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- [00:00]
Shree Rajagopalan
Chain Drug Review's focus is on reaching the key decision makers across all retail channels, delivering comprehensive coverage of the latest shopping trends and in depth category analysis on health, beauty, over the counter products and wellness. Whether it's the latest trends, emerging technologies, or strategies for adapting to new consumer behaviors, Mass Market retailers deliver the critical information retailers need to navigate this dynamic environment. To subscribe to the newsletters of CDR and mmr, simply follow the hyperlinks in the digital liner notes of this episode. Chain Drug Review and Mass Market Retailers are published by Retail Media iq.
- [00:40]
Jeff Mondelli
This is Jeff Mondelli, Vice President of Grocery Merchandising at wakefern Food Corp. And you're listening to the CPG Guys.
- [00:49]
Peter V. S Bond
Welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast.
- [00:53]
Shree Rajagopalan
Your host, Shree Rajagopalan and Peter V.
- [00:56]
Peter V. S Bond
S Bond explore how brands and retailers engage consumers consumers in an increasingly digitally driven world. And now, here are the CPG Guys.
- [01:08]
Sri Rajagopalan
Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast. I'm of course sri Co Founder, Co Host of the CPG Guys, Co Founder Partner of Think Blue Consulting. As builders, connectors and amplifiers, we shape the future of commerce to drive your growth. Please do listen to my older daughter Rhea Raj's music www.rhea raj.com that's R H E R A J and her new song Hot Couture been out for just over a month now. My younger daughter Lara Raj, of course is a member of the Geffen Records Universal Music Group Katsai, whose socials are now in the multi millions on every possible platform that exists. Joining me today, of course, is my fellow co founder Peter V. S barn and when he's not co hosting this podcast, he serves as head of industry and client engagement at Flywheel, the E Commerce acceleration division of Omnicom. There was a week right at the beginning of the baseball season where he'd rub into me every day. Yankees went 60 but the Dodgers went 9. 0 and suddenly it's 14 6. Even though they may be.700 in the Yankees a.632. Who's got the highest batting average in the history of baseball through the first 20 games? Aaron Judge, of course. 407 home runs. End of story. Mic drop. There's anything he says at this point is secondary. It's irrelevant. Over to you Peter. How are you doing?
- [02:19]
Peter V. S Bond
I'll be more than happy to take Shohei Ohtane and Yamamoto and what I've got lined up for the end of the season. Because sree the Yankees have no pitch, you better hope their bats are hot all year long because if they cold, cool down. You got nothing on the mound. But that's just my pov.
- [02:36]
Sri Rajagopalan
In anticipation of this response from Peter, I did my homework over the course of this past week before this recording and looked at how many of those 27 wonderful championships were won with slugging versus pitching. 11.
- [02:50]
Peter V. S Bond
Well, good luck, Sri.
- [02:51]
Sri Rajagopalan
I'll take my odds.
- [02:51]
Peter V. S Bond
You take your odds?
- [02:52]
Sri Rajagopalan
How many championships do the Dodgers have?
- [02:55]
Peter V. S Bond
Well, I know they are the reigning World Series champion. I know. All I know is you were. You were. You violated this last year at the World Series. You violated the single most important rule of baseball that Tom Hanks taught us in the movie A League of Their Own. What's that lesson, Sri? There's no crying in baseball.
- [03:16]
Sri Rajagopalan
The lesson is, this is a CPG Guys podcast and we have a guest and we're making the guest. And it's not. Thank you, Peter. Anyway, welcome to the show. Before we get to our guests, we want to ask you to consider following us on Apple Podcasts. Leave us a rating. That rating tells us how we're doing. A review tells us whether we're having the right quality conversations with the right people. Now for the much promised main event. Today's guest is a special one indeed, one that I work with directly. In a past life at General Mills. He has got the distinction of making the rare transition I personally observed from being a pharmacist to leading Sinisto Grocery merchandising. That doesn't happen often. But most of all, he's great at what he does. So we've been waiting on the CPG guys to have him. He is also a proud winner of the CPG Guys Drugstonia's Award for Omnichannel Merchandising Leadership in 2024. So please join me in welcoming F. Mondelli, VP of Grocery Merchandising WakeFun Food Corp. To the CPG Guys. Jeff, how you doing, man? Thanks for joining us.
