On today’s broadcast
On today’s broadcast
Welcome to Lempert Report LIVE. On today's broadcast, we're gonna be a little controversial here. Instacart has hired Lizzo: the good, the bad. New rules for school lunch, a new food competition. Generation Z says no kids for me. Twitch becomes a food powerhouse. On the bullseye it's all about the Grateful Dead. Now let's get started, but first I wanna make an announcement on Supermarketguru.com. Starting today, courtesy of our partnership with Cision. You can get the latest feed on all the food news throughout the nation. It just streams. There's already thousands of stories on there. Two to give you an example of what's on there, today that I didn't know about. Planet Smoothie is now offering three new creamy avocado smoothies as part o f their menu. I'm not sure there's Avo L oco, Pińa Paradise, and nutty avocado. Not sure that that's something I'm g onna try. Also Dunkin donuts, o ur friends at Dunkin Donuts have a new harpoon D unkin, pumpkin spiced latte a le. That's coming out and I forgot to mute my phone, you know, that we're live here. So Sally, let's get started. Instacart has tapped Lizzo for their new brand campaign. It's really interesting. It's getting some very mixed reviews both in the trade press and I think from Lizzo herself. The whole idea here is they wanna attract generation Z, which is great. The campaign is called"The world is your cart". They launched it during the VMAs. They sponsored an ad during the VMAs. They sponsored Lizzo, obviously on it. And the film starts off by showing her in a bathtub, listening to a remix. It progresses with her surroundings, turning into a fantastical scene, covered with cherry blossom trees as she adds items to her digital cart.[Sally] I know that you're a fan of Lizzo. Before we get into the food aspect, tell us a little bit about what you know about Lizzo.
Sally:Well, starting off with the video. I think the video is really cute and very well done. You know, she orders cherries, it rains cherries down on her. She orders flowers and then flowers bloom all around her and it's very creative and very compelling. I do feel like this is a great way to go after that gen Z audience, if that's what they're trying to do. And she is also very appealing to the gen Z audience because she has been, even though she says she doesn't want to be a role model for body positivity, she has been that for a lot of young people, sort of sending out the message that we can be healthy and not be super skinny. So I really like this campaign and I like that they've got Lizzo involved now. I do have some questions about what's in Lizzo's cart.
Phil:Well, let's talk about generation Z. Their top spending priority is food, taking 23% of their wallet. That comes from Piper-Sandler And food is the greatest share o f spending a m onth. The upper income males, teen age, 13 to 19, 5 4% of teens prefer healthy snacks. That's what we're gonna talk about when we get to Lizzo's cart, 49% consume, or we're willing to try plant-based meat, and then her cart, here's a l ittle tease, there is the Impossible Burger. They've shown generation Z has a preference for healthy eating, more organic, more natural foods that are free of additives. They pay more attention to the ingredient list. However, here's the downside to them, only 3% list fruits, vegetables, or nuts as a favorite snack item, wh ich is so rt o f s urprising to me for this generation. The top six snack brands for teens: Lays, Doritos, Cheetos, all from Frito Lay, Pepsi, Campbell Soups, goldfish. I didn't even know goldfish wa s s till a thing. Kellogg's cheese itsand Mondelez's Oreos. And they, the Piper Sandler survey that I'm referencing, found that the average teen spends about 12 hours a week on social media. So to your point, this is really smart of Instacart to try to get involved with this because to make Instacart hip for millennials or, you know, generation Z, could be a challenge. There's also in today's supermarket news and interview with Celia Van Wickel,the senior director of digital commerce at Cantar who talks about this campaign. She points out that Instacart has 22 and a half thousand followers on TikTok. Lizzo has 25.2 million followers on TikTok. So clearly, you know, there's some opportunity here. She also talks about the fact that this expands the categories on Amazon for this generation Lizzo orders, Takis. And as you pointed out, flowers and a phone charger. So it's really talking about all that, but also what she points out, which is really important to me is that on Lizzo's TikTok and on her Instagram, there's no reference to Instacart or to this campaign. So for me that says that, you know, Lizzo has a toe in, you know, maybe it's a good money thing, maybe it's, but she's really not into it. If in fact she's not promoting it. If you think about when Oprah, you know, bought into Weight Watchers, everything that Oprah was doing was all about weight Watchers. It was really a 50/50 proposition, versus Lizzo, just like a toe in the water. Let's talk about her shopping cart. I guess my first question is how much did these brands have to pay to be on this page? That's the cynicism in me because here's, what's there Ben and Jerry's ice cream, the takis, Smuckers, Uncrustables, peanut butter, those horrible sandwiches. Cherries as per her order. Flowers, Oreo chocolate sandwich cookies, Skittles, the impossible foods, lemons, limes, bananas, purified, water. Perrier. Coca-Cola. What do you think about her shopping cart?
