Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, January twelve. I'm oscar A Mirrors from the
Speaker 1: Daily Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is Reopening America.
Speaker 1: Because of the pandemic, grocery friends are looking different this year.
Speaker 1: Instead of seeing large product lines or product innovations, there
Speaker 1: will be a focus on supply chain issues and keeping
Speaker 1: shelves stocked instead. Kara rosen Bloom, registered dietitian and president
Speaker 1: of Words to Eat By, joins us for what to
Speaker 1: look out for this year. Thanks for joining us, Carol
Speaker 1: my planure, thanks for having me. Usually at this time
Speaker 1: we're talking about new food trends for the year, what
Speaker 1: to expect upcoming. But obviously because of the pandemic kind
Speaker 1: of everything's been thrown upside down a lot of companies.
Speaker 1: Instead of focusing on new innovation of products, we're looking
Speaker 1: more at product efficiency, focusing on the supply chain issues
Speaker 1: that arose throughout the pandemic, making sure that shelves are
Speaker 1: actually stocked, rather than, you know, a bunch of new
Speaker 1: products coming on board. So Kara tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about what we're seeing. That's exactly right, and I
Speaker 1: mean as a dietitian for the last twenty years, I
Speaker 1: loved December January time because I'm always looking at trends
Speaker 1: to see what new products are out there, and as
Speaker 1: I started writing for my trends report, there were so
Speaker 1: few new products because companies are distracted needfully on efficiency.
Speaker 1: There are so many little gaps and little hiccups in
Speaker 1: the supply chain everywhere, along from the actual manufacturing even
Speaker 1: getting parts to do manufacturing, to getting things to the
Speaker 1: grocery store and then sales and grocery store. The coronavirus
Speaker 1: has put everything into a tailspin. So we're really seeing
Speaker 1: something different this year for the first time ever, and
Speaker 1: that's that the idea of getting products on the shelf
Speaker 1: period is more important than new products, and I've never
Speaker 1: seen that before in my history. And one of the
Speaker 1: big things that we've seen throughout the pandemic really is
Speaker 1: companies cutting back on the number of products they are offering.
Speaker 1: We saw that with meat process seen plants, there weren't
Speaker 1: as many cuts available. I think in your article you
Speaker 1: mentioned a soup company dropping their varieties down from eighty
Speaker 1: down to forty, which is a ton, you know. So
Speaker 1: these are some of the things we're seeing. There is
Speaker 1: this sort of overall idea that if you're going to
Speaker 1: get products two store shelves, you've got to get the
Speaker 1: most important products and the ones that sell the best.
Speaker 1: So rather than having a variety of eight soups, can
Speaker 1: we pick the top forty that are the best sellers,
Speaker 1: Or rather than having you know, three varieties of chips
Speaker 1: and crackers and all these things on store shelves, there's
Speaker 1: an efficiency by saying, you know what, let's look at
Speaker 1: the products that sell the best, and let's focus on
Speaker 1: those and make sure we can get those two shelves
Speaker 1: instead of ensuring that there's hundreds of skews available. We
Speaker 1: just want to make sure we can get something on
Speaker 1: store shelves rather than hundreds of other things. So experts
Speaker 1: think that the supermarkets themselves will look differently, the layouts
Speaker 1: will be differently. I think one person you spoke to
Speaker 1: you said that a lot of them might implement a
Speaker 1: reservation model where the front and the back of the
Speaker 1: store looked differently. How does that work? So I spoke
Speaker 1: with Phil Lambert, who is a food industry analyst. He
Speaker 1: works with many different grocery stores and big food companies,
Speaker 1: and he was telling me what he's hearing from them.