- [04:16]
Jeff Mondelli
Doing well, Peter. Hope you guys are doing well. Glad to be here. It is a long time overdue. So happy to be here. And just want to say that there is no worse way for a Philly fan to start a podcast than to listen to a Yankee and Dodgers fan talk baseball.
- [04:31]
Sri Rajagopalan
Oh, boy.
- [04:32]
Jeff Mondelli
We'll start only up from here.
- [04:35]
Sri Rajagopalan
I. I didn't know he was an Eagles fan. I forgot about the Phillies.
- [04:38]
Peter V. S Bond
But Jeff, I have to say this. You know the Phillies have one of the best AAA ballparks in Major League Baseball. I really, I mean that to be.
- [04:47]
Sri Rajagopalan
Noted, Peter and I die hard right.
- [04:49]
Jeff Mondelli
Up there with your AAA attendance your home games there.
- [04:51]
Peter V. S Bond
There you go.
- [04:52]
Sri Rajagopalan
We noted we're die hard baseball fans will be at the Cubs and Dodgers next week on Wednesday. And of course Peter's coming down to visit me for Yankees at Dodgers in a few in a couple months. So we're looking forward to that. Jeff, welcome again. Thanks. We'll include links to of course Wake Fern's company page, your profile on LinkedIn, on the digital liner notes of this episode. And now on to a conversation. And I'll start with what I introduced you by. You are indeed a rare breed of merchants that has successfully transitioned from farmer to cpg. I'm not sure if I've seen one before. And you're good at what you do. You settled into the role. You're obviously crushing it. What did it take through your career journey? How did you want to make this transition and how did you actually accomplish this?
- [05:35]
Jeff Mondelli
So I think there's probably a few of us pharma converts floating around the industry, but certainly not many. And for me, listen, I think it's a couple things. It's about the individual, your talent and your drive, but it's as much about the people around you. Right? So on a personal level, it started with a mindset and a goal to continue to challenge myself, do more every day. Actually started out as a pharmacist in one of our retail locations for five years right out of college. So as much as I had a goal and an approach to be curious and hyper competitive and humble, if I didn't have the right group of people supporting me and allowing me to grow, probably would have never happened. Same thing from an organizational standpoint, to take someone who's in what you probably consider a specialized field and to let them grow in other areas is a special thing. So I think it's both of those things. Certainly being humble is critically important. If there's one thing a retail environment will do to you very quickly is show you how wrong you are. So you've got to approach it with the willingness to learn, right? Either win or you learn. You take, you take the losses and you stack them on top of a couple of wins and get better every day. I think one other thing though that's very important is as I've been put into more senior positions, I have certainly not been the expert in the room as I've acquired new teams. And you know, a lot of good leaders ask for honest feedback. I don't believe that most actually want it. I actually want it, right. To get that feedback from my team who's Been doing what I'm doing longer than I have and learning from them while I teach them has been something that's been and I think instrumental to my ability to move around the organization.
- [07:22]
Sri Rajagopalan
Peter, wait a minute. He said he wants honest feedback. He said it. I didn't. Let us give it to you. The Phillies suck.
- [07:28]
Peter V. S Bond
Wow. Wow. You're just guns ablazing. Sree.
- [07:34]
Jeff Mondelli
You'Re not wrong. We'll see about next week.
- [07:35]
Peter V. S Bond
There we go. Jeff, thanks for joining us today. It's good to see you again. Sree and I were so honored to be attending the Total Store Award last, last December when, when your, your career was recognized for, for, for that particular award and the accomplishment. So that was a great honor for us. You know, unlike a brand, as a retailer, you're much closer to the consumer. Right. They're walking in, they're looking at the products they're buying, they're talking to people in the store. So obviously you have a front row seat to consumer behavior. I'd love to hear from things from your perspective some of the changes that you've seen. Big important changes in how consumers shop since this horrible pandemic we suffered through for 2020 through 2022, probably that range. What kind of comes top of mind to you in terms of how consumers have changed their buying and shopping behaviors?