Sally:Well, I'm disappointed that it doesn't have more fresh fruits and vegetables in it. In fact, I'm not sure there is one vegetable on it and that would be good to see. It does feel like junk food. Lizzo works out all the time. She does all this hard dancing and singing on stage and she posts that all on her TikTok account, if you've looked at it. And she seems like a very strong, healthy woman. She eats a vegan diet. That's why we see the impossible beef on there. But I don't know if this is really sending a good message to gen Z about choices of healthy food that they have.
Phil:I agree. I mean, they could do so much more. I agree with using Lizzo to get to this audience. I agree that she has this very strict workout regime. I couldn't handle it. She's vegan. Body positivity, you know, I'm strong. You know, when I watched her on Saturday night live, I don't know, a year ago or whatever else I said, oh my gosh, this girl can move t here. There's no question about it. She's gotta be working out to do this. So you take all that and then you have her page on Instacart, and for me, it's just a disconnect just as, as you said. So kudos for reaching out, a nd Instacart, you get a n F for both execution. On Lizzo's side of things, and I don't know if that means more money or what it means, but certainly on her page, t hat you want people to go to and buy things, up the a nte. Do things that are a little bit better. Okay. E nough on Lizzo. But hopefully Instacart is listening and hopefully they're gonna make some changes. And, hey Lizzo, we invite you to come here on the Lempert Report LIVE, tell us what we're getting wrong here. You know, a nytime, a nytime you want. There's a new California bill that limits foreign grown food in public school meals, Sally, what's that about?
Sally:Well, this bill that is advancing in the state legislature really wants these California public schools to buy American. So the deal for the Buy American Food Act is that they have to buy American, unless the price of it is more than 25% lower than it's domestic counterpart. So there are mixed opinions about this. Some people feel that this is going to give American products an opportunity to price gouge. And some people feel like it's not really fair.
Phil:Yeah. And also when we look at the whole school system, most of the school programs are done on bids and very often it's sealed bids. So you don't know what somebody else is offering, but the problem that we've seen in schools, this is way pre-pandemic, is they don't have the infrastructure, the purchasing infrastructure to really buy foods properly. You know, when we worked with Michelle Obama and Sam Cass on the school lunch program, what we found as we visited schools around the nation is there were no kitchens. There were people that were just defrosting food and so on. I think the whole school infrastructure system needs to be fixed. I applaud what California's trying to do. I agree with you. I think that when you have this 25% difference that either it forces certain brands to up their price, or it looks at imports, especially from China, who lowers their price so much that we have to buy their food. And I'm not sure that it makes a lot of sense. There's a new program coming on TV. It is not a series. It is a one off, it will just be on Good Morning Washington, and it's called Stall Wars. Is this something you're gonna watch, Sally? And what is it?
Sally:I would love to see this competition. And I think it's a really creative and great idea. It's a great deal for the contestants if they win. So there's this big, new food hall, the Heights at Wisconsin place in Bethesda, Maryland, and they've already curated a really nice variety of food and cocktails and different ways to enjoy this food hall. But they're leaving one open for this competition. They're asking people to send in videos this month telling them their story and about their brand. And then they're gonna have a panelist of judges that will kind of, in the same way shark tank does, judge them and choose a winner. Now what's really cool is that they will, for the winner, they will waive the buildout cost and hand a one year lease to the winner in a prize valued at$50,000 and their rent for the year will be a percentage of their sales. So I think this is a great ideal idea for a new company.
