March 28, 2022 | ConsumerGeniuses Blog

Weekly snapshot of top trends in CG industry

ConsumerGeniuses March 28, 2022

This is the weekly snapshot of top trends from the Consumer Goods industry in the past week (21st March-25th March). We have covered different categories, including 1, DTC: Due to high digital marketing costs and prohibitive customer acquisition, DTC brands like Another Tomorrow, Warby Parker, and Allbirds are heading towards physical stores to establish a seamless omnichannel system. 2, AI and Robotics: Chipotle is pivoting a tortilla-making robot, Chippy, in its innovation hub in Irvine, Calif., optimised to make tortilla chips instead of flipping burgers or frying potatoes like Miso’s Flippy. 3, Sustainability: PepsiCo invested in the Saudi kingdom to increase its sustainability and inclusivity footprint by improving its waste management system and launching recycling projects comprising of positive value chain, positive agriculture, and positive choices. 4, Consumer Trends: Mac launched its new mascara, MACStack Mascara on 1st March 2022. The hashtag #MacStackMascara crossed 73.1 million views on TikTok, encouraging more and more people to buy the product. 5, Supply Chain: Nestlé has constructed a new factory in Serbia to produce Plant-Based Eat Solutions under Nestlé’s Garden Gourmet portfolio. The facility would export goods to the Netherlands, U.K, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany.

From sustainable goals to AI-driven taste tests, Conagra Brands and Danone step into the future

ConsumerGeniuses March 28, 2022

Hypertaste, the use of artificial intelligence for a taste test, is the future of food and beverage companies. IBM is working with industry giants to use it as a tool for food companies, allowing them to predict different flavours, identify coffee and soft drinks. Hypertaste would relieve experts from doing mundane tasks like repeated taste tests, ensuring quality across numerous batches, and finding counterfeit wines and whiskey. Utilising the AI-driven Hypertaste tool, McCormick & Co. collaborated with IBM and launched eight products. Instead of relying on conventional R&D methods and testing, companies like Conagra Brands, Reddi-wip, and Slim Jim plan to use AI to identify consumer preferences. Plus, Danone and Brightseed aim to find hidden nutrients in soybeans via AI. Read more from Fooddive

Note for the retailers: The futuristic disruptive innovations in the supply chain industry

ConsumerGeniuses March 28, 2022

As per the Fulfillment Vision Study, presented by Zebra Technologies Inc, 78% of logistic companies aim to offer same-day delivery by 2023, while 40% of them plan to deliver goods within two days by 2028. To achieve these targets, 87% of the companies plan to utilise crowdsourced delivery and 86% of the logistic businesses plan to launch buy online/pick up in-store trend in future. The manual spreadsheets are expected to be replaced with barcode scanners, as per the response from 94% of omnichannel retailers. Respondents believe that the most disruptive technologies of the future will be robotics 37%, mobile tech 37%, autonomous vehicles 38%, and drones 39%. The need for inventory accuracy will grow by 83% in North America. More than 80% of the European and Middle Eastern businesses will use store inventory to fulfil orders, and 95% of Asia-Pacific respondents think that e-commerce is driving the need for faster delivery. Read more from Mhlnews

Indian-based Reliance Retail enters into a joint venture with Addverb, a bot manufacturer

ConsumerGeniuses March 28, 2022

An Indian-based retailer company, Reliance Retail, has become a shareholder of 54% in an Indian robotics manufacturing firm, Addverb. Both the parties signed the deal with an amount of $132 million or Rs 983 crores. This joint venture will allow Reliance Retail to leverage its 5G and battery tech via advanced energy solutions provided by Addverb. Plus, Reliance Retail would be able to advance in material sciences like carbon fibre, helping the firm to enable fast and affordable robot delivery. Read more from Indiaretailing