- [08:40]
Jeff Mondelli
Okay, so I think that's a great question. I'm going to way oversimplify the history of the last five years. But I think if the goal here is to tie this back to what can brands take from at least my point of view on what consumers have experienced, there's been a couple of things, right. So we all remember sri. You remember it as well as I do. The pain of just getting product to shelf and the issues with supply chain pre2020. Consumers, suppliers, retailers, we went to sleep every night really with no concern over the ability to get product to shelf just in time. Delivery efficient supply chains, high value on return on assets, to be as efficient as you can. All great. Until the world changed. And all of a sudden it was not about the bells and whistles. It was about do you actually have what I want and need. And I think that that piece, before we go into all the other ripple effects, I think is the one that's most foundational that probably was like this aha moment around. Is there a value to just the core of what I do and how do I make sure that I've got contingency plans in place to manage customer expectations? It took years. In some cases, we're just getting better. It took massive rationalization of assortment across many CPGs. Deprioritation of innovation. You saw just a lot of changes. Right? So that's one second the rapid proliferation of shoppers behaving in an Omni environment. It started likely because shoppers didn't want to experience crowds. And how can I get what I need without physically going to the store and spending an hour shopping? But what that did was just change behavior forever. Right? The growth that we've seen there has been significant. And as a retailer again we just talked about from a supply chain standpoint, do you have what I need? We then transform. Do you have what I need and can you deliver it to me in the way that I want to be served? And the tough part for retailers and brands is the same customer doesn't want to be served the same way every time. That's, that is truly what Omni is. Omni is not just an online shopper. It's I shop through all modalities and depending on my need state or my state of mind, I'm going to use a different one. And to make sure you're relevant to their needs is a challenge and one that has rapidly become more important over the last five years. Just completely change the game, right? You take that and now you move into hyperinflation. SRI I remember I cited, I cite this every time I talk to you but we're sitting in FMI 2022 in a suite and you give me your inflation forecast for the next 18 months inside I'm like, okay, next meeting. No way that number's right. He nailed it. He nailed it. What that did to consumers was strain their wallets and their ability to provide essentials for their families. What it did to brands was put tremendous pressure on P Ls. What did we see? We saw two things from a value seeking consumer. Significant increases in private label penetration in the basket and significant increases in sale item penetration. Both very difficult for a brand to manage. Right. To manage a shift in what people buy and then the percentage of what people buy of yours that's on promo. Very difficult. But it's, it's here to stay. We haven't seen that promo penetration move change and private label is certainly continuing to grab traction. Final piece before we I guess maybe detail the four things that I'm talking about. If we're sitting here April of 2025 and we're not talking tariffs and then something's wrong. The tariffs is probably just the buzzword or the sexy word. But consumer sentiment is Definitely waning. You've referenced volume challenges before in previous podcasts. Those things are putting pressure on consumers and certainly now putting pressure on brands as a result. I think, suffice it to say, all of that comes together. The mission hasn't changed. What do consumers want and how can what brands do and retailers do overlap with their wants in an authentic way like that is really the mission. That's easier said than done. All of that PTSD that's come from all of those big things we just talked about, it's still the same mission. Customers, wants, our needs may change, but figuring out what they are and delivering against them is the objective.
- [13:10]
Peter V. S Bond
You know, Jeff, you mentioned tariffs. I'll remind our audience that we tend to think about tariffs in terms of all those wonderful consumer electronics and other things that we get in our, in our Amazon box that's, that's built overseas. A lot of people don't realize, like, 95% of the world's consumable garlic comes from China. Right. Tariffs have an important effect on what we eat, not just, you know, what we buy and what consumer electronics we say. So it's going to have a monumental effect on what we're doing. The other thing I wanted to, I wanted to highlight, you said, is, you know, the scarcity of resources during the pandemic and the inflation that was coming out of it to some degree. You know, the question was, did you want to have products as a retailer on your shelf? If you did, then, then that was kind of the reality of the situation. But now we're a couple of years away from that. The supply chains have freed up. Right. And now you have the ability to take alternate brands, to expand out your private brands and fill yourselves. So these brands that took big price increases, they're now facing a very different competitive world a couple years out from the pandemic. And consumers have a lot of choices. And so to your point, there's a lot of change going on, right?
