From the chief editor

Consumers are becoming more self-aware, and they are increasingly visiting stores ‘armed’ with a smartphone. There are all kinds of apps to guide consumers through the tangled jungle to find healthy versus unhealthy products and the best offers.

In The Netherlands, various apps are currently booming. Consumers use ‘Boodschapp’ to gain a quick and easy comparison of the composition and price of food products in supermarkets. After scanning the barcode on the packaging, the app ‘Questionmark’ grades the product based on animal welfare, environment, human rights and health. The app ‘Koken met aanbiedingen’ sends a daily recipe based on products that are on special offer on that day. And consumers who don’t want to go to a supermarket can look on ‘Buitenmarkt’, an app that helps them to find the closest available farm products.

‘Appie’, the popular app from Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn, even recently became available for Android Wear smartwatches. The Android Wear app can be used through a link with an Android smartphone which has ‘Appie’ installed on it. Your shopping list is presented to you in the right order as you walk around the store and you can tick off the products as you go along. How useful is that?!

The economy is picking up and consumers are starting to spend again. Dutch supermarket sales are particularly strong according to the latest figures published by research firm GfK on 1 April 2015 (and it wasn’t a joke!). Combined turnover grew in the first quarter of this year to over 8.3 billion euros, marking a 1.6 percent rise compared with the same period in 2014. Sunday is becoming an increasingly important day for grocery shopping in The Netherlands; the latest data shows that more than six out of ten households go to a supermarket on a Sunday at least occasionally. And revenue from Sunday opening increased by 30 percent last year to almost 1.2 billion euros in total.

In other words: whether you’re a food manufacturer or a retailer, this is no time to rest on your laurels! You’ll need to continue to work even harder, with a carefully considered vision and smart shelf management, to entice the self-aware consumer.  

Judith Witte
 
[email protected]