00:00:09 Ben
Nothing says welcome to the greatest city in the world like a podcast booth in an exhibition hall.
00:00:14 Chris
We’ve been taking a lot of grief about my takes on agentic AI lately.
00:00:18 Ben
We still underestimate what the impact of GLP1 is going to be on retail.
00:00:23 Chris
Stuck around to the end.
00:00:24 Ben
He got here, he’s still inside baseball. I have literally no idea how we’ve gone from Aldi’s corporate structure to Danny DeVito to tease.
00:00:32 Chris
Hello and welcome to the Omni Talk Retail Fast Five. This week’s episode was recorded from my favourite city in the world, London, with one of my all time favourite guest hosts, my brother from another monitor across the pond, Shop Talk’s VP of Original content, Ben Miller. Ben and I talked a little Shop Talk Europe, Danny DeVito, tattoos and all the week’s top retail headlines at the end of a long day which saw me interview over 10 fabulous retail executives right from the floor of the Retail Technology show, all of which you can find by going to YouTube.com omnitalkretail thanks to Fusion and RTS for putting me up in a fabulous podcast studio and helping me to interview every mainstage keynote executive as they came off stage. So let’s not keep you in suspense any longer. Let’s get to the headlines right after we hear from all our wonderful partners who make this podcast possible each and every week.
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Help your managers focus on what matters most. Visit corso.com to see Intelligent management in motion and Infios. At Infios, they unite warehousing, transportation and order management into a seamless, adaptable network. Infios helps you stay ahead from promise to delivery and every step in between. To learn more, visit infios.com and Ocampo Capital. Ocampo Capital is a venture capital firm founded by retail executives with the aim of helping early stage consumer businesses succeed through investment and operational support. Learn more@ocampo capital.com and finally, Veloc Voloc is a proven e grocery technology built by grocers for grocers. Exactly the type of technology we like here at omnitalk. They unite proprietary software with right size automation to make same day delivery profitable. To learn more visit veloc.com that’s V E L O Q dot com. Crikey. They said it couldn’t be done. Ben Miller live, live in London, sitting right next to me. How’s the forum? As they say over here?
00:03:27 Ben
Christopher Walton, a jolly fine hello on this fine evening for you and welcome to London. I, I appreciate you having me on. And nothing says welcome to the greatest city in the world like a podcast booth in an exhibition hall.
00:03:43 Chris
Yeah, the greatest city in the world. That’s like a line from Hamilton. Yes, the greatest city in the world. Oh, man. All right, so we are now less than two months away, right, from Shop Talk Europe as well. What’s in store? What are you most excited about for Shop Talk? You’re a Ben, you’re kind of the man of the man, one of the men, one of the many men and women of the hour at that show at that conference.
00:04:04 Ben
It’s coming up really quick. So we are 9th to, to the 11th of June this year back in Barcelona. Fabulous, fabulous Barcelona. I guess for me there’s two things I’m really looking forward to. Okay, so number one, the conversation that we had about AI in retail in Vegas at Shop Talk Spring was incredible. It was nuanced, it was interesting. People were sharing. I’m so interested to hear what a conversation is in Europe. You know, one of the challenges you have in Europe is some of the solutions, they’re not available yet.
00:04:37 Chris
Right.
00:04:38 Ben
You know, some of the platforms haven’t been rolled out yet.
00:04:40 Chris
Right.
00:04:41 Ben
So the things that you can do and the speed that you want to move at in Europe is different. So hearing how European retailers are tackling that I think is going to be absolutely fascinating. We’ve got, we’ve got a killer, an absolutely remarkable.
00:04:54 Chris
Oh, yeah, okay. This is what I always love when you come on, I’m always like, okay, who’s, who’s going to be there?
00:04:59 Ben
We’ve got so l’, Oreal, ikea, Nestle. We’ve Got the CEO. Co CEO of Zalando.
00:05:07 Chris
Oh, wow.
00:05:08 Ben
Cathor, Sephora, Shopify, Netflix, Reddit, Nvidia. It’s brilliant lineup. Really looking forward. So that’s number one. Number two, we’re gonna have the mother of all after show parties this year.
00:05:22 Chris
Really?
00:05:23 Ben
We are, but that’s another day and another storey.
