The Lempert Report LIVE

Food Inflation Update, Climavore, Vodka Butter

April 17, 2023 Phil Lempert Episode 74
The Lempert Report LIVE
Food Inflation Update, Climavore, Vodka Butter
Show Notes Transcript

Welcome to The Lempert Report LIVE



Phil:

Welcome to the Lempert Report Live. On today’s broadcast Food inflation slows– but for how long, Earth Day is here and what supermarkets are doing about t, are you a climavore?, the new hybrid– luxury housing and food, is vodka butter a trend and on the Bullseye we take a look at Barbie, the movie we all know. We all know its a turbulent time in grocery, so which Grocers do Americans trust the most? As a retailer and brand you want to build deeper trust with your shoppers. How can you identify those great things about your store or product that you leverage to grow trust. This Thursday, April 20th at 2pm eastern time, join me, along with market research firm BrandSpark International and Winsight Grocery Business for an enlightening webinar where you'll learn,"What you need to know to build trust with grocery shoppers”. Sign up now with the link in the chat as space is limited for this free webinar. Let’s get started. So, Sally, when we take a look at food inflation, clearly with some good news, came out of March, but not sure that it's gonna last very long.

Sally:

Yes, Phil. Apparently food inflation is down, 0.2%. This is good news. This is the first drop that we've seen since September of 2020. So definitely, that is going to help consumers out. But the other side of it is that because of the massive flooding and the weather, the extreme weather we've seen in states particularly like California where a lot of our vegetables are grown, we may see an increase in some of those common, produce items that we all buy. And particularly there's talk about tomato sauces there being a problem with those prices coming up because the flooding has caused a delay in tomato planning. So we aren't going to have as much of a harvest this year.

Phil:

Yeah, I think food inflation is gonna turn around, meaning go back up. There's no question about it as it relates to climate. And also, in Saturday's New York Post, there's a great story about, Zabars. Zabars has a place on the West Side, which is their original one. They opened up a place on the east side called Zabar's E A T and what this story is about. Talk about inflation, a ham and cheese sandwich is$29 for a ham and cheese sandwich. Now, it's not anything like really special as it relates to ham, or the cheese, or the bread. It's whatever. So this reporter, Jeanette Settembre, went there, bought it, did a great video on it. She and I spoke about it on Friday and I'll give you my quote.“The idea of a ham and cheese sandwich selling for$29 is ridiculous– even if it serves two portions; no matter how good the ingredients are or where they are from; or how tasty the sandwich is.” And it's amazing because she also talked to a lot of people about buying it. The Upper East side of New York is typically thought of as one of the wealthiest parts of Manhattan. And when she went to buy the sandwich, an employee at the Eatery was so embarrassed by the price they offered to charge her$22 instead of$29. They also said that there's a full soup and salad meal deal with a drink for$18 at a Panera, which is just down the street. So I think that, we're going crazy on this. And even in New York City where a ham and cheese sandwich is now 29 bucks, it's absolutely absurd. This Saturday is a very special day. It's Earth Day, and Earth Day is now 20 years old, no 50 years old. It started as a way to celebrate and honor the achievements of environmental movements and raise awareness of the need to protect earth's natural resources for future generations. But I have to say while it's been around for a very long time it doesn't seem like it's doing much. The environment is not getting better. Right?

Sally:

Yes. And it's very good to see retailers getting involved in supporting Earth Day and putting together programs to really inspire their shoppers to be mindful of the environment and how we purchased what we purchased and how we eat. And some of those ways, Phil, that retailers are getting involved is Natural Grocers, which is based out of Colorado. They're doing some great things for their shoppers. They're going to be offering 49% off of environmentally thoughtful products and that's gonna happen from April 22nd to the 24th. They are also gonna be giving out organic cleaning products randomly each hour. They're gonna be giving out sample sizes of their own brand of organic popcorn, and they're gonna be giving away gift cards. You could get a$500 prize or a hundred dollars prize, and they'll be also giving away their ladybug love reusable bags. Now I also wanted to mention some other retailers that are doing great things. Kroger, who has been working on their zero Waste Foundation effort. They're going to be donating money to the World Wild Wildlife Fund, and also they're gonna be supporting getting more trees planted by getting involved with the Arbor Day Foundation. Now, that will happen with, shoppers rounding up their receipts when they check out, which I, which is a great way, we've talked about encouragong people to donate money. And then also Albertsons is gonna be collaborating with Kelloggs to encourage shoppers to recycle, but teaching them also how to recycle. You know, there are some things like plastic bags or the packaging that goes on our produce, things that people often think can go in the recycling bin and then the items they put in the recycling bin are not recycled. And so they're gonna be showing people like what you can and what you don't want to. So that, so more things that are plastic that can be recycled can be reused. And then I also wanted to mention Spartan Nash. They are going to team up with a sustainability organization called Eco Drive and they are going to plant 20,000 mangrove trees in recognition of Spartan Nash associates and customers for Earth Day. I think that is a lovely way to commemorate Earth Day and celebrate their associates.

