Background

The shopper tells us that Soup is the 2nd most difficult category to shop in the store.

Insight

Similarities in soup packaging and relatively few facings on shelf mean that the majority of the time spent shopping the section is spent finding the products you want rather than scanning for anything else that might be new or interesting.

At the same the soup is classified by the shopper as a ‘simple meal’ and one they are willing to pantry stock for quick and convenient consumption occasions. To this extent the average soup consumer has 9.5 products in their home at any one time!

Allowing them to find the desired product earlier and thereby freeing up more time for searching for new products will help build the repertoire of the shopper and their annual spend on the category.

Action

The introduction of gravity-feed units to organize soup by flavors, which are clearly marked with mini-billboards at the front of the shelf.

The units, which are said to allow consumers to locate the item they want within 6-7 seconds, are now installed in over 15,000 supermarkets..

Result

This merchandising effort resulted in the company\’s condensed soup segment seeing a 4 percent sales increase the year following its introduction, maintaining a 3 percent increase for the following two soup season

Reference

Heller, L. (2006, August 29). Innovative merchandising needed to capture declining shelf space. foodnavigator-usa.com.

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