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Last year, the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers (CFIG) was at the forefront in dealing with a myriad of issues on behalf of our members – retail consolidation, credit-card swipe fees, increases in postage rates for business, changes to provincial recycling laws, and new retail frameworks for selling beer and wine in grocery stores – to name just a few.
These issues, and many others, have a cumulative effect on the ability of independent grocers to stay on the retail landscape. So for CFIG, there is a keen sense of mission in our advocacy.
What is often overlooked, however, is just how important the independents – and CIFG’s advocacy in support of them – are to the entire food industry.
The combined revenue of independent grocers in Canada is around $13 billion annually – greater than some of the more well-known corporate retailers such as Costco and Walmart. This number is neither widely known nor recognized by government or within the grocery industry.
Several factors have contributed to the success of independent retail grocers and that $13-billion figure – for example, their strong support for and presence in the communities they serve; an enhanced and more personable shopping experience; and a desire to differentiate their products and stores in a variety of ways. The latter is particularly important; independents are eager to list new products or, as one grocer put it, “to act as a retail incubator” to test consumer reaction to products. The inter-dependency that independents have on suppliers to help them differentiate themselves in a very competitive marketplace is an opportunity that many in the vendor community often overlook. Yet, many products and new concepts have started out in an independent retail grocery store.
Home meal replacement (HMR) is an example of an innovation that independents successfully exploited. Today, HMR is a “must-have” throughout the retail community. Retailers, producers, and processors in the food industry must innovate, not only to remain competitive, but also to grow their businesses. Recognizing that, the industry needs to work more closely with one another to make our inter-dependency work for all of us. While CFIG will continue to make it a priority to advocate and speak out on any number of issues that we feel negatively impact our members, we recognize that, at the same time, we need to take advantage of the positive opportunities that already exist within our industry.
We know that the members of our manufacturing community are eager to innovate but, quite rightly, want that effort to help grow their businesses. Well, independent retail grocers represent a great opportunity to showcase innovation. They depend on the vendor community to do so, which in turn helps the independent retailer compete. In other words, they need you as much as you need them.
In the year ahead, let’s spend more time working together to exploit the opportunities of interdependency. We owe it to ourselves, to our industry and, most of all, to the shared
customers that we serve across Canada to get the grocery channel growing again.
Tom Barlow is president and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers.
This article originally appeared in January/February 2015 Grocery Business magazine.
