There is a perception that fresh produce suppliers are subject to fewer of the demands of promoting and protecting a category and that they don’t need to play by the same rules as suppliers of own-label and branded products when it comes to the retailer relationship. The truth is, many fresh produce suppliers simply don’t have an effective retailer strategy in place and, as a result, are minimising their chances of success with major retailers.

This is in part due to a skills gap. In the current climate, many category-management specialists already working with leading suppliers would likely only consider moving to companies of a similar standing. This leaves the vast swathe of suppliers unable to access new talent and can impact in two areas.

Some suppliers simply don’t have the in-house skills to deliver routine category-management tasks that are the bedrock of the retailer relationship: crunching the numbers, completing the analyses, building the reports, undertaking the range reviews and using the insights from the data to show how to grow the category for the benefit of both themselves and the retailer, by channel and by format, leaving it difficult for many suppliers to know how to channel investment in correct direction.

Unfortunately simply supplying great products may no longer be enough. From my regular conversations with retailers and their buyers I know that there is a great deal of frustration about the fact that when it comes to trying to get products listed, suppliers are often missing solid category-based rationales. They often don’t know how to extract the best insights from their data, or turn it into a selling story that resonates with the buyer. Many don’t have or can’t bring in the kind of expertise that will enable them to create an effective retailer relationship on this basis.

Training your in-house team, therefore, is vital. This means helping your teams influence the shopper and retail agenda to deliver growth. Not enough suppliers understand and influence either the commercial journey taken by the product or the shopper journey to the point of purchase, by developing and sharing effective strategies and shopper campaigns, building joint business plans with the retailer, creating mutually beneficial trade investment plans and in doing so moving from tactical to strategically significant relationships.

Suppliers need to get to grips with this and show how they can assist with range and category reviews, category development and shopper marketing. Those who fail to do so will have increasingly less influence with retailers and consequently be less effective in helping their categories – and their own businesses – grow. —