Cullen G.

YOUR VENDORS HAVE MORE IDEAS THAN YOU’RE GETTING FROM THEM. What if you brought your key supplier partners together and challenged them to help create what’s next for your menu? Food & Drink Resources can plan, manage and host your restaurant brand’s next Vendor Culinary Innovation Summit at the FDR Innovation Center in Centennial, Colorado. We turn the traditional vendor presentation into a focused, collaborative culinary innovation session built around your brand’s specific menu priorities and opportunities. FDR manages the entire process: • Establish innovation territories and menu white space • Identify and coordinate the right vendor partners • Provide vendors with clear innovation briefs and objectives • Collaborate with suppliers to develop brand-relevant concepts • Incorporate consumer, culinary and menu trend insights • Manage product receiving, culinary prep and execution • Facilitate presentations, tastings and concept evaluations • Capture the strongest ideas and create an actionable innovation roadmap Your Culinary, Marketing, Operations, Procurement and Supply Chain teams get to focus on evaluating the ideas instead of managing the event. And your suppliers are challenged to do more than present products. They bring solutions. They bring concepts. They bring ideas your team may not have considered. One location. One focused innovation agenda. Your vendor network working together to help build what’s next for your brand in our first-class innovation center. 📍 Food & Drink Resources Innovation Center Centennial, Colorado Planning your 2027 menu innovation calendar? Let’s put your vendor network to work. #FoodAndDrinkResources #MenuInnovation #CulinaryInnovation #RestaurantInnovation #VendorInnovation #MenuDevelopment #Foodservice #RestaurantIndustry

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Whole Foods Market's strategy is now operating on two distinct, powerful frequencies: Experience and Automation. The simultaneous expansion of "Sip & Spin" and the rollout of the Automated Micro-Fulfillment Center (MFC) reveal the comprehensive nature of the Amazon/Whole Foods latest master plan. Here is how both fit into the long-term strategy: - The Experiential Win: By adding features like "Sip & Spin", WFM converts a transactional grocery trip into an experiential destination. This increases dwell time, boosts customer loyalty, and drives higher basket sizes—a crucial way for physical retail to compete with pure-play e-commerce. - The Fulfillment Win: The new "store-within-a-store" and MFC are a logistical game-changer. They merge Whole Foods' organic inventory with Amazon's national brand inventory under one roof. The physical store is instantly leveraged as a highly efficient, automated e-commerce fulfillment hub, enabling faster, cheaper online delivery and pickup by combining two previously separate product universes. The net result? The physical Whole Foods store is no longer just a store. It is both a Neighborhood Hub that builds brand affinity and a High-Speed E-commerce Warehouse that enables Amazon to dominate online grocery fulfillment. #WholeFoods #Amazon #RetailStrategy #GroceryTech #ECommerce #SupplyChain #FoodIndustry #CPG #GroceryRetail #Supermarket #Fulfillment

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💡 Premier Foods Didn’t Just Buy Lentils — They Bought Trust. 🥄📈 The £48M acquisition of Merchant Gourmet signals more than a play for shelf space. It reflects a deeper shift toward health-forward, flavour-rich, and minimally processed products that align with modern consumer values. At Meyrick Consulting, we’re seeing this trend echoed across the ingredient space: ✔️ Growth in functional, heritage, and plant-based portfolios ✔️ A pivot from scale-at-all-costs to margin-rich specialisation ✔️ Increased convergence of B2B and D2C strategies in deal-making So we asked: Are you seeing more M&A interest in premium ingredients? 📊 Results: 🔹 33% – Yes, strongly 🔹 33% – Gradual uptick 🔹 22% – No change 🔹 11% – Less focus now 📉 While not every buyer is chasing premium, a growing share clearly is—especially as they look to de-risk portfolios and differentiate through quality and trust. 💡 Premium isn���t just a price point—it’s a strategic positioning. And for suppliers with strong branding and clean-label credentials, the window of opportunity may be wide open. 👇 Are you seeing increased M&A momentum in this space? Let’s compare notes. #FoodIngredients #StrategicAcquisitions #PremiumProducts #PlantBased

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The Foodservice Opportunity: Breaking Free from Retail's Margin Squeeze: For many CPG brands, retail margins are under relentless pressure. Slotting fees, private label competition, and constant promotional demands make profitability elusive. But there's an alternative: FOODSERVICE. According to foodservice expert Ed Zimmerman, founder of The Food Connector, the smart move is building foodservice channels while your retail business is still healthy, not as a last resort. A single foodservice deal—an airline contract, corporate cafeteria, or hotel group—can represent the volume of hundreds of retail stores combined. The real advantage? Those manufacturing efficiencies benefit your entire business, improving margins across all channels. Brands like Kellogg's, Perfect Bar, and Lesser Evil have cracked this code by repurposing existing products in new packaging formats to unlock million-dollar revenue streams while strengthening their retail competitiveness. Three Key Takeaways: 1. Start exploring foodservice before you're in crisis mode. Expanding while your retail business remains healthy gives you stronger negotiating power with foodservice partners. 2. Foodservice volume transforms your entire cost structure. Manufacturing efficiencies from large contracts flow back to improve retail margins, creating a compounding advantage. 3. Work with experienced foodservice guides. The channel operates differently from retail. Experts like Ed Zimmerman can help you avoid costly mistakes and accelerate success. Read the full post at: https://lnkd.in/e7g54caX Ed Zimmerman Hannah Feldman Matt Fry Brooks Nguyen Thaddeus Thorne Sadie Olsen Amy Zitelman Julie Garber (Ozlek) Phillip Oakley Ron Mills Ian Navarro Jeffrey Landsman Mike Schall Brittney Cook Katie Myers Lloyd Oshiro

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Searching for growth? General Mills has announced plans to boldly go after the over 55s in their quest to increase volumes. While much of CPG chases 18-45s or the latest wellness fad, General Mills is placing its bets on three under-the-radar, high-leverage consumer groups: - Adults aged 55 +, who account for nearly half of U.S. households and have enormous spending power. - Consumers using GLP-1 medications (up to 12%+ of U.S. adults), who’re eating less but seeking more protein, more functional nutrients, smaller portions. - Hispanic shoppers, where General Mills plans to ramp up innovation and engagement by ~40% in FY26. This move takes product renovation in new directions - redesigning products and formats to match how people now live, eat and feel. They’re innovating for smaller households (smaller pack sizes), higher-protein need states, functional nutrition and not just indulgence. And this isn’t an isolated move. It’s part of a broader CPG reboot as the absence of growth looms. Full article by Elizabeth Crawford here: https://lnkd.in/eC7uqJSk #CPG #Innovation #ConsumerTrends #GeneralMills #Wellness #GLP1 #MidlifeConsumers #BrandStrategy

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Influencer partnerships warrant the same due diligence applied to vendor relationships: audience relevance and geographic fit matter more than raw follower count. The right partnership builds credibility before it builds visibility. #FoodBusiness #Restaurant #TheFoodBusinessBlueprint #OperatorsMinute

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