00:05:25 Chris
Or is that just the biggest tease of all time?
00:05:27 Ben
Tease of all time.
00:05:28 Chris
You’re such a tease. You’re teasing me, Mr. Miller. All right, well, that sounds awesome. Carrefour has been in our headlines like multiple times over the past few weeks, so that’s a huge get too. They’re doing some really great things on the smart store front and of course the smart shopping carts down in Israel that they announced as well.
00:05:42 Ben
Yeah, and we’ve got Justin. Who? Justin. She runs E Commerce in Spain and used to run E Commerce in Italy. She’s fantastic. So she’s one of our track speakers at the show.
00:05:51 Chris
Awesome, awesome. So should we get to this week’s headlines, Ben?
00:05:54 Ben
Let’s do it. Let’s do it.
00:05:55 Chris
It’s like 6pm here in London. Let’s do this. All right. In this week’s Fast5, we’ve got news on Starbucks launching a beta app inside chatgpt. Instacart making its most aggressive international move or leap. See what I did there, Ben, today when they announced the acquisition of Columbia based retail tech platform instalap. And Walmart giving its iconic great value private label brand its first full redesign in more than a decade. Oh, and let me also not forget Aldi quietly using its US stores and as the testing ground for a new global store format. I saved that one for you, Ben. But we begin today with Walmart making a major play in the GLP1 and weight management space. All right, got to clear my throat there, Ben. It’s been a long day of speaking. All right. Walmart is expanding its Better Care Services platform to include weight management support for customers on or exploring GLP1 therapies. Connecting its nearly 4,600 store pharmacy network with virtual care providers, nutrition support, same day medication delivery, all under one digital destination.
According to Walmart’s corporate website, the Better Care Services platform now features weight management support from five third party providers spanning personalised fitness programming, registered dietitian services, AI supported coaching and telehealth based medication management. The platform also includes access to a full range of GLP medications including the including the newly available oral option. Ben? Yes, it is the newly available oral option Foundeo or Fulgrapron for those that like what? I mispronounce generic drunk games, which I was waiting to do, all of which are available through insurance or transparent cash pay pricing. All right, Ben, here’s my question for you. In your Shop Talk Zeitgeist, which you gave just back in March, So less than two months ago, you said that GLP1S was one of the top six or seven trends that would impact retail over the next decade. So I’m guessing you love this move from Walmart. My only question is how much?
00:07:58 Ben
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. You’ve guessed it. I love it and I love it a lot. So let’s take back to some of the points that we made in the presentation back in March. Why do we think GLP1 is going to have such an impact on on the retail market? I mean, firstly, look at the growth numbers. So Morgan Stanley currently predicts that the 2 to 3% of the US population that are taking GLP1s over the next decade could grow to 20%. At the moment, it’s about 1%. Globally, that could grow to 10%. So huge growth.
Okay, now what we do in the Zeitgeist is we look at, okay, what do we think are the big trends and what do we project them forward? And the point that I was trying to land in the Zeitgeist is that I think collectively as an industry, we still underestimate what the impact of GLP1 is going to be on retail. So let me kind of unpack this. Yeah. Just this week, McKinsey published some brand new research. They looked at 21 food and beverage categories to look at what the spend trend is. For people who’ve been on GLP1s for over six months, of the 24 categories, only four had seen an increase in spend and of those, yoghurt had seen the biggest increase. But that increase was only 2 and a half percent. Okay, okay. On the other side, it was negative 11.5% for crisps and savoury snacks. It was negative 8.5% for sweet bakery. So, so look, why do I love this headline? I love this headline because clearly Walmart doesn’t underestimate its impact. Yet Walmart has recognised it and it’s connecting its digital ecosystem in a way that it can because the properties that it’s built to really help customers to understand and at the same time to learn more about what’s going on.
00:09:55 Chris
So Ben, I’m curious, does that mean that Walmart and others are also just at risk from GLP1 in terms of declining revenue overall as people are just starting to eat less as well.
00:10:06 Ben
Yeah. So one of the things we found people are eating less but what they are prioritising is small portions on the go, convenience solutions, products that help with digestive ease. Digestive solutions. So diets are changing that people are buying more often so it leads itself to more convenient products, more fresh which are higher margin. So there’s some massive category shifts. If you follow those shifts and provide the solutions that people in need, there’s actually margin gains to be made there. But it’s about recognising and not underestimating. That was the point I was trying to make.
