The specialty food and beverage marketplace is quickly changing. Now, businesses have access to myriad opportunities in the omnichannel environment, some of which they may not have yet considered.
At the Summer Fancy Food Show, a panel of expert buyers and decision-makers who are redefining how food is selected, merchandised, and sold, will discuss alternative channels on the Main Stage (Level 1, Hall E) at 12 p.m. EDT. The session, titled “The Rise of Specialty in Alternate Channels” will be moderated by Bob Burke, founder of Natural Products Consulting, LLC., and will include panelist Matthew Bunevich, manager of 7-ventures and business development at 7-Eleven, and Jeff Turnas, SVP of global culinary at Whole Foods.
SFA News Daily spoke with Burke about the topic.
Why do you think specialty food is finding success in alternative channels?
There are a few reasons:
1. We are squarely and irrevocably in an omnichannel world where brands are meeting the consumer where they are in different occasions and locations. This might be online, at an up-market convenience store like Foxtrot, in a conventional grocery store, at a specialty goods retailer, or even at an alternative venue like Home Goods or TJ Maxx.
2. With the popularity of the food channel and the reality of millions of consumers re-discovering cooking and preparing foods at home during the pandemic, there is a greater interest in global cuisine, premium foods, and understanding where foods come from and how they are produced.
3. There is the reality that many food categories that were once considered exotic, specialty gourmet, natural or organic, and suitable for special diets have largely become familiar and mainstream.
What opportunities do you recommend specialty food businesses take advantage of?
They should look at incremental opportunities to get trial and discovery from their consumers as well as those that make financial sense and are consistent with the brand’s value proposition.
How has the specialty food merchandising landscape changed?
Again, you are seeing these foods crossing over from being very niche and specialty to becoming more mainstream and familiar and carried by a wider variety of retail partners.
What topics are you most excited to discuss during the session?
An important topic is thinking about channel strategy: what selection of offerings, pricing strategy, and trade support programs allow each of your channel partners to be successful without building an advantage for one over another?
What do you hope attendees get out of the event?
I hope that they become aware of the various alternative channels, how to succeed in them, and have an intentional idea of how they fit into their company’s overall growth strategy.
Related: Video: New Fare Partners’ Bonnar on Direct Communications; Session Preview: Burlap & Barrel Co-Founder on DTC Optimization, Retail Channels