Dallas, Texas-based SymphonyAI Retail CPG has announced PepsiCo Northern Europe and Foodstuffs North Island as the winners of the inaugural Tempo Awards.
The Tempo Awards program recognizes leaders setting the pace through innovation in AI-based retail and CPG technology. PepsiCo Northern Europe, a European division of PepsiCo, and Foodstuffs North Island, a New Zealand-owned and -operated co-operative grocery retailer, were selected from a global group of retailers and CPG manufacturers nominated for their use of data, analytics and automation to improve operations and increase customer engagement.
“PepsiCo Northern Europe and Foodstuffs North Island both bring business process excellence to their operations, and we’re pleased to recognize their industry leadership,” said Manish Choudhary, president and CEO, SymphonyAI Retail CPG. “They embody the spirit of customer-focused innovation that retailers and CPGs worldwide can aspire to in using AI-driven capabilities.”
PepsiCo Northern Europe was selected for its use of shopper insights to build its business across entire categories at retailer partners. Using SymphonyAI Retail CPG customer-centric retailing, PepsiCo combined retailer data and SymphonyAI solutions with its own internal advanced analytics capability to bring shopper-led store clustering to more than 1,000 stores.
“We were able to achieve category management objectives and bring our category vision to life, including sustainability and brand innovation angles,” said Tessa Maas, senior category manager food at PepsiCo in the Netherlands.
“We increased category space and optimized assortment based on current and future shopper needs, for example, through a higher share of healthy products and smaller packages in the mix.”
Joint ownership of data and analytics, a strategic priority for PepsiCo Northern Europe and its retailer partner, was a crucial strategy to effectively implement new clustering, a big category reset and resulting category growth.
“The incredible level of collaboration between PepsiCo, SymphonyAI and the retailer yielded so many benefits and can now serve as best practice for other PepsiCo markets,” said Jan Haluza, manager of data science and analytics at PepsiCo Europe.
Foodstuffs North Island, a 100 percent New Zealand-owned co-operative that operates the New World, PAK’nSAVE and Four Square brands, uses SymphonyAI shelf planning and planogram capabilities to automate, speed and merchandise for shoppers. Foodstuffs and SymphonyAI incorporated business rules that generate planograms using the average clusters of 10-12 stores, with store-specific variants based on its sales to allocate more shelf space to items most valued by shoppers.
This approach uses advanced capabilities for optimal planograms while making it easier for the store owner to merchandise for its specific shoppers’ needs.
“Since we have introduced SymphonyAI Shelf Planning, key categories have shown significant growth, demonstrating we’re delivering more of what our customers want,” said Shane Dickson, Foodstuffs North Island category lab manager. “It’s an infectious cycle as store owners see these customer-focused results, inspiring other owners to adopt this way of working.”
The Tempo Awards program celebrates the individuals, teams and companies at the forefront of change who are leveraging advanced technologies and AI to serve shoppers and improve business performance.