- [14:38]
Sri Rajagopalan
Well, you know, while we refer to garlic, here's some good data to benchmark us, right? The beloved McDonald's french fry. That's going to be challenged by the tariffs. Like, who would have thought? And the simple reason is 69% of the canola oil we use in the US is actually imported. Peter, want to guess where 96% of that 69% comes from? Which means approximately 67% of the canola oil that we import in America comes from Canada. Who are we having a tariff for with then? On top of that, I thought all our actual potato, the Fries themselves are from Idaho. No, we import $1.7 billion of frozen French fries which is what is served in fast food restaurants. So the consequences, as Jeff has already pointed out, are significant. But Jeff, if I had a, if I had had a crystal ball four years ago, I still remember. You're in my conversation 2022, to some extent I do feel collectively again, hindsight is 2020 and if I had a crystal ball, I'm qualifying my comment with that. But I think as an industry we really went a bit far with inflation and the resultant. And that's my next question to you, Jeff. We are at a crisis moment from a volume growth perspective, period. Doesn't matter whether it's a brand or it's everyday retail. So I don't see a way out of this without depth and frequency of promo. Coming back as a center store captain here for a northeast captain in grocery, are you communicating that to brands? Like, isn't that the message that should go to brands like guys, if you want to move volume and be conscientious to your consumers, simple frequency won't cut it.
- [16:19]
Jeff Mondelli
Depth has to come back as well, 100%. It's, it's depth with a simplistic ad program, right? Like we, we have seen depth with multiple hurdles but customers have so many choices now to your point that if you give them depth but they've got to do 15 things to get to it, it's not going to matter.
- [16:43]
Sri Rajagopalan
And I think that's the problem now, Jeff. They're getting the depth with add. That's digital coupon, this rewards program. Combine it with this, combine it with that and make sure on Thursday afternoon at 4pm you have logged on to something. Right? I'm talking back to basics, Jeff. Isn't this the time for like I want to see an end cap display, I want to see a lobby display, I want to see a shipper and it's got the price point called out. And if it's 2, 4, 7, it says 2, 4, 7 with the depth required and I want to see it many more times which is the frequency not just during seasonal locations. And the one that comes to my mind, Jeff, that Wakefird has been elite at over the years is the Cancan program. Are we going to see a return to the 99 cent cancan? Isn't that almost a requirement for brands?
- [17:34]
Jeff Mondelli
Listen, I think that's up to the brands to see what they can bring forward. But we certainly go out and my team does an amazing job and we had best in class partnerships on that front when you were there Sheree and I'd like to think we still do with the team that's there to put together a program where we both lean in and deliver for the customer but is the foundation of that program and what it was built on is exactly what you just talked about and exactly where we see the biggest customer response and it's where we need back to.
- [18:06]
Sri Rajagopalan
Basics traffic for traffic. So Jeff, let me my question now is going to flip over to the other side of the fence which is E Commerce. CPT companies brands face a lot of disruption. We kind of talked about it a little bit and changing consumer behaviors that you've already highlighted pretty well. E Commerce on its own is click and collect the way forward. What is the biggest shift you're seeing in that space and where are you anchoring?
- [18:31]
Jeff Mondelli
Well I think to me the biggest trend that is on our radar is how easy it is for even a loyal shopper to cheat on you. Like that's just a fact. Right. We would love to say our most loyal shopper gives us 90% of their wallet. It's nowhere near that. And the number of choices and the amount of media opportunities that brands and retailers have to grab consumers creates a challenge when you're trying to grow loyalty. And for us we've got to find a way to continue to, to reach customers in a personalized manner. Right. Whether that's one to one or a few to one is to be seen and it depends on the intent of the offer. But customers are certainly very aware of what value is and if you want them to be loyal, you've got to be loyal back to them and give them what they need. Just, just a fact. Whether that's click and collect delivery or something with a marketplace is really up to the customer and their state of mind. Our our job is to make sure we meet their needs where they're at.
- [19:34]
Sri Rajagopalan
The last one of that I know Peter's waiting to follow up but retail media, I have to ask the question friend of foe, fact or fiction?
- [19:44]
Jeff Mondelli
So I think retail media has become this catch all word in the industry for the dollars that are invested to talk about a brand, they're not not productive in the trade. Right. So for us, retailers are all aware of what some of the biggest players in the world are looking at from a retail media spend expectation. The way we look at it is how do we make sure that those dollars deliver a point of view and a message to a customer and make sure that that connection is emotional for them so that they want to shop with us. We cannot be out positioned by the retailers when it comes to retail media from a. From an investment standpoint. But it's incumbent upon us to show the return on ad spend to get those dollars right. You, you. There is no CPG in the world that can afford to be flexed on and write a blank check. There's got to be a return on ad spend. There just has to be. Our capabilities and our customer base help us drive those results.
