Phil Lempert has studied the food industry his entire life, all the way back to his grandfather’s New Jersey dairy farm. These days, the “Supermarket Guru” pays a lot of attention to changing consumer behavior and marketing trends. In addition to his website, Lempert produces The Lempert Report four times a week, a video report highlighting food trends and a podcast.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he also is producing two Facebook Live episodes each week. NRF spoke with Lempert about the pandemic’s impact on grocery retailers, food supply chain and consumer behavior.
In what ways have supermarkets been doing well in their efforts during the pandemic?
Supermarkets have responded very quickly — examples of that are putting up the plexiglass between cashier and customer, marking on the floor the six-foot distances, and limiting the number of people who can come into the store as a safety precaution. Not everybody is doing everything right, but the rapid response is impressive.
But there have been challenges, too. It’s fine to say, “We want to hire 100,000 people,” especially when so many are being laid off. But we have to understand that you can’t just take someone off the street and give them a job. We have a limited labor pool, even with the high unemployment we’re experiencing.
You look at the delivery services like Instacart and Shipt and those doing it themselves. What used to be an easy delivery that I could do in a few hours now takes four or five days. This whole thing has pointed out how fragile points of our food chain are, delivery being one of them.
NRF is closely monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic. For updated information and guidance for retailers, check out our resource page.
The other biggest problem is the supply chain. The reason that you walk into a store and don’t see toilet paper is not that Procter & Gamble can’t make enough toilet paper. It’s the entire supply chain, the shortage of truck drivers, the retiring workforce of truck drivers. When you go into a supermarket as a shopper and see empty shelves, or you hear that someone has contracted the virus and the store has to be closed and sanitized, those are negative images that you have.
In reality, the supermarket industry has been working very, very quickly in accomplishing these things. Within two or three weeks, every supermarket installed those plexiglass barriers. I’ve never seen them move that quickly.
What lessons are being learned now that might impact the way supermarkets (and their customers) operate in the future?
First of all, they’ve all upped their sanitation procedures — they’re using cleaners regularly or installing antimicrobial belts.
The limited hours are another thing that will stay with us. We started seeing this before the virus, with stores no longer operating 24 hours, because economically it didn’t make sense. For those stores that have “groceraunts,” we’ll see them space out their booths or their tables to have that six-foot distance.
We will maintain the fact that people need to maintain distance at the check stand. That means the expenses are going to increase at supermarkets because you’re going to have more people. You’ll be sanitizing shopping carts more often, cleaning the handles on the freezers.
Shortages have forced people to switch brands or buy different things than they normally would. Baking yeast sales are up 451 percent. I looked at what’s being sold on ecommerce — the number one is disposable gloves, of course. But number two is bread machines. We are switching behaviors. A lot of people are baking.
The question is, are we now discovering different foods that we will stick with or do we go back to normal? More people are cooking at home, obviously. Once restaurants are open, two things happen: We’ll see a rush of people who want to get out of their houses. But restaurants are going to have to provide greater distances, so they might lose half their tables. There will be higher prices for restaurants to stay open. We will see more cooking at home as more people have become comfortable doing it.
Now that grocery store workers are being considered heroes, how might that impact recruiting, personnel, management, expectations, etc., on the other side of this?
Retailers are trying to recruit bodies right now, but what they really need to recruit are people who they can train, who want to make supermarkets a career. If you look at certain chains like Wegmans Food Markets and Publix, they have people who have been working for them 30-40 years, not in management. They’re trained and they’re treated really well. That’s one of the eye-opening factors; we’ve got an enormous turnover of employees and that’s got to stop.
NRF is closely monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic, coordinating with government agencies, health experts and retailers as the situation continues to evolve. For updated information and guidance for retailers, check out our resource page.