Phil:

Absolutely. I think it's, it's great. So we just wish that we had a longer list of retailers who are doing things to help. So if you know of any of retailers who are working on Earth Day, please send us an email, put it in the chat, let us know what retailers are doing things for Earth Day. Climavore seems to be the latest buzzword. What's that all about?

Sally:

Phil, these are our shoppers that are thinking about when they buy a food product, they're thinking about what sort of environmental impact that product has, and that is how they are choosing to buy certain products. Now, one thing that has come up talking about Climate wars is the comparison of chicken and beef. As people become more interested in eating, like climavores, if they are meat eaters, will they be more inspired to eat chicken as opposed to beef? Because what we have learned is that chicken has a lower environmental impact than beef.

Phil:

And a substantial one. So if we look at greenhouse gases, just greenhouse gases by themselves, beef is 51, that's greenhouse gas emissions, excluding methane. If it's including methane, it goes over a hundred. Chicken is 10 and has no emissions from methane. So clearly if you are concerned about the environment, and you like both chicken and beef, you might want to think a little bit about adding more chicken. And also when you look at short term versus long term greenhouse gases, same thing with beef going up to a rating of 50, chicken being six. And I think what's important to note is that there's a lot of talk about methane. We did a story a few months ago about how in New Zealand they wanted to tax farmers for cows burps. I'm not sure where that stands now or how you could calculate that, but clearly what everybody is missing, in my opinion, is that methane is short term in the atmosphere, but CO2 is long term. Methane can be eradicated in a matter of of days. CO2 is a matter of centuries, Right?

Sally:

And this is an important distinction that I feel a lot of shoppers do not know about this. In fact, I'm learning this, I'm newly learning this about methane. That doesn't mean it's not something for us to be concerned about. It is an issue. But it is something to think about when we hear about the impact of beef and dairy. It may not be as much as we have thought it was because the methane is evaporating more quickly, as you said. However, one thing to keep in mind is that even when we take those methane emission numbers away from dairy and beef, they, still have the highest environmental impact of all of our other issues.

Phil:

Yeah, absolutely. Let's head down to Miami where there are some interesting things going on as it relates to these new apartment buildings and condos that are being built. We have one being built by Diesel Jeans, Missoni, Porsche, Bentley. They're building these residential towers, but now there's a new group that's getting involved in it and it's a restaurant group, Carbone, Sadelle’s Parm, Dirty French, and Contessa. They're all part of the Major Food Group, that company. And they're now entering the luxury real estate market with a residential tower. Does it make sense for a restaurant to be in the residential business?

Sally:

Well, if you are a foodie, it could make sense for, for you or if you're someone that doesn't like to go out much or leave, leave home very often. what's what's really cool about this, if you have 4.5 million, because that's where these units are gonna start. Well, there's 50 units in this building. Some of them are entire floors. However, the Major Food Group's vision for this is that they're going to have all of these different restaurant options and bars. They have private chefs, they have culinary classes, ways for people that love food to get involved, in making food and enjoying great food and getting to know chefs. So if that is something on the luxury end that you really love, this could be a great place. What would be really awesome is to see markets and retailers incorporated in these buildings. And as we know, when we experienced the pandemic and the shutdown wouldn't it have been nice if you lived somewhere where you had all of these options in your building?

Phil:

Yeah. But you know, part of the fun of eating out is going out versus just being in your own building, taking an elevator down and whatever. I think it's kind of boring, especially if I'm gonna fork over four and a half million dollars for an apartment. I, hopefully, have enough money to go out to eat and not just there. Or maybe you get a discount, I don't know, spend four and a half million, then they'll probably give you a 5% discount on the menu. I don't know. Talking about trends, the latest recipe trend on TikTok, is going viral. What's this recipe?