- [20:38]
Peter V. S Bond
So Jeff, if I think back probably starting in the 1950s was really when as retailers increased in size there started the age of consolidation. Up until maybe five or so years ago, the consolidation of points of distribution into national and super regional retailers to some degree put retailers in an enviable position in terms of the balance of power between brands and retailers. That has changed to the point you made with retailers seeking to become media publishers and attract some of those dollars to, to your point that can help brands create an emotional connection with consumers and to your desire to make sure that those connections ultimately deliver outcomes that those consumers are buying those brands in your stores. Right. So I guess my question to this is where do you see the balance of the relationship between brands and retailers playing out over the next five or so years? What is going to further change in terms of how brands and retailers collaborate with the customer at the center of their decision making that are going to lead for better outcomes for everybody?
- [22:05]
Jeff Mondelli
I think that will likely vary by brand and what their individual philosophy is. I think that the ones who win will not make the easy one year decision to right size their investment in what looks like a fleeting return. Because at least let me if I were to back up. The digital expenses that we talk to cpgs about typically are the ones that are easiest to rationalize out of marketing plan. When you think about price and promo and how that can instantly drive a result, that's great. But if you're looking to maintain loyalty and brand relevancy with a consumer, you've got to lean in. So I think that the winners over the next five years are the ones that are going to continue to lean in there. It's table stakes at this point that you've got to play in that space. It's incumbent upon us as retailers to make sure that we have the capabilities to deliver that message. I mean that's really the crux of this is I believe that this will continue to be an area where CPGs invest. Certainly they're going to get smarter about who's winning and who's losing and who they want to invest in. I don't think it'll just be the largest players who have the biggest voice that get to get their fair share. It will be results based. It will be those who can reach customers in a personalized way that that win their lion's share of the Jeff.
- [23:23]
Sri Rajagopalan
One of the words that come to mind that I've certainly been mulling over the last couple I still remember to the date. It was March 17, 2023 was the first time I was looking at a scorecard and the year ago comparison started to fall off the charts. We thought for six months it would be a year overlap and then it's never changed. Right. But one of the words that come to mind is traditionally the relationship between brand and retail has been built off even if they're soft. A jbp, a joint business plan, it's a plan. There's a soft commitment or a hard commitment to a certain growth goal and the corresponding investments that come with it. And the accountability holding people's feet to the fire comes from both sides. But it's a fixed plan. To me, the future is JVC or joint value creation. Value creation. You know, you gave the example of you and I are both saying back to basics. Are we creating value for the consumer that should be at the center of it. And the mission and purpose of a partnership between a brand and a retailer all year long is jvc. And as long as that mission, an agreed and identified mission of creating value for the consumer is at the center of it. Things like retail media click and collect understanding and implementing personalization, shippers in store, they all become the surrounds on tactics to achieve that. I mean, I'd love to hear what when I say jvc, is there anything that stokes an emotion comes to your mind?
- [24:50]
Jeff Mondelli
I think we're also battling with what does JVP even mean and is it this term that just feels good? In September, October of every calendar year that we're in, get together and chart a plan. And for the following calendar, we are also looking to reinvent how we do that. We've got a process in place this year that's just started and we're going to build on it for 26. For us, it's really about continuous planning. Right. We've seen at their worst the JBP be a document that you've put together and you don't revisit it until the following year when you do the next one. And for us it's really about that mutual accountability that you talked about. Right. We've, we've developed a plan. What is the cadence of communication on that plan and how do you continue to look at results and reforecast where you go forward? I love the idea of customer metrics integrated into that plan. So you are making sure that you've created value and not just a sales plan with no context. So I do think that that's where this world will go.
- [25:49]
Sri Rajagopalan
I would remind it to audience that I'm speaking with Jeff Mondelli from WakeFun Food Corp. So Jeff, in that realm, what advice do you have for CPG companies that have kind of struggled to Adapt to today's Omni360 consumer world and on top of that are facing these inflationary pressures of volume.
