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News & Notes BRIEFS GourmEt nEWS FEbruArY 2018 www.gourmetnews.com nEWS & notES 6 Top Trends in Grocery Shopping for 2018 More shopping options and mobile pay- ments at checkout rank among the top trends for grocery in 2018, according to John Karolefski, former senior editor of Su- permarket News who now blogs at www.grocerystories.com. He predicts the launch of supermarket-branded meal kits, more wine bars and cafés in stores and eas- ily-accessed product information for curi- ous shoppers. Karolefski's top trends for 2018 are: More Shopping Options To serve their customers better, more gro- cers will offer several different ways to shop. For example, shoppers at Meijer stores in the Midwest can shop in the store, order online for in-store pickup, order on- line for curbside pickup and order online for home delivery. Mobile Payment at Checkout The number of supermarkets that enable shoppers to pay for groceries with their smartphones will expand rapidly in 2018. Safeway, Aldi and some smaller grocers al- ready accept Apple Pay in their stores. Look for many other grocers to follow by offering this payment service, in addition to Android Pay and Samsung Pay. Millen- nials will drive use of mobile pay- ment at checkout. More Eating and Drinking in Stores Look for more grocers to add sampling stations for wine and beer to their stores. Shoppers will ap- preciate a bever- age break from roaming the aisles for groceries. Also, more retailers will add in-store dining for shoppers to have a light lunch. In the Cleveland market, for example, some Giant Eagle stores are equipped with a wine bar and café. Its Market District supermarket in Strongsville, Ohio, has a full-size bar next to a large dining area. More Meal Kits Companies such as Blue Apron and Plated have popularized mail-order meal kits, which contain pre-measured ingredients, recipes, and cooking instructions. Grocers such as Kroger and Publix Super Markets sell their own meal kits in stores. Expect more food retailers to do the same in 2018 as the $5 billion meal kit business contin- ues to grow. More Access to Product Information Shoppers want to know more about the ingredients in the food they buy than what is printed on the package. So, food makers over the last two years have made space on nearly 15,000 packages to place scannable QR codes, which take shoppers to a special website with detailed informa- tion. A major education campaign will take place in 2018 to make shoppers aware of the codes and prompt them to scan to learn more about the food they are buying. GN Pinnacle Foods Appoints Chief Supply Chain officer Pinnacle Foods Inc. has appointed Daniel Poland to the position of Executive Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer, effective January 22, 2018. He reports to Chief Executive Officer Mark Clouse, replacing D. Michael Wittman, who is retiring following a transition period. Poland, 54, has a diverse background encompassing supply chain leadership, financial management and research and development. He joined WhiteWave in 2014 as Senior Vice President of Supply Chain with responsibility for all aspects of the company's end-to-end supply chain. Following the 2017 acquisition of WhiteWave by Danone, Poland was named Chief Supply Chain Officer for North American Operations at DanoneWave. Scientists map the Genetic Code of Peanut An international group of agricultural scientists have mapped the genetic code of peanut, The Peanut Foundation announced on December 25. The culmination of a five-year research project will give scientists around the world a map with which to unlock some of the genetic potential of the peanut plant. The data will be openly available to all scientists. lactalis to Acquire siggi's Lactalis has agreed to acquire siggi's – the U.S. based maker of Icelandic style skyr yogurts with "simple ingredients, not a lot of sugar" – for an undisclosed price. siggi's will continue operating out of its New York City office and will remain a standalone company under its current senior leadership team, which includes its founder, Siggi Hilmarsson, as CEO and Bart Adlam as President. Peapod Predicts more home Cooking in 2018 In its second annual meal-planning forecast, online grocer Peapod predicts another busy year for the home chef. According to a national survey conducted on behalf of Peapod by ORC International, 73 percent of adults currently make dinner at home at least four nights a week and nearly one third (31 percent) are planning to cook dinner at home more often in the New Year. Millennials are pushing that trend even further, as 50 percent intend to make dinner at home more frequently in 2018. Teens, part of the generation dubbed Generation Z, look to be following in those foodie footsteps as four in five (79 percent) say they want their parents to cook more in 2018. Fueling the momentum to cook more at home are the desire to save money (72 percent) and eat healthier (52 percent). These were also the top factors in 2017. An interesting shift for 2018 is that more Americans report cooking at home helps them spend quality time together as a family (43 percent); that's up 11 percentage points from last year. This is especially true for parents as 60 percent report cooking to spend quality time together. When parents are searching for dinner ideas, finding a meal the whole family will like/agree upon ranks second in importance (85 percent), surpassed only by "tastes good" (94 percent). Label Insight Attains $21 Million in New Venture Capital Funding Label Insight has raised $21 million in a Series C funding round led by Delta-v Cap- ital alongside River Cities Capital Funds. These funds will support the company's mission to help consumers understand what's in the products they use and con- sume. David Schaller, Managing Partner at Delta-v, will join the Label Insight board of directors. With the use of data science, Label In- sight is powering transparency between consumer packaged goods, CPG, brands, retailers and consumers. Label Insight plans to use the new funding to fuel hiring of data science professionals, continue product development and accelerate cus- tomer growth. In the past year, the com- pany announced several new customer deals, as well as key partnerships with Nielsen, 1WorldSync and Catalina Market- ing. "The breadth and versatility of our data powers many different applications across a spectrum of businesses, which sets us apart from any other player in the space," said Paul Schaut, Chief Executive Officer for Label Insight. "This infusion of capital will enable us to continue to innovate our data science capabilities and deliver new products and features to our customers, driving new avenues for growth and in- creased market share." The company's proprietary data sci- ence and machine learning capabilities capture product labeling information for more than 400,000 products and create more than 22,000 unique custom attrib- utes per product, unlocking actionable insights about how products meet the varied health, wellness, lifestyle and sus- tainability concerns of consumers. Label Insight customers include more than 25 top CPG companies and 12 leading re- tailers. "The food industry is undergoing a rev- olution with consumers increasingly inter- ested in understanding food and cosmetic ingredients and information on the sourc- ing of these ingredients," said Schaller. "Label Insight's unique data-as-a-service ca- pability delivers significant value to the CPG industry by helping brands and retail- ers transform their businesses to be more transparent, while enabling government agencies and academic institutions to better understand and measure the impact of food products and ingredients on our popula- tion." "Food is critically important to a healthy life and every bite has the ability to impact our biology," said Rob Heimann, Managing Director at River Cities. "Today, Label Insight is uniquely delivering a comprehensive solution to many of the largest manufacturers' and retailers' need to meet consumer demand around transparency into product ingre- dients. As the market evolves, we think Label's solution will become an important foundation to further understanding the link between food ingredients and health." GN

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