From shelf to table: More than meets the eye

Picture this – you’ve just arrived at the grocery store for your weekly shop. List in hand, you start making your way through the aisles adding must-haves to your cart…and maybe a few non-necessities too, because we all know we NEVER just pick up EXACTLY what we came for, right? You’re nonchalantly reaching for each item as you normally do, but have you ever really thought about how they got there? Why THAT type of packaging was selected or how THOSE varieties of products made it to shelves?   

Well, you’re about to find out. 

Product sourcing and development is a PROCESS. It truly takes a village for this, as there are many steps and people involved before customers can actually purchase something in our stores. The journey begins with our procurement, category and merchandising teams, meeting with various suppliers during ‘innovation week’ to see what’s coming to market each year. Our seafood teams like to call this ‘fin-ovation’. Suppliers present their latest and greatest and once we see something that catches our eye, it’s time to get down to business.   Seafood procurement director Danielle Black highlights a few important considerations that come into play when sourcing products: 

• Availability (seasonal items, product origin, etc.); 

• Timelines (how quickly can this get to us); and 

• Volume (how much do we need to serve the customer base and satisfy the allocated space in stores).  

That brings us to the design phase. Once we know what we want, it’s time to make it pretty. When it comes to our own corporate brand products, we work closely with our internal product development and marketing creative teams, to produce something uniquely ours. For national brands – suppliers are the experts and we trust them, so our internal product support teams just give the a-okay that we’re aligned with packaging details such as claims, nutrition labels, etc.   

But, product considerations aren’t just limited to the way things look and feel – it’s also about quality, sustainability, variety and value. This is why sampling is an absolute must before product orders are finalized to make their way through our supply chain system and get handed off to stores. Sometimes this looks like surveys and focus groups. Others, it’s our very own procurement team slicing and dicing some fresh fish for a little quality assurance. 

“It’s such an exciting and interesting journey to be a part of,” says Danielle. “The way I see it is that my job is to help put quality products on shelf that help feed Canadians on a daily basis.”