- [26:10]
Jeff Mondelli
So some of this we talked about, but I think at the front of it is a reminder about how important loyalty is, consumer loyalty, whether that's to a brand or a retailer. And that brands have to have relevancy with their customer base. If they're not relevant, that's a dangerous place to be with so many options on the shelf. Same for retailers. If you're not relevant, a lot of places to go to shop, right? So if a customer wants to be engaged digitally, brands have to engage digitally. It's just the cost of entry. Traditional marketing approaches, even some of the relatively newer ones, they may not meet the mark if a customer's looking for a personalized experience. These types of things, again are their base expectations that, that you have to meet. I get that there's a cost to serve for these things, but we need to deliver, otherwise you're going to fall behind.
- [27:00]
Peter V. S Bond
Just a fact in this digital age, Joe, retailers and brands are at no loss for data. There is so much data out there. There are signals around purchasing behavior. There's first party data, there's third party data, there's everything. If I'm a sun care, a sunscreen manufacturer, I care about when the UV index in a particular set of cities is important because that can dictate whether people are going to come in and buy my product. Right. So I guess my question is, how do you recommend cpg? Manufacturers best leverage data and analytics to improve their operations, their marketing and their customer engagement. Like where, where should they be spending their time? Because they could be boiling the ocean and they need to be more efficient. What should they be doing?
- [27:58]
Jeff Mondelli
So I think there's really parts of this question, what can we be doing to make sure that the dialogue is productive and then how can we do it better? Right. So first piece of this, it starts really with open and honest conversation up front because every retailer and every CPG has different success metrics. And I'll just make up an example if SRI woulda come in to me three years ago looking for all of his innovation to come in and my measure of success is more around productivity of existing SKUs and sales per square foot. We're really never going to align on the business plan. So I think we got when we put a plan together, understand what's important to each party and then backwards from there, build what are the metrics we're going to look at as our North Star. Certainly you've got to have a mix of syndicated data and customer shopper data within each retailer's ecosystem. That is a must. But I think the miss really is not actually aligning on the success metrics based on each individual organization. If that doesn't happen, I know that's not the sexy answer, but that's the reality. That's where it starts. You never really get to a productive conversation. And we've seen it time and time again. We've worked really hard because we're not absent of blame oftentimes in that worked really hard to get to that first. So we're starting on the same page. The second piece of this is how do we do it better? And I don't really have a great answer other than as an industry we are likely not leveraging technology as effectively as we could. All of those data sources you said. I don't know that anyone's kind of figured out the. I hate to use the term AI, but the AI solution to mine through all this data and just spit out the insights because we still spend an awful lot of time either writing or I should say telling the story of what just happened rather than writing the next story. And there are tools that can help us tell us what happened.
- [30:02]
Sri Rajagopalan
The one you pointed out, Jeff, of the underlying metrics is actually, I think, a crisis moment. Again, if I had a crystal ball and I could undo it over my career, I should have personally done a better job of listening to retailers. At the end of the day, if you're a warehouse manufacturer, which is what, 60, 70% of everything in store, the retailer actually has the endpoint POS and the traffic. And the single most important metric to come to mind for me that as a brand manufacturer, we've never focused on one is category growth versus individual. Your own brand growth. You know, you get selfish because of the Nielsen and Circana share metrics. That's all you focus on. But if you were somehow contributing to overall Category growth, your share growth will automatically follow suit. And as an industry we've never geared ourselves on that metric. The second one is traffic. If we can drive traffic to the store and we can drive incremental traffic, new household to that given retailer, automatically it's an elixir for all woes. Would you agree those two things? Like if there was a message you and I were communicating out or you were communicating it out, Jeff, to brands with those two metrics aligning on those rise to the top or are there other ones?
- [31:14]
Jeff Mondelli
I mean certainly if you've got more traffic in the door to your point, all else should take care of itself. And as far as a category centric approach versus any one brand approach, that that's, that's an imperative. So I would agree that I think.
- [31:28]
Sri Rajagopalan
Jeff, to the day when planogramming exercises take place in category management, teams from brands pitch their ideas. Even category captains, I'll be the first one to acknowledge don't do a fabulous job of looking at category. It's always self centric. I'm not so sure how we flip that to be category oriented, but I feel that that's the second, the second elixir. But in any event, Jeff, I'll move on to the next one and which is I think a very important one. Right? You guys are the heavyweights of the northeast. No grocery business from a brand perspective can be successful in the eastern seaboard kind of area without a partnership with Wakefern. So it'd be great to hear you articulate for our listeners, especially those from the brands, agencies that support the brands in your mind. Jeff, as a captain of merchandising, what does a best in class partnership with workfront look like for a CPG brand?