Speaker 1: One of the things that grocery stores have found is
Speaker 1: that consumers have a lot of anxiety, of course, of
Speaker 1: going into a grocery store. Some people aren't wearing masks properly,
Speaker 1: some people aren't wearing masks at all, and so there's
Speaker 1: a bit of a fear and an anxiety when they're
Speaker 1: shopping about their safety. So they want to either get
Speaker 1: in and out as quickly as possible, or they want
Speaker 1: to do online delivery or online or instat Carter, one
Speaker 1: of those sort of curbside options. So what he has
Speaker 1: found is some of the grocery stores have said they're
Speaker 1: now going to institute a reservation model where, similar to
Speaker 1: a restaurant, you book an advance and you have a
Speaker 1: time slot, and that will help them limit the number
Speaker 1: of shoppers that will be in the store at any
Speaker 1: one time. He also is noting that some companies are
Speaker 1: going to start to change the layout of their store
Speaker 1: so that people can still shop for fresh foods like
Speaker 1: fruits and vegetables and their cuts of meat. They can
Speaker 1: still browse and pick what they want, but that packaged item,
Speaker 1: so you know, anything from toilet paper to spread fast
Speaker 1: cereal to canned goods will be in the back of
Speaker 1: the store and that will be picked and packed for
Speaker 1: you while you shop, which would cut down on the
Speaker 1: amount of time people have to spend in the grocery
Speaker 1: store and make it more efficient. And he also mentioned
Speaker 1: those might not be picked impacked by humans that might
Speaker 1: be robotic in the future. Yeah, I mean, he said
Speaker 1: that it could cut the average grocery shop time of
Speaker 1: twenty two minutes down to about ten minutes, which is
Speaker 1: beneficial on all parties. It looks like the other thing
Speaker 1: that we've seen this trend going on for a long
Speaker 1: time is more plant based items on the shelves. This
Speaker 1: is just kind of accelerating it and an interesting thing
Speaker 1: that I didn't know I haven't seen just yet. There's
Speaker 1: blends of these things too. Let's say, on milk, you
Speaker 1: can get a fifty fifty cow's milk and almond milk blend.
Speaker 1: The extension of the plant based stuff is continuing exactly.
Speaker 1: And I find that there are many companies who are
Speaker 1: experts in animal based products, companies who are you know,
Speaker 1: dairy or milk based, and they're seeing a huge draw
Speaker 1: been their sales because so many people are looking for
Speaker 1: plant based alternatives and they're probably saying to themselves, if
Speaker 1: we don't start doing something plant based, we're going to
Speaker 1: lose out. And I think that's where a lot of
Speaker 1: these blends are coming from. It's to continue to move
Speaker 1: their products when they're finding such a decrease in their
Speaker 1: sales and an increase in the sales of plant based.
Speaker 1: But plant base is met with a lot of controversy
Speaker 1: as well, because a lot of the products that are
Speaker 1: coming out use the word plant based to almost give
Speaker 1: it a health halo, to make it seem very healthy
Speaker 1: that it comes from plant, when what's actually being made
Speaker 1: is a highly processed or ultra processed food made of
Speaker 1: protein isolates and powders. And they're kind of moving away
Speaker 1: from being actual plants at this point. So you know,
Speaker 1: a chickpie is a plant, broccoli is a plant, but
Speaker 1: isolated p protein burgers that's no longer really a plant.
Speaker 1: And the last thing that we're seeing is functional foods
Speaker 1: and beverages one that you should be careful for to yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, make sure to check out the full list.
Speaker 1: These are things that are enhanced with cb D is
Speaker 1: really popular, but it could be a range of things.
Speaker 1: There are different companies that are adding vitamins or minerals
Speaker 1: or other kind of supplements to their foods. And for
Speaker 1: certain people, if you're taking supplements like actual pills or liquids,
Speaker 1: they're actually taking supplements. You may be getting too much
Speaker 1: of certain vitamins and minerals. So it's just sort of
Speaker 1: a reminder that too much of a good thing is
Speaker 1: not a good thing. Kara Rosenbloom, registered dietitian and president
Speaker 1: of Words to Eat By, thank you very much for
Speaker 1: joining us. My pleasure. Thank you. I'm Oscar Ramirez and
Speaker 1: this has been reopening America. Don't forget days big news stories.
Speaker 1: You can check me out in the Daily Dive podcast
Speaker 1: every Monday to Friday. So follow us on I Heart
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