Category Captain: Canned and Packaged Beverages—Coffee: Kraft Foods

Center store continues to be top of mind for many grocers, and Kraft Foods is doing its part to revitalize the segment, especially since coffee plays a key role.

In the past year, Kraft conducted extensive shopper research to explore the role of the coffee category in driving trips and store selection, as well as to identify opportunities to enhance the center store experience to drive traffic into the aisle and build basket ring. Its research unveiled that coffee is a trigger category, and highly likely to drive a stock-up trip. In addition, coffee shoppers give grocery stores the highest marks on comfort, convenience and consistency -- which suggests that enhancing the shopability of the coffee aisle will go a long way toward growing the business.

More specifically, Kraft found that coffee shopping is a pleasurable sensory experience for shoppers; a majority of on-demand/pod coffee buyers also purchase premium and/or mainstream coffee; shoppers are disappointed with the depth and breadth of on-demand products; and confusion at shelf exists, as shoppers see four distinct segments within coffee that aren’t reflected in grocers’ typical layouts.

Galvanized with this learning, Kraft developed a new shopper-centric aisle flow that includes:

• Leading the aisle with bulk coffee to “invite” shoppers in
• Arranging the segments according to shopper perception, via vertical blocking
• Creating a “coffee innovation bullseye” to highlight new products
• Placing complementary items, such as creamers and filters, adjacent to coffee