Phil:I think it's brilliant. I think, also tying it in with Good Morning Washington brings obviously a lot of great PR to the food hall, for nothing. So that's great. And I love when we see these people really reaching out to new emerging food brands or food restaurants and trying to give them a helping hand, uh, so that they can learn. So I, I think that this is a model that I would love to see every food h all doing throughout the country and why limit it to food halls, why not supermarkets. You know, so many supermarkets have put in grocerants. And, you know, if you look at the new Kroger that went up, not new anymore, probably about a year, you know, year and a half, two years ago with their stands on their second floor. Why shouldn't Kroger or why shouldn't Hy-vee, or any of these retailers, have this same kind of competition for emerging brands, give them the space fre e. M aybe take a percentage of sales ren t, m aybe not. But also it gets you on TV with a lot of positive PR and lots of great PR within the community. I think it's a really smart, really cool idea. Neither you, nor I are generation Z. We know that, but there's a new report that comes out that talks about the fact that generation Z does not want to have kids. Here's why: climate crisis, they're naming that as the number one. They're obviously talking about the economy. So, you know, there's a book that Jordan Davidson wrote. It hasn't published yet. It's coming out in December, it's called: So when are you having kids? He interviewed more than 300 people for this book. And it's all about the fears that generation Z have for having kids. There's this one quote that Emily Shapiro comes from New York city. She's 23 years old. She's a copywriter for an ad agency. She lives at home, saves money, never wants kids. Here's her quote: They're sticky. I could never imagine picking up a kid that's covered in ice cream. I'm a bit of a germophobe. I don't want to change a diaper if I did have one, meaning a kid, I wouldn't want them until they're in like sixth grade. I also think that the physical earth isn't doing so great. So it would be unfair." Hey, Emily, I don't want you t o h ave a k id. Your kid would not come out normal h ere. W hat do you think Sally?
Sally:Well, you know, there are a couple of things I think about this. The US birth rate fell 4% in 2020, and that is the largest single year decrease in nearly 50 years, according to a government report. We've also seen that for a few years now that older women are having babies more and younger women are having babies less. So there's a few things here that I think can be addressed. One, first and foremost we have to, for a variety of reasons aggressively, address climate change in this country. And, we can see it's affecting so many things for people. I also think that addressing women in the workforce and how they can continue to maintain their careers, I've read something in here about women feeling like they lose their identities when they become mothers. And that does happen very often. So I think as a workforce, we have to support women in having careers and being mothers at the same time. And then I also think another thing that's really important is that we need to continue to educate people how to eat healthy on a budget, because if their big concern is, I don't know if I can afford to feed these kids, we have to teach them how to do that.
Phil:Yeah, I think so. And I also think that there's probably nothing more precious than human life and extending life on the planet. And if in fact we have a generation and we're just talking about this one generation here, who's saying, you know, I don't wanna have kids for whatever reason, we're gonna have some severe problems. Whether it's new people who are funding social security for our older Americans or, or just, you know, our whole economy can really fall apart if we don't have, you know, another generation coming up. So I think that, you know, when this book comes out, I think there'll be a lot of controversy just based on, based on these couple quotes that are in this book. I'm hoping that there's some, you know, some of the generations that says,"yeah, I wanna have kids, but here's what I'm gonna do to make sure that, you know, I raise them properly". Here's what I'm gonna do to your point, that I'm gonna feed them properly. I'm gonna teach'em about the environment I'm gonna educate them properly. All of those things. I think it's easy to say, I don't wanna have kids. It's a lot harder to have kids in this kind of current environment and teach them to learn how to become, you know, really good adults and parents themselves. Twitch has a new report that has come out, a new study from researchers at Penn state and Dartmouth that found that advertisements on Twitch can lead to cravings and purchasing of nutrient poor foods like candy and energy drinks among adolescents and young adults. When we look at who is on Twitch, 65% of Twitch users are male, 35% are female. Thank you, Sally, for finding that out. 41% or 16 to 24 year olds, 25 to 34 year olds comprised 32% makes me think that Instacart and Lizzo better get on Twitch soon. What do you think about, you know, Twitch's is impact on this generation?