00:10:45 Chris
Right, right. And the pharmacy keeps the foot traffic, foot traffic coming to the Walmart store too.
00:10:50 Ben
Can I just say as a final point. Yeah. I really love to hear what you think of this but I love anything that connects the pharmacy to the rest of the store look because running pharmacy, it’s a hard business, it’s hard people cost could be dangerous. Anything that provides a greater halo than just footfall I think is a real positive and I love the Walmart leading into that.
00:11:14 Chris
Yeah, Yeah. I mean 100% on the pharmacy side. I mean I don’t have much to add. I mean that’s why I wanted you to share the data that I know you always bring to the table on this because it is really interesting to think about, you know and then there’s also the question that I have too, which I didn’t ask you about, which I’d love to get your thoughts on. Maybe at the end is like, you know, you get all these reports and some, in some ways all these reports happening at the same time get a little bit self enforcing in terms of the predictions that everyone’s making around the severity or the impact. And so you always have to take that with a grain of salt. But, but to your point you’re saying like there’s going to be a probable impact here. So, so I like it because you know Walmart is basically attacking what is a sizable trend through their pharmacy which engenders loyalty in their customer. I think it’s a pretty, it’s pretty remarkable given the effort and some would say failed efforts they put into their clinics as well. And now they’re doing this digitally. So I think that’s important. You know, it’s asset light approach to doing this which is very different than where they were like two or three years ago.
00:12:08 Ben
Yeah, I love that.
00:12:09 Chris
And then the other point I’d make to, the second thing I make is they’ve learned Walmart has done a great job of learning how to speak to their customer digitally and specifically via the Walmart plus subscriber too. So I think this is a very this, and this is very much who this is geared after. Even though you’re saying in those numbers you’re probably hitting the broad base of America too, and the broad base of consumers globally, but that is who you’re gearing this towards. And Walmart plus, it’s going to come up again later too, as part of their strategy, but you can see how they’re continuing to try to lean into that as kind of their competitive moat, so to speak, in the landscape.
00:12:42 Ben
Okay, we’re going to move on. On headline number two, Starbucks has launched a beta app within ChatGPT. It allows customers to describe their mood or upload a photo to receive personalised drink suggestions and then customise and then begin the order in ChatGPT before completing checkout in the Starbucks app or on Starbucks starbucks.com so, according to Starbucks, the beta app launched on April 15 and is accessible by enabling it through ChatGPT’s App Directory and then tagging at Starbucks in a prompt. Critically, as I just said, checkout does not happen within ChatGPT. Customers complete the purchase in a Starbucks app on Starbucks.com, which means Starbucks retains all the first party loyalty data and it keeps the transaction in its own ecosystem. And Chris. Yes, here we go. This is also the A and M.
00:13:38 Chris
I love when the guest horse puts me on the spot.
00:13:40 Ben
Yes, I’ve been waiting to do this. Right, the A and M put you on the stop question. So firstly, they’ve asked me to imagine that I’m not in a coffee shop, I’m in a tea store, a very British tea shop. To play into the full Britishness.
00:13:52 Chris
Sounds like A and M to me.
00:13:53 Ben
So thank you, Chad. Okay, here we go. Given the high usage and historical praise of Starbucks mobile app, are these ChatGPT and other agentic AI integrations a more offensive or defensive play? So look, in other words, do Starbucks and other brands believe that consumers truly are looking for more inspiration and discovery when they’re on the AI platform compared to when they’re on the apps? Therefore, it’s incremental or. Or keep going.
00:14:24 Chris
Wow.
00:14:25 Ben
Or the customer journeys will eventually go direct to the apps, less in favour of these platforms, so they’ll have to integrate everything to avoid losing traffic.
00:14:33 Chris
Oh, my God. That.
00:14:34 Ben
Jeez.
00:14:35 Chris
Oh, my God. I took. You know, I’ve been taking a lot of grief from some folks that I know pretty well about. My takes on agentic AI lately, Ben. Like, I had a friend of mine who I respect a lot. He told me, and he works for a data company, which I won’t say who they are. I won’t say his name either. But he said his, his, his boss called him and said, dude, they’re Walton’s totally wrong on his takes. So I don’t know what I’m missing here because I don’t like this move, Ben. I think that’s my answer to the question. And, you know, especially if I was lauding Starbucks last week for their weekly pay and they’re increasing their barista bonuses.
