AGA Digital Magazine

VIEWPOINT

“For stores to survive and even thrive in this perfect storm, they are going to have be laser- focused on their value proposition, which has to be constructed and deployed through a prism of relentless customer-centricity.”

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Connecticut coast, well worth a 60-mile drive…or Mueller’s, a bakery on the New Jersey shore, 114 miles away from my front door, which makes a crumb cake so good that every once in a while I’ll hop in the car and brave the George Washington Bridge, New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway to buy a few. Do you have such products? The year 2020 was a nightmare year in many ways, and 2021 is proving to be what I’d call a transitional year. But next year, 2022 – which is only about six months away – has to be a transformative year as the food industry embarks on what may be one of its most competitive eras…ever. Innovate around, to and for the customer. Or die. It may be just that simple. ■

It brings me back to the beginning: The next 18 months, I would argue, are going to be a lot more difficult to navigate and a lot more challenging to survive if you are in the food retailing business. Difficult. Not impossible. Not hardly. For stores to survive and even thrive in this perfect storm, they are going to have be laser-focused on their value proposition, which has to be constructed pandemic, I have been writing – here and elsewhere – that retailers had to be different coming out of the pandemic than they were going in. That they had to use the crucible of a a national public health emergency that tested consumers and retailers alike to think about the products and services that really make them essential. In doing so, they had to identify and exploit the things that make them different, not the same stuff the competition sells. I like to talk about the almost-local coffee shop that makes cinnamon buns the size of wagon wheels, so good that I’ll drive 12 miles to get them…or Walter’s, the iconic hot dog stand to which I am more than happy to drive 20 miles for two with mustard…or the lobster roll joint on the and deployed through a prism of relentless customer-centricity. Almost from the beginning of the

ALABAMA GROCER | 9