Meijer to Sharpen Category Management with Nielsen Info Pact

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Meijer Inc. here inked a new long-term agreement naming The Nielsen Co. that is intended to help the supercenter chain sharpen its abilities to conduct more effective collaborative category management with major vendors.

Meijer named Nielsen its preferred information provider for category management, marketing, and merchandising functions. Under the partnership, Nielsen and Meijer will work to enhance the collaborative category review process, which in turn will serve as the basis for category and vendor planning meetings between Meijer and its manufacturer partners.

"Our partnership with Nielsen will increase efficiencies in our review process, and will provide our company with the tools and information needed to deliver what our customers want, when they want it," said Ralph Fischer, Meijer's group v.p./grocery merchandising. "Nielsen's ability to meet our extensive data needs and their industry-leading competencies made them the clear choice to be our preferred information supplier."

The Nielsen-created Meijer Custom Category Review Reports will deliver a collaborative view to be used by Meijer and its manufacturer partners, with Nielsen information delivered in the context of Meijer's custom geographies and product hierarchy. The single platform of information will ensure that Meijer and manufacturers are working from the same Meijer-defined information set, enabling a common view for approaching business decisions.

"This partnership will focus on solutions, and together with Meijer we will set the standard deliverable for vendor partners to conduct their category reviews," said Dan Sacco, s.v.p./client service for Nielsen. "By ensuring consistency in the business planning process, our process will support increased profitability, efficiency and productivity."

The family-run Meijer, a pioneer of the supercenter concept, operates 177 stores throughout Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio, and employs more than 63,000 team members.

The Nielsen Co. is a global information and media company with leading market positions and recognized brands in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), business publications (Progressive Grocer, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek), trade shows and the newspaper sector (Scarborough Research).
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