00:15:09 Ben
So good. So good.
00:15:10 Chris
And so this move smells of. It’s. I think it’s important to put in context, this move smells to me of tech teams not being aligned to the business problems and kind of chasing the shiny tech that’s out there. I don’t like it because all the reasons I’ve expressed on past shows and which gets to the heart of the question that A and M is asking, which is, does the consumer really need this inside of a chat GPT experience or some other LLM experience? I don’t think so. You could ultimately do that in the Starbucks app. So I don’t get why the traffic is necessarily going to go here to do this. So it begs the question, me, why, why now? Why do you need to do this? It’s not make or break for you. Starbucks, at this point in time, why be the first penguin in the water? That’s the reason. I don’t like it.
00:15:52 Ben
Interesting, interesting. I mean, look, in principle, I don’t, I don’t disagree. Yeah, I don’t entirely agree. I mean.
00:16:01 Chris
No, it’s fine. I don’t know what I think anymore on this one.
00:16:04 Ben
Look, I mean, look at the bear numbers. There’s 800 million people on ChatGPT every week, right? So it’s really hard to walk away from that. Levels of eyeballs, that level of traffic and agent E commerce. We’ve already hit one of the really big talking points in our industry. Genti Thomas is another one. And what became super clear in Vegas is we don’t know what the end game is going to be. Nobody knows what the end game is. One thing that became really clear, though, is you can’t risk not being, being part of the conversation and not trying things because one of these solutions might suddenly be the one that works. And if you stepped out of that conversation, you’re playing catch up on the speed at which he’s moving. So there is that. That jeopardy.
00:16:50 Chris
Having said that, there’s always a but. There’s always a but.
00:16:55 Ben
The but is I don’t love the in app approach either.
00:16:58 Chris
You don’t?
00:16:59 Ben
Personally, I think there is too much friction for this to be the end game. It doesn’t feel like this is where things are going to end up. I’m not going to get in the weeds on the. On Starbucks actual application. Yeah. I think everybody needs to test things at the moment. Yeah. If anybody wants to see it. Scott Wingo has done a great video on his LinkedIn. He goes through it, he shows you, shows you what it is. He gives it two out of ten.
00:17:25 Chris
Two out of ten.
00:17:26 Ben
Two out of 10. Wow. And we know how good the Starbucks did digital experience.
00:17:29 Chris
Yes.
00:17:30 Ben
So look, have a look at that. If you want to get in the weeds on the actual tool as a direction of travel. I think every brands have got to understand how they show up in a gentic commerce in apps. I’m not there on yet.
00:17:43 Chris
Yeah, see, I get the whole thing about like you need to experiment, you need to show up. But do you, do you really like, do you need to do it right now? Because like, you know, like the other point I bring up, like I can remember just even a few years ago, like with TikTok, people were complaining about how TikTok was inspiring all these crazy, crazy drink formulations that people were bringing into the stores and it was causing the baristas headaches. So like if you think about this and you’re like, oh, I make. I’m experimenting with this and it works, that’s you’re gonna have that problem exponentially and you don’t want that. So I don’t really get what the end game here is in the experimentation other than to say, oh, we’re experimenting.
00:18:16 Ben
And that really leads. Look, there’s a couple of the things that I. Couple of other issues I’ve got with this and. Okay, it’s Peter. That’s fine.
00:18:23 Chris
Yeah.
00:18:24 Ben
Number one, the merchant in me is still worried about how ruthless Brian Nichols and the team are being with the range rationalisation at Starbucks. One of the problems, one of the issues that caused the operational challenges that Starbucks are having, particularly in the us is that it overranged. The range was far too great. If you go on the Starburst website, yeah. It says this new ChatGPT app and I’m gonna quote here is a new way to discover your next favourite drink, Starbucks. You’ve gotta take a step back, right? You’re a coffee shop, you shouldn’t need a gin to commerce to help people understand what your products that you sell. If that’s the case, you’ve overcomplicated it and that just creates those operational pressures.