- [32:20]
Jeff Mondelli
Yeah. So first of all, I love this question. I feel like you and I had that for sure. It is direct and honest communication that's critical, even when it's not pleasant.
- [32:30]
Sri Rajagopalan
I love that you started with that, Jeff. I think when you have a transparent back and forth communication between a supplier and a retailer, at least you know what the stakes are, what's on the cards, what's realistic and what's not realistic, for sure.
- [32:45]
Jeff Mondelli
And there's a way to have that conversation, right? Screaming and yelling doesn't really get you anywhere. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't very quickly understand my point of view and, and what mood that's put me in. And I think that always generates the best outcomes, especially for partners where there's trust already involved. So it's that and then it's just a commitment to mutual goals. Right? Loyalty. We just talked about loyalty and how customer loyalty is difficult to maintain. That's no different than retailer and supplier loyalty to each other. It's a difficult thing to maintain. And the ones that sustain year over year over year are ones that do just that, communicate open and honest and share mutual goals. Right. Our, our best partners plan very transparently with us. They actually want to understand what's important to us. They want to understand our customer goals, our community goals. And then when they understand them, they build plans around them with us. You mentioned Cancan. We have a huge Partners in Caring program where we fight hunger in the community. Those are two very big ones. Our best partners ask about them, they want to understand them and they want to understand how to support them. But listen, reciprocity is important here. If that's my expectation of our partners, I should be willing and able to understand what our partners goals and objectives are and help them meet them as well.
- [34:04]
Sri Rajagopalan
Where does retail media and e commerce investments come into that conversation?
- [34:09]
Jeff Mondelli
I would say at the outset you have at least without detail, here's what we've done last year. Here's where we think we need to go to grow, right? So if the total pie is X, here's how we want to reallocate that or redistribute it to grow the pie for both of us. And once we can align on the macro, that's when we'll break out and have the specialists go to work on how to build that plan. And then we put it all together at the end and make sure it rolls up how we like. And then again, I talked about continuous planning a little while ago. We've got the plan, but what is the cadence of our communication throughout the year?
- [34:44]
Sri Rajagopalan
Jeff, one more thing kind of surfaces to the top of mind for me on that angle and it's investments for innovation. We're living in a very different world than we've lived five years ago where a lot of innovation is discovered by the consumer and social channels like TikTok, Instagram, reels, streaming tv. Just a variety of new ways that bombarded with communication in that world when they come come to you with new innovation they want to bring to the store. It's one of the best in class pieces of the partnership. A surround sound like are you guys asking bring me a 360 plan? And for the first time are you yourself getting curious about hey, what's the media plan way outside Wakefurn, like what's the national reach? Are you going to be on tv. Do you have even. Even though I hate to use the words, there's some reality of linear still works today. So you guys asking for a surround sound plan? Is that even important?
- [35:37]
Jeff Mondelli
It's absolutely important. Within our current continuous business planning process, we have a whole call out for innovation and distribution where we expect at least for a launches. What is the full plan? Not just we've got this line extension in this flavor. It'll be in store in April. You're going to take it. What are all the things that come with that to help us make sure we both launch with excellence?
- [36:02]
Peter V. S Bond
So Jeff, let me close out our conversation today. I know SRI agrees with me when I say that I know my success and I've heard SRI speak about this as well in this industry has been largely credited on the mentorship that we have been afforded through our careers. Formal, informal mentors that have helped guide us in making better decisions, making us smarter and helping make our effort successful. I'd love to hear from you some big piece of advice that you've received during your career and how did that shape your success in the industry you've pursued.
