Defining Growth in Grocery

Growth vs. Inflation: A central question was whether current gains represent true growth or inflationary lift. Retailers emphasized the need to invest in fundamentals before chasing expansion.

Core Priorities:

Invest in the core business before pursuing adjacencies.

Right tech, right place—commercially viable, customer-convenient technologies matter most.

Assortment relevance and store location remain critical levers.

Growth vs. Inflation: A central question was whether current gains represent true growth or inflationary lift. Retailers emphasized the need to invest in fundamentals before chasing expansion.

Flywheel Effect: Without a growth engine—services, assortment, digital touchpoints—momentum will be lost.

The Shopper Redefined

Value First: Shoppers across geographies are scrutinizing spend, with consistent demand for quality and affordability. Private label plays a growing role in delivering that.

Health & Wellness: Consumers are gravitating toward high-protein, organic, and fresh options—accelerated by GLP-1 adoption. Grocers are reconfiguring store footprints to reflect this.

Convenience as Currency: Shoppers expect grocers to “be in the moment”—from lunch breaks to TikTok trends. Convenience, not loyalty to a brand, drives choice.

Digital & Omnichannel Evolution

Omnichannel Advantage: 70% of grocery sales are influenced by omni interactions. Omni shoppers spend 1.5x more than single-channel ones. Walmart’s omni-first focus is setting the benchmark.

Convenience Tech: Dark stores, robotic picking, farm-to-fork transparency, and “inverse pyramid” fulfillment models are reshaping online grocery economics.

Loyalty & Retention: Retention is the new growth. Grocers must reduce CAC by leveraging every channel where customers are (apps, retail media, social commerce).

Retail Media Networks (RMN)

Emerging Opportunity: RMN is rapidly becoming a core growth lever. Grocers’ digital real estate (apps, websites) remains under-monetized.

Talent Gap: Success requires talent with RMN expertise—different from brand marketing.

Full-Funnel Shift: Retail media in grocery is moving from trade-spend conversion to true full-funnel activation, both in-store and online.

The Store as Growth Engine

Store-Centric Growth: As Ben Miller, VP, Original Content & Strategy, Shoptalk & Groceryshop put it best, “It’s all about the store, stupid.” Physical stores remain at the heart of e-commerce growth.

First 90 feet / Last 90 seconds: Cleanliness, in-stock positions, and fresh assortments matter more than ever, as well as seamless checkout.

Evolving Store Models: Stores are becoming hubs for discovery and services, from in-store foraging experiences to health-driven assortments.

Fresh as Differentiator: Fresh produce is the most demanding shopper expectation and a key battleground for differentiation.

AI & Automation in Practice

Scaling Use Cases: AI has matured from supply chain optimization to new applications in checkout, marketing, assortment, and personalization.

Agentic AI: Moving beyond hype, agentic systems are reshaping search, associate workflows, and shopper engagement. Walmart’s four “super agents” (Customers, Associates, Partners, Developers) exemplify scalable frameworks.

Practical Gains:

Demand forecasting with minimal human waste.

Robotic inventory and computer vision improving accuracy.

AI-assisted product innovation (e.g., Colgate digital twins for consumer testing).

Future Outlook: AI will enable tighter human-machine collaboration internally and hyper-personalized customer experiences externally.

Efficiency & Scale

Efficiency Mandate: Grocers must simplify, speed up, and reinvest savings. Field insights and cross-team collaboration drive smarter decision-making.

Global vs. Local: “Global where possible, local where necessary.” Distribution density and local real estate remain critical to fresh performance.

Supply Chain Investment: Large production facilities and expanded distribution centers are mitigating risks and enabling fresh-led growth.

Emerging Insights

BNPL for Fresh: Executives noted surprising usage of BNPL for fresh categories.

E-commerce Profitability Debate: While some argued e-grocery will be more profitable than traditional grocery, many remain unconvinced.

Talent Tension: 41% of Gen Z employees will quit if tools and tech are poor—adoption and usability are as critical as innovation.

Consumer Shifts: GLP-1 treatments are directly changing where 46% of shoppers choose to shop.