00:19:09 Chris
Mic drop. Yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised if this gets killed sooner rather than later. I really wouldn’t. But mark it down. We’ll see if I’m right. See if I’m wrong. All right, let’s keep moving on. Headline number three. Instacart has announced the acquisition of instalap, a Colombia based global fulfilment and enable it platform that serves nearly 100 grocery retailers and marketplaces across 13 countries in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. According to Grocery Dive, the deal gives Instacart an immediate foothold with established retailer relationships outside North America, including Senko Sud. I hope I’m saying that correctly.
Ben in Latin America, Continente in Portugal, my Florida, my favourite Portuguese retailer, and Geronimo, Martins, Lulu and Spar. Instacart’s Chief Commercial Officer, Ryan Hamburger said the company has already seen growing global demand for its enterprise products, including Storefront Pro and Kaper carts, with early traction for Kaper in Europe and Australia. And its first Storefront Pro launches outside North America with Costco in France and Spain, which I believe we covered on this show. Over time, Instacart plans to bring its broader suite of enterprise technologies, including carrot ads, connected stores and AI and data solutions to instalap’s international retail partners. Ben, buy or sell Instacart’s acquisition of Instalap as a smart step forward for Instacart?
00:20:25 Ben
Yeah, I’m buying. Okay, so let me take through. Okay. I think it’s a really interesting storey, and part of the interest in the storey is when you view how quick commerce, delivery, connections and profitability is playing out in the grocery space. So one thing that we know is that no matter what your fulfilment route is, ensuring that your in store operations are efficient as possible is absolutely critical for grocery retailers. Okay. So therefore seeing Instacart continue to develop and invest in that part of its proposition, I think is huge. Now, if you take this acquisition in isolation. Okay, yeah. It’s always really hard to judge an acquisition without knowing how much you paid for it.
00:21:16 Chris
Right, That’s a good point. Fair point. Yeah.
00:21:19 Ben
The financial terms for this haven’t been disclosed, so I’m going to talk about directly, strategically and directionally with that kind of quite big caveat.
00:21:27 Chris
Right, right, right.
00:21:27 Ben
Instacart has been building momentum and I think one of the things that we should absolutely think about. I hope everybody’s taken enough notice of is the fact that Aldi US went with Storefront Pro.
00:21:41 Chris
Yeah, we talked about that too.
00:21:43 Ben
That’s huge. It’s a huge signal that Aldi are moving the entire operating model for their E Comm to Instacart. And you already mentioned Costco in Europe. So I see this as the next step in that journey. So then it comes to what is Instacart buying for how much we don’t know. Okay. So it’s buying scale and crucially is buying relationships. Grocery relationships are really hard, hard fought, hard build. Here’s 100 retailers, 30 countries outside the U.S. strength in LATAM, strength in the Middle East. That’s a really, really big step forward. So that’s a big tick for me.
00:22:20 Chris
Yeah. Hard to dislodge too. Grocery relationships are hard to dislodge, especially in this front when. Who’s running your website?
00:22:27 Ben
Yeah, well, not only the website, the full fulfilment and the store solutions to enable it. You mentioned Upsell. Of course there’s Upsell, Retail media, paycat. We can come back to that one. The bit that really intrigued me was, okay, you’re buying, you’re fast tracking your international book of Business, Great. But what about the tech? Is there something new coming into Instacart that they’re buying from the tech as well? And I know Insta Leap is highly considered, so look, that’s interesting. And you were going to talk. You told me we were going to talk about this one. So I asked the Instacart team outright, did you? I did, I did.
00:23:02 Chris
Nice.
00:23:04 Ben
And they said, look, they are excited about the fulfilment elements that instalap have developed. So order, managing, picking, routing, these things.
00:23:16 Chris
Are built more that side.
00:23:17 Ben
So that is two elements to it. I think the right term is an Instacart spokesperson said, and I think the quote is, over time, we expect to consolidate the tech stacks into a single unified platform that brings together the best of both products. So it looks like you’ve got an acquisition that gives a needed shot in the arm for international expansion. It’s aligned with a profitable kind of platform strategy play. And it brings in tech that can also help develop the core offer. So we found how much they’re paid to achieve all that. That feels like a good place to be, right?
00:23:53 Chris
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, I think