Supplier Side

Trailblazer Foods launches organic coconut product line

Trailblazer Foods, a Portland, Ore.-based manufacturer of private label and branded grocery products, said it launched a complete line of certified organic coconut products, including oil, virgin oil, milk, light milk, flour, sugar and unsweetened flakes. The company developed the new product line over an 18-month period.

“There is a strong and growing demand in the United States for better-for-you foods,” said Rob Miller, CEO, Trailblazer Foods, “and coconut fits in with this trend. It’s a clean ingredient, natural and organic, and with no added sugar.”

Trailblazer Foods said it audits its suppliers and potential suppliers every year. In doing so, the company began to regularly hear that its suppliers could provide it with coconut oil, milk, flour and sugar. At the same time, the company noticed that coconut products were migrating from health food stores into traditional supermarkets. These two observations led to the creation of the coconut product line Trailblazer Foods now offers to retailers for private labeling.

Retailers that purchase the product line benefit by no longer having to source their store brand coconut milk, oil, flour, sugar and flakes from multiple suppliers with multiple invoices. And because Trailblazer Foods has been selling shredded and flaked coconut for more than 15 years, the company has longstanding relationships with coconut suppliers that have helped it to secure favorable pricing. Retailers also benefit their store brand program by demonstrating to consumers that they are aware of current food trends and willing to offer high-quality products at a price point that is lower than the national brands, Michael Post, director of sales, Trailblazer Foods, told Store Brands.
— M. Escobar

Symphony EYC introduces intelligent store-grouping software

Atlanta-based Symphony EYC, a software and services provider for retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers, said it now offers G.O.L.D. Cluster, a new approach in intelligent store grouping that retailers may use to build more customer-relevant assortments. G.O.L.D. Cluster is the third application of the G.O.L.D. i2e Category Management suite, which also includes Assort for hyper-localized, space-aware assortment management, and Capture for digital recognition of assortment compliance, item placement and promotional space.

According to Symphony EYC, G.O.L.D. Cluster brings strategic intelligence to category management by integrating demographic, loyalty and demand data to establish more granular and relevant store groups by category. This process generates store groupings more closely aligned with customer preferences and behavior, in addition to historical sales data.

G.O.L.D. Cluster leverages multiple data sources, including customer segmentation and demand information, to more closely group stores by category more appropriately and efficiently. It also blends statistical modelling and key business drivers to enable retailers to observe patterns at any product level or exclude biasing behaviors to select the most effective and relevant scenarios. In addition, the software integrates with Google Maps to allow retailers to rapidly visualize how stores are grouped and interact, qualify store fit and spot outliers, and manually re-assign stores when necessary, and allows new clusters to flow seamlessly into all applications within the G.O.L.D. i2e Category Management suite so that recommendations automatically inform the assortment optimization process, the company said.

“With G.O.L.D. Cluster, retailers can establish more granular and relevant store groups by each category. These intelligent clusters can then inform the assortment process more accurately when allocating items that will increase customer satisfaction,” said Matt Robinson, market development director, Symphony EYC G.O.L.D. Solutions. “From a business perspective, retailers can leverage clusters as a growth driver and align them with organizational goals to maximize sales and profitability.”