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The Last Place You Have to Look

May 6, 2011

There is a lot of interest now in what’s happening to the retail food business if we have a big up tick in inflation.  Retailers know that a little inflation can help, because generates more gross profit dollars.  But what happens if inflation is much higher, say double digit?

That’s hard to answer, but it turns out that to get some of the answer, you don’t have to look any further than a Coca‑Cola Retailing Research Report “Planning Your Financial Growth in the 1980’s” (conducted 1982); i.e. the last time we experienced double digit inflation in the U.S.

This is just one example of how the Coca‑Cola Retailing Research Council reports provide practical answers to many questions about food retailing that you can’t find anyplace else.

There’s a good reason for this, it is that these reports are developed specifically for food retailers under the guidance of food retailers.  All the reports:

  • Deal with topics of strategic importance to food retailing
  • Always create new learnings and yet deliver practical advise and guidance

More than fifty reports have been developed over the 30 year history of the Council. They range in topics from supply chain efficiency to shopper need states and in practical guidance from reducing out-of-stocks to retaining store level employees.

What’s unique about most of these reports is that they contain insights and guidance that are as useful today as they were when they were first published.

The good news is that you can find all of these reports, summarized and grouped by topic on the Coca‑Cola Retailing Research Council website. http://www.ccrrc.org  Many can be downloaded at no charge from the site and the remainder can be obtained on the same basis through email request.

This collection of original research studies represents what I believe to be not only one of the best places to look for answers about the challenges facing food retailing, but one of the first places to turn for answers.  After you are familiar with it, I don’t think you’ll have to look much further.

Bill Bishop
Research Director
NACS/Coca‑Cola Retailing Research Council
Founder, Willard Bishop Consulting and Chief Architect ClickMeetsBrick http://www.brickmeetsclick.com