As retailers start to more closely observe grocery shoppers, breakfast aisle changes are on the way. No longer will we be confronted with an aisle full of boxes differentiated only by their colours, sizes, graphics or claims revealing their lack of sugar content or organic origins.
According to news from the Kellogg Company they appear to have come up with what it calls “The Breakfast Aisle,”. In other words a rearranging of the brightly colored boxes of the typical cereal aisle to add toaster pastries and breakfast bars to the array of hot and cold cereals.
Consequently these adjacencies in the re-imagined cereal aisle promises to give grocers the ability to cross-merchandise products. According to the vice president of category strategy and development at Kellogg Ms Ring-Sanders “As we looked at what interacted with cereal, it became very, very clear what the best arrangement of cereal was, and what that morning food aisle should look like,there were things out there in the marketplace that didn’t make a lot of sense. We wanted to start looking at what were the best adjacencies to drive purchases that relate to that morning food occasion.” Hence breakfast aisle changes!
Ms Ring-Sanders went further claiming that the change represents an evolution in category management.
What was a product category 10 years ago is no longer a category today. As a result of the regroupings, Kellogg’s later learned that shoppers were indeed looking at the other categories more when they were arranged together versus when they were in separate aisles.
In a more general sense this rethink could provide a huge sales benefit, however food and grocery retailers will need to look at holistic solutions that take in the whole store. Simply making a few breakfast aisle changes will not have significant impact on sales.
Gone are the days of category only, just like what Kellogg’s have discovered people are not just eating cereal for breakfast nowadays; they’re eating a multitude of other things. Instead of focusing on cereal, Kellogg’s realized they needed to start talking to retailers about aisle management, and not just category management.
Now obviously this suits Kelloggs as they also produce and market some of these other alternatives, but this mindset will also be of major benefit to food and grocery retailers if they provide the same mindset to all of their store.
For example there is plethora of research that indicates shoppers of meat are also looking for advice and options on pairings with meat to complete the rest of the meal. The more savvy grocery operators are using their butchering section to cross sell ready to eat meals, heat and serve meals and clever vegetable and other staple pairings. As food and grocery retailers embrace the break down in categories within their stores and follow the lead on breakfast aisle changes as being inspired by Kelloggs both shoppers and retailers will benefit.
