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“From a connected commerce perspective, we want to reach consumers whenever, wherever, however, they're shopping. We want them to find our brands accessible.”
— Andy Beilke, Senior Development Manager, Ecommerce Strategy and Capabilities, General Mills
According to Supermarket News, grocery is one of the least developed online categories in retail, as brick-and-mortar stores accounted for over 85% of U.S. grocery sales in 2023.
From an optimist’s point of view, that only means there’s more room to grow. Consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands are increasingly using grocery tech to try to grow their market share and to support connected commerce, or a seamless customer experience across channels.
General Mills, which has over 100 brands in 100 countries on six continents, is leveraging technology to power its own ecommerce transformation.
Andy Beilke, senior development manager of ecommerce strategy and capabilities at General Mills, recently discussed how the company has made several internal changes to reach consumers whenever they are.
Beilke shared his insights during a session at Salsify’s 2024 Digital Shelf Summit (DSS), “Food Journeys: Mapping the Tech-First Future of Grocery Experience."
Here’s what Beilke had to say about omnichannel, the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in the CPG space, collaborating with retail partners, and how brands can leverage grocery tech to drive all of it.
Several years ago, General Mills implemented what it calls a “Power of One” structure to evolve its sales organization.
Under this model, the company has embedded omnichannel sales managers who work collaboratively with brick-and-mortar sales teams to build an omnichannel sales plan.
“We've got strong performance there, and we attribute a lot of that to our operating model, as well as really focusing on core KPIs {key performance indicators} to measure against,” says Beilke, who also serves as the team lead for General Mills’ connected commerce strategy.
General Mills has focused on working closely with its retail partners, like Kroger and Walmart, who now provide omnichannel offerings.
Additionally, the company is using grocery tech to support a connected omnichannel experience and better serve customers across a range of demographics.
Beilke says General Mills is focused on delivering value, convenience, and connection for consumers.
Hitting all these targets is even more difficult when you consider the complexity of the company’s customer base. Boomers who prefer to buy groceries in-store purchase General Mills products, as do digitally native millennials and Generation Zers (Gen Zers) who often buy groceries online, per eMarketer.
This isn’t surprising, considering Cheerios, Betty Crocker, and Bisquick pancakes are all timeless pantry staples.
“You need to think about reaching that core demographic, or a variety of demographics, because, from a connected commerce perspective, we want to reach consumers whenever, wherever, however, they're shopping. We want them to find our brands accessible,” Beilke says.
To make this happen, General Mills is layering technology over the customer experience in several ways. It’s using AI-driven supply chain automation solutions and has begun experimenting with generative AI.
Beilke says General Mills’ intention with grocery tech solutions is to drive efficiencies across its value chain, starting from inside the organization itself.
General Mills is using GenAI to drive efficiencies via its own generative AI chatbot called MillsChat.
The chatbot answers questions from employees in the same way ChatGPT does for the general public. The tool is designed to streamline workflows and foster better collaboration and more innovation across the organization.
Beilke says MillsChat improves information sharing and agility, allowing teams at General Mills to make informed strategic decisions quickly and more effectively.
Similar to its CPG peers, General Mills also uses technology for demand forecasting. The big difference is that today grocery tech providers are steadily integrating generative AI into their demand forecasting solutions, providing advanced capabilities that speed time to insight for business users.
All of these technologies are massive enablers of General Mills’ omnichannel grocery experience, Beilke says.
Though tech is driving innovation at General Mills, it all comes back to centering customers and their needs in everything the company does.
“You’ve got to focus on the consumer problem.”
— Andy Beilke, Senior Development Manager, Ecommerce Strategy and Capabilities, General Mills
Brands can use their own second- and third-party data, along with data from their retail partners, to address customers’ needs. General Mills doesn’t have first-party data because it lacks a direct-to-consumer (D2C) channel. However, its retail partners fill this gap.
“We’ve closely partnered with all kinds of major retailers. I actually love leveraging their data sets to get started,” Beilke says, citing Walmart Luminate and Kroger 84.51° as examples. “We're investing in both of those data platforms to just better understand the consumer, the behavior, and the opportunity there.”
General Mills is using retail media networks to gather valuable customer data and build its digital capabilities. But Beilke says it’s also important for brands to experiment with new solutions and technologies, such as AI, in whatever ways their budgets allow.
“I like to experiment with the different offerings in the marketplace,” he says. “If people aren't doing that, you absolutely should. If you haven't been trying that to understand the technology experiences firsthand, you absolutely should do that.”
Brands can also consider pilot implementations with different retail partners whose digital capabilities align with their omnichannel objectives. These engagements could offer learning opportunities brands can use to advance their connected commerce capabilities.
No matter what grocery tech a brand implements, Beilke says it’s best to stick to the basics as far as measurement. General Mills has a very simple measurement framework to track digital shelf KPIs that focus on search, content, and availability.
By honing in on the basics and putting customers at the center of their digital shelf strategy, CPG brands can build a modern technology stack tailor-made for this new era of AI-enabled connected commerce.
“Focus on the problems you're trying to solve, particularly the consumer ones, and let technology in general be an enabler for that,” Beilke says. “A focus on the [customer] problems will help guide you to the right type of solution — whatever the technology is.”
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