Sally:I have some strong opinions about this, Phil and, and I'll tell you, the main reason is that I have an almost 12 year old boy who does spend time on Twitch. He's very into gaming. And I have to tell you this morning when I was driving him to school, we pick up another 12 year old boy in our neighborhood to drive to school. And he got in the car. They're both gamers. They spend time on Twitch and the boy pulled out of his backpack two energy drinks that were from this company called Shadow Anime. And they had anime characters and graphics all over them. And I immediately had an issue with this because I don't want my 12 year old to drink energy drinks. And this is clearly marketing to kids that shouldn't be drinking those energy drinks.
Phil:Yeah, absolutely. And knowing Eli, he's a kid with his head on his shoulders. He's smart. You know, he cares about what he eats and stuff, but still when you have your friend in a car, say"here, take an energy drink", goes even beyond Twitch. So I don't envy you driving these kids to school. It's tough. So, before we get to the Bullseye, uh, just another special announcement that the CMA and SIMA hosted a webinar with Hivery. We've had Hivery on our webcast, L ost in the Supermarket before, very smart company, very good company. In this webinar Hivery discussed how they o ptimized the days of supply strategy to reduce out of s tocks and regional items among other things selling patterns were discussed as well as national brands and private label distinctions. This is a webinar that you don't w anna miss. Members of CMA can access the full replay of the webinar in the resource library. Non-members please visit c atman.global to contact the association a bout membership. And let's s ee what h ad to s ay,
Hivery:We're optimizing the supply, and we're doing that based on our unique need and creating a locally relevant assortment. So, so how is this one locally relevant, specific to this layout? Several items that may be considered regional have been included. Now this was done not because we have a map overlay that says, you know, in this area, these items will, will likely do really well, but it's, as a result of the model saying based on these selling patterns, these items will, will do well in this store
Phil:On today’s Bullseye: Stephanie Ganz shares in Bon Appetit her mission– to buy a package of Grateful Dead lettuce. It’s a real thing– grown and packed by Gotham Greens, one of the most exciting new produce companies in our industry which is a lettuce mix of butterhead, green and red leaf lettuce– and features the famous Grateful Dead dancing bear and a custom Grateful Dead QR code that links to a 20-song playlist on Spotify– a great reason to buy the brand for Boomers to Millenials. Gotham also pledges to plant a tree with Forest Nation for every package sold. The interesting thing about the Dead is that in a 2015 poll it found that the Dead was loved across all demographics, regardless of age or political persuasion. In fact, in 2020 the next iteration– Dead& Company started touring with John Mayer. In the past 5 years alone, the Dead grossed$250 million in concert tours– and that’s without Jerry Garcia who died back in 1995. I spent a lot of my college years in overalls(yup that was a thing then) and had my then girlfriend sew a Grateful Dead patch right in the center of my chest. Was I a Deadhead? No, very few of us were– but there is something about this every touring band that reached out to the Boomer generation and gave us hope, love, insight and a lot of great music. When I first moved to California from New York City I lived in the same town as Garcia– we would see him walking through the town and even witnessed his wedding party on Valentines in 1994 heading to Tiburon Tommie’s after the wedding. There is a lot of criticism on social media that the Dead is selling out by putting the Dancing Bear on lettuce– Grateful Dead Productions– the merchandising arm of the organization– brings in around$70 million a year. And before you go THERE…. remember the Dead in the late 1960s had a commune in San Francisco for the band, staff, roadies– everyone– and they all were paid equally and as they became more successful, was one of the first– if not the first band- to offer profit sharing and health coverage to all. Back to the lettuce. Is this a good idea or just a sham. I think it’s a great idea. For many years we’ve seen produce companies try to merchandise to be hip and get more shoppers to consume more produce– which is a good thing! They’ve tried characters including Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, SpongeBob and the Tasmanian Devil. Foxy hired Brooke Shields to be their brand role model and icon, even Lisa Lillien, our friend and one of the most successful food influencers of all time as Hungry Girl appeared on fresh produce- but none of these have done the job. Seemed like it was just for the money and little emotion was involved. Sure maybe it’s just a gimmick to get attention– but somewhere I think this one is different and Grateful Greens just may be a hit.
:Thanks for joining us. Don't forget to go to SupermarketGuru.com. Look at our archives. Look at our articles that we post every day. And don't forget to look at our new Food News Today feed. Thanks for joining us. And we'll see you here back next week.