Kroger has contracted Southern Wine & Spirits, the biggest wine and spirits distributor in the United States, to arrange product-shelving for its alcoholic-beverage section in a deal worth $12 million per year, Forbes.com reports.
Forbes suggests that this may cause consternation among its drinks suppliers, as they will lose control over the placement of their products in Kroger supermarkets, and because the fee needed to hire Southern Wine & Spirits will be passed on to them indirectly. The drinks supplier is referred to as a 'category captain' in this regard.
This system will be "unbiased plans that are customer and data driven," said Keith Dailey, a Kroger spokesman. "What does this look like? It’s more local craft brews, more regional wines, more innovative new products across the entire adult-beverage spectrum."
Speaking of a similar arrangement that Kroger uses in its dry-food section (coffee, cereals, etc.), he said, "If we had at that time run our coffee category the way we still run our adult beverage, there’s a good chance our customers would have had to wait for K-Cups. It could have been months, it could have been a year."
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Peter Donnelly. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