Sally:

Get ready Phil. It's a vodka butter. Have you ever thought about putting liquor in your butter? Carolina Gelen has, and she is taking butter and putting it in a food processor and adding a little vodka. And in her video, the way that she pairs it is she takes this butter and she makes some crusty bread and she gets some anchovies. She spreads the butter on, puts the anchovies on and serves it as an hors d'oeuvre. And it looks really lovely. I have not tried the vodka butter, but she has got over half a million followers on her TikTok account, and she has over 15 million likes. So people are really, really enjoying what Carolina Gelen has to say.

Phil:

I guess. I don't know. It's not something, and probably when you look at butter as a carrier, you could do a whole bunch of different, l iquors and liqueurs with it. I guess how you would use it, I don't know. But also there have been butter boards as a trend that we've seen in certain restaurants where they'll bring you 3, 4, 5 different kinds of flavored butters that you could use on breads. And maybe this is a new trend that'll hit some of those restaurants as well. But I think I'll pass. I'm not a big butter person to begin with, so what can I tell you? Thanks Sally. Flexitarians are broadly defined as shoppers who purchase animal- and plant-based products in the same shopping trip. Market research firm Numerator recently surveyed 10,000 flexitarians on their shopping habits, and the findings suggest a major opportunity for producers of plant-based products around emphasizing the health benefits of their offerings. Here’s a sampling from Numerator’s recent webinar for CMA/SIMA members on engaging flexitarian shoppers. Take a look.

Felxitarian:

What's interesting is that when we ask Flexitarians, why do you purchase plant-based foods and beverage, one of the key things that is coming through is that they believe that it's healthier and it has more nutritional benefits. And you can kind of put parenthesis around this so that they're thinking it's healthier and more nutritious than the animal-based equivalent products. This is fairly fascinating, because I think for some long view on this call, you know that the plant-based products and beverages aren't necessarily healthier or more nutritious than the animal-based equivalent ones, but this is a belief that the consumers have. So this is the key differentiation point, and there's going to be a need for your brand or these categories to explain to these shoppers where or what are the differences between what are the health benefits for one over the other? What are the nutritional differences between these products? And really help educate these flexitarians on this and hopefully build another connection so that they can really understand it and then help maybe make that decision to choose the plant-based ones over the trips.

Phil:

On today’s Bullseye– it seems like it’s all about Barbie– and its not just about kids. According to Mattel, the maker of Barbie, 90 percent of American girls ages 3– 10 own at least one Barbie. Over the years the doll has come under a lot of criticism for being too white, too perfect, unrealistic and has been blamed for trying to train little girls into sex objects. So over the years Mattel has designed and sold all different races and shapes of Barbie. And now comes Barbie the movie and the CPG world wants a piece of it! Recently I was at a restaurant talking to the waiters– all of whom were between 25 and 35 and all– male and female alike– are anxiously awaiting the movie. The plot of the movie, starring Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken, focuses on Robbie’s Barbie being expelled from Barbieland for being a less than perfect looking doll and she sets off for the human world to find true happiness. And(spoiler alert) Will Ferrell plays the CEO of Mattel and goes after the duo to bring them back to Barbieland. The movie is packed with many stars and comes at a time where we might just want to go to a movie theater and have some fun and laughs as the movie is predicted to be‘the’ movie of the summer. From now until the movie’s release date July 21 we can expect to see supermarkets and brands lining up to capitalize on the Barbie mania that is taking place. On May 3rd, Swoon, a zero sugar beverage brand that was co-founded by friends Cristina Ros Blankfein and Jen Ross started in 2015 to provide healthier alternatives to lemonades and iced teas for a very personal reason– Jen was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at an early age will launch its Barbie x Swoon Pink Lemonade– obviously with zero sugar. It’s the first brand tie-in that I’ve heard of so far, but I expect many more to follow. I love that Swoon is donating 10% of net profits from sales to the Barbie Dream Gap Project which provides resources, curriculum, skills development and leadership opportunities to girls between the ages of 5 and 10 across the world. I can only hope as other brands join the Barbieland craze that they will follow Swoon’s lead and give back to the young girls that make Barbie such a success. The Lempert Report is all about inspiring ideas, making our industry think and challenging each other. Let’s think about“being the shopper” and how we can bring our supermarkets and restaurants closer to meet their needs. I hope you’ll come back to join us on next week’s installment of The Lempert report LIVE when we focus on the biggest and best insights– and the things that really matter. Be sure to visit SupermarketGuru.com for the latest marketing analysis, issues and trends and don’t forget to join us back here next Monday at 2:30pm Eastern for more. the latest marketing analysis issues and trends. And we'll see you back here next Monday at two 30 for more.