously cold temperatures, a confluence of events that was good for supermarket sales even as it created some operational and logistical challenges. MNB often has focused on the superior communications skills at Stew Leonard’s, and the weekend was no exception.  […]
2 min read
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  1. Data & Insights

November 2025 Retail Metrics are in!

November 2025 Retail Metrics:   As we kick off the new year, it’s worth taking a quick look back at November—the heart of the holiday rush—to see what the data can teach us moving forward. This week, we break down how the furniture and mattress industries actually performed during November and what those results reveal […]
2 min read
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  1. Data & Insights

December 2025 Retail Metrics are in!

December 2025 Retail Metrics: For the final time, we’re looking back at 2025—focusing on December, the heart of the holiday rush—to understand what the data can teach us as we plan for 2026. This week’s analysis breaks down how the furniture and mattress industries actually performed and what those results reveal for the year ahead. […]
2 min read
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  1. Channel: Restaurants

Investing in Culture: Why Starbucks, Why Now

  In foodservice, culture is not a soft concept—it is an operational lever according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. Starbucks’ decision to institutionalize a new leadership layer across its U.S. estate is a clear signal that the brand understands this reality and is acting decisively. By rebranding assistant store […]
4 min read
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  1. Merchandising

Does Your CPG Brand Need a Refresh? Here’s How to Find Out

Whether you are an emerging startup or an established player in the CPG retail space, you have likely felt the pressure of the “sea of sameness” on the retail shelf. With thousands of SKUs competing for a few seconds of a consumer’s attention, the difference between a product that sits on the shelf and one […]
5 min read
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  1. Department: Food

Fresh Prepared Foods Fuel Service Deli Growth as Consumers Redefine “What’s for Dinner?”

  The grocery sector may be facing headwinds, but one department continues to outperform expectations and reshape consumer behavior: the service deli. As mealtime habits shift and consumers seek faster, fresher, and more flexible solutions, the service deli has emerged as a powerful engine of growth—pulling traffic away from restaurants and into retail foodservice. According […]
3 min read
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Editor’s Choice

  1. Trends & External Forces
  2. Shopper & Customer
  3. Technology & Innovation
  4. Trends & External Forces
  5. Associates & Employees
  6. Merchandising
  7. Stores & Formats

Walmart to Expand Digital Shelf Labels Chainwide

Walmart will deploy digital shelf labels (DSLs) chainwide this year, doubling the approximately 2,300 U.S. locations currently using the technology (Walmart U.S. operates more than 4,600 stores). With more than 120,000 items in a typical Walmart store, managing price changes manually requires significant associate hours. Additionally, these DSLs are equipped with LED lights that make […]
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