- [36:47]
Jeff Mondelli
So it's not very complex. It's two words and it's a double edged sword. This is a little dangerous for me because if Paul Patton or Darren Caudel, who I report to are listening, I know this is going to come with special project or homework. But the philosophy that's been passed on to me is just simple, say yes. And I mean that specifically to opportunities. Right? Because certainly if you want to be an effective leader, you have to be very comfortable saying no. But when you're presented with an opportunity, especially one that you're not comfortable with or maybe doesn't excite you, might even scare you, probably is in your best interest to say yes. Saying yes has done a lot for me. It's very powerful. It's put me in rooms I would have never been in before. It's allowed me to build a network with people like both of you in this industry. Put me on stage at speaking engagements for topics that I'm not an expert in. People probably would shy away from that, but I lean in on those things and force myself to learn. So when I get up there I, I at least look like I know what I'm talking about. It's put me in rooms and positions within my organization I wouldn't have had the opportunity to be in. And it's allowed me to lead an incredible category management team that teaches me every day. So I would encourage future leaders, current leaders.
- [38:08]
Sri Rajagopalan
Jeff, you actually bring back a memory in my own life how my career got shaped in 2012. I was working in the Dollar Drug convenience channel in sales leadership at Frito. And I really love being at a customer. I mean, you know, Jeff, in your interactions with me, that being in the field was important to me. And I enjoyed that part of the job the most, being with retailers, being in store. And my then manager boss, who was the chief customer officer for Frito, Vivek, who eventually went down to run Albertsons, said to me one day you're going to start Ecom for Fredo and that's your full time job. And I said to myself, I must have done something wrong in my career. Complete failure. I wanted to be East Coast VP for Frito. Didn't happen. And I gave up and said I need to find a new profession. And I came home depressed that night and I said it to my wife. We're going to be leaving Texas soon. And the worst thing happened to me today and my wife looked at me squarely in the eye and said to me, if a chief customer officer Frito Lay, your boss thinks it's a good idea, you should at least give it a shot for 60 days and say yes. And if you do and you find after 60 days it was a bad idea, judge. But there's a reason he's the chief customer officer of Frito. And of course, years later, there's a reason why he was the CEO of Albertsons and I wasn't, because I didn't have the foresight to see it. But I'll tell you, Jeff, if I hadn't said yes and accepted it and embraced it, I wouldn't be a CPG guy today. So I think back to that moment. It does require reflection when a manager gives feedback on going with the positivity of it first, finding the value of it first before criticizing and exploiting it, taking advantage of it to the extent feasible before judging. And what a great way you summarized it with one simple word, right? Saying yes. And I cannot thank you enough for that. And Jeff, I think the discussion will be incomplete if I don't ask you one question kind of out of bounds over here, which is you use the word AI. What trends are you following these days?
- [40:16]
Jeff Mondelli
So I mentioned a minute ago that I was on a panel speaking engagement and it was at NGA this past winter talking about the use of AI in pricing optimizations. And really what it showed me was that no one's got the answer, despite what you read a lot of times about the proliferation of technology in this space. Where we are seeing inroads is just the ability to rapidly sift through tremendous amounts of data to help get to get tasks done right. That's clearly not where it's going to end. It will wind up doing some things in critical thinking space that are just scary and I can't wrap my head around. But for now, there are some things we do today that we could do with excellence if we leveraged AI a little bit more effectively. And I've challenged supplier partners to go out there and find those solutions for us. Whether it's more effectively linking my private label items to my competitors private label items for pricing optimization or identifying spec differences between certain produce items that I carry versus someone else, there's no need for a sea of analysts to go mine that data anymore. And we need to continue to push the envelope and find solutions so we can deliver for customers at a faster rate.
- [41:36]
Sri Rajagopalan
Well, Sandy Deed Jeff, let me remind our audience that you can find all of our content. Simply go into a web browser and typing cpguys.com with the URL. If you find someone you know that has something to contribute to this ongoing discussion on the CPG guys in this industry, please drop us a line@contactpguys.com Again, that email is contactpguys.com to our audience. I can't say enough thank yous for the clicks, likes, comments, direct messages, meeting us at trade shows, coming to our events, our dinners, our networking parties, recording episodes with us like Jeff was gracious enough to do today. We are always grateful for you to our sponsors. The show doesn't exist without you. You work with us all year. We're grateful to have you as a partner. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Jeff. Thank you. Generous of you to make time during a busy, busy week for the CPG guys. It was a pleasure to have you.
- [42:27]
Jeff Mondelli
Yep, thank you both. Appreciate the time.
- [42:29]
Sri Rajagopalan
That's a wrap of this episode. We will see you soon on another episode of the CPG Guys.
- [42:45]
Unknown
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