My interest in the food industry began with my father, Brian Y. Davidson who worked in the food industry from the age of 12. Brian Y. Davidson was one of founders of the powerful no name® brand and the super-innovative premium brand, President’s Choice®. BYD left a legacy at Loblaw Companies along with the “Dream Team” led by Galen Weston Sr., Richard J. Currie, Dave Nichol and Don Watt.
Never in the past 50 years has there ever been a more dynamic group of food industry merchants who brilliantly revolutionized the way in which the mainstream consumer walks the aisles of a traditional, conventional grocery store, significantly raising the “quality bar” while always maintaining the private label ‘value’ model that national brands often struggle to achieve. My father coined now popular marketing term, “meaningful differentiation”, doing what the competitor is unwilling or unable to do.” So simple yet so important to the underbelly of what true innovation means.
So what are some the outcomes of this incredible initial background exposure?
Loblaw Companies: 1993 – 2003
From 1993 to 2003, I held a variety of positions at Loblaw Companies. In general, the focus of each role was centered around Product/Brand/Category Management for the infamous, legendary President’s Choice®, no name®, PC Organics® brands along with many other active sub-brands under the Loblaw Companies domain, for example: “PC Splendido”, “PC The Decadent”, “PC Memories of…” and “PC Green”, to name a few.
The over-arching ‘innovation mindset’ crosses many verticals not only within the CGP space but other dominating channels within E-Commerce such as Amazon and Ebay.
The plugged-in society is here to stay, continuing to find new needs and fill gaps. Within the social media space are Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn to name a few and of course the shared economy giants such as Uber and Airbnb. These innovative e-verticals now dominate, supplemented by the progressive bricks and mortar brands that will endure the “e-volving” digital storm.
Below are a few specific ‘legacy’ products selected to demonstrate successful, sustainable ‘mass innovation’.
Select Projects:
PC® Easy-Carve Turkey
Category: Boxed Meat
One of my most memorable products that I worked on with the Perishables team while with President’s Choice was a seasonal item; The PC® Easy-Carve Turkey; a frozen, pre-stuffed, semi-boneless turkey that is simple to prepare and serve from freezer to oven. I generated the concept, the name and assisted with bringing this SIAL GOLD award winning product to life.
The Easy-Carve® Frozen De-boned, Pre-Stuffed Frozen Turkey has been a huge success and has touched many demographics that are looking to make their lives more convenient during the hectic holiday season. The product was originally launched the Insider’s Report® and is still sold seasonally twenty years later.
PC® ethnic foods
Category: Dry Grocery – Ethnic Foods
PC® was one of the first mainstream brands to take the leap from conservative Anglo-focused graphics to authentic ethnic marketing. Through my work on ethnic products like PC® Memories of Marrakech Couscous and PC® Basmati Rice, I helped demystify the origins of many products that are now mainstream pantry items. As we enter 2017, these once labelled ‘ethnic brands’ are now integrated into the mainstream grocery set along with Uncle Ben’s® and Dainty Rice®.
PC® Spritz Up and PC® Moist Mates
(Category: Shelf Stable Beverages/Carbonated Drinks) PC® Spritz Up was keyed-off again the national brand Sprite®. I was on the category team that was bequeathed to build out the brand dominated carbonated beverage category and along with creating the product brief/category strategy, I was responsible for naming the product.
(Category: Household, Cleaning, Pet) PC® Moist Mates was a moistened bathroom tissue that was to be used on a standard bathroom tissue roll holder versus a “wet wipe” or conventional “baby wipe” dispensing mechanism, unique to its category at the time. I was in responsible for the go-to-market strategy, sourcing aka “product hunting”, naming, packaging development, merchandising strategy. This new product was launched via an Insider’s Report®.
In 2003, my “intrapreneurial spirit” organically morphed into an “entrepreneurial spirit”. As a result, I founded Concept to Shelf®, a boutique management consulting firm proudly honing my earlier years or the “role modeling years” coupled with the hands on industry experience I had acquired as direct result of my post-secondary education, the various roles within the hospitality industry and most passionately the tenure as Brand & Category Manager at Loblaw Companies.
The key roles of Concept to Shelf and process are as follows:
- Listen
- Plan
- Budget
- Support (using internal and sub-contracted resources)
- Execute
- Evaluate
Concept to Shelf provides the support as requested anywhere along the ‘critical path’ from — concept to shelf, collaborating with senior management/stakeholders, product development, QA, sales and marketing teams in the most cost effective and practical manner.
Concept to Shelf also specializes in regulatory affairs (providing US and Canada Food Labelling and Advertising Standards).
Below is a selection of projects I worked on from 2003 to 2007.
Yoso Spreadables
Category: Natural — Refrigerated, Dairy-Free Soy-Based Products
Concept to Shelf supported the stakeholders of Yoso Spreadables, a regional start-up between 2001 to 2005, guiding their product development ideas from concept to shelf. Specifically, we consulted Yoso with: product naming, logo /packaging design, B2C and B2B marketing collateral, sales strategy /support, trade show asset development, and initial line extensions where we repeated the branding cycle. The category extensions included soy yogurt, soy sour cream, soy smoothies, and soy milk. Yoso Spreadables continues to be a leading Canadian based national brand within the refrigerated, dairy-free, soy-based value added category.
Smartware
Category: Grocery, household, disposables
With SmartWare, in tandem with the client, I conceptualized the branding of an innovative, first to market line of 100% biodegradable, disposable sugar cane-based tableware destined for the mainstream traditional grocery channel and specialty channels. I was responsible for all of the branding behind the product line – naming, graphics, in-store merchandising. While incarnations of the product are available today, it turned out that the consumer in 2005 was not ready to pay a premium for such eco-friendly products.
Bins on Wheels
Category: General Merchandising
Working closely with Instore Products Limited’s product development team, we assisted with the branding, merchandising and business development of an innovative brand called: “Bins on Wheels” – a stackable, nestable, portable, eco-friendly container system made with patented clips that aided with holding the sturdy reusable bins to the cart to present from slipping when in motion. While this specific product is no longer available, its current incarnation is the GreenBox designed to fit into a variety of traditional grocery store formats replacing the need for plastic bags. Greenbox pioneered a sustainable solution for reducing the need for plastic bags that continue to clog up our landfills. This area of the “green” world has evolved significantly with changes in state and provincial laws.
Toppits
Category: Frozen Garlic and Herb Cubes
In tandem with the dynamic Toronto based Toppits® team, Concept to Shelf provided a variety of support ‘touch-points’ mostly lead by innovation, product development, merchandising and business development. We assisted with the launch of their first-to-market, innovative range of frozen garlic and herb cubes that continue to be the leading national brand within this niche category that is a challenge to position effectively within the stores given its size, format and usage. Toppits® frozen garlic cubes broke out across Canada and are now available at all major retailers.
Aquastar
Category: Frozen Seafood
Between 2003 and 2005, while I continued to operate Concept to Shelf, I relocated to Seattle, Washington to take on an invaluable challenge working side-by-side the brilliant and innovative leadership at Aqua Star®, the largest importer of frozen shrimp and seafood in the US. I worked directly with the president of the company to convert Aqua Star® from being a sales-driven company to a product and marketing-driven company. My role was mainly to work developing the infrastructure, process and tools to be self-sustaining and best in class. The deliverables were significant and can be seen on frozen shelves today within all food channels within the North American wide.
Aqua Star – Key Deliverables*
- Logo redesign
- Established a corporate tagline
- Established a consumer friendly icon system (at the time this was a new concept for front panel retail packaging)
- Full packaging redesign (across all participating retail categories)
- Innovation: sourced new concepts, presented to stakeholders for approval
- Product Development: Assisted with recruiting senior management/leadership rolls, establishing product development and packaging process and best practices.
- Quality Assurance: Worked as required to integrate and build out QA resource needs to meet retailer and government agency requirements within North America.
- Category Management: Introduced the tool to allow for fact-based decision making.
- General Support to Senior Management and new resources brought on board per plan.
- As a result, between 2003 and 2007, the company’s sales have grown over 60% and the Marketing and Product Development team has grown from one to over twenty resources people.
*In tandem with internal and outsourced resources.
Omstead Foods
From 2006 to 2007, as a contractor via Concept to Shelf, I held the role of Director of Innovation for Omstead Foods, responsible for frozen vegetables, frozen fruits, and frozen appetizers categories. It was this year at Omstead that gave me the specific category knowledge about the workings of the frozen fruit vegetable industry that I parlayed over to Cookin’ Greens years later.
