Canadian Grand Prix New Product Awards – Credible or Not?

Sunday, June 19th, 2011

This week the winners of the Canadian Grand Prix New Product Awards were announced at a gala in Toronto. The list included some neat products for sure, but I have always had the feeling that these awards were not really reflecting the consumer’s choices in the marketplace. It all goes back to my time working [...]

Live From CCGD West 2011

Friday, January 28th, 2011

This week, I attended the CCGD West Annual Conference held in Calgary. This gathering of the Western Canadian grocery industry is a great networking function and also includes interesting and relevant speakers for the Grocery / CPG industry. The two speakers in the morning session tackled big-picture insights and their relevance to our industry. Leading [...]

Industry Response: Price Tag / Scanner Accuracy Really Grinds My Gears

Thursday, December 16th, 2010

Back in November, I posted an article to this blog regarding the number of pricing inaccuracy issues and lack of staff understanding of the industry voluntary code that protects consumers. Read it here. Today, I heard back from the industry associations responsible for developing the voluntary code. In order to provide a fair and balanced [...]

Price Tag / Scanner Accuracy Really Grinds My Gears

Sunday, November 21st, 2010

Almost ten years ago now, the retailing industry was getting a lot of heat from consumer groups regarding the accuracy of the pricing information both on-shelf and in the item databases used by checkout scanners. In 2002, the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors announced to great fanfare their Scanner Price Accuracy Voluntary Code which states [...]

Nutrition Advice – A Huge Opportunity For Canadian Retailers

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

We’ve all heard the stats before. Canada has a very high level of overweight and obese persons – myself included. At 6’ 2” and 225 lbs my BMI (Body Mass Index) is 28.9. For those of you who are not familiar (or choose not to be) overweight is classified as a BMI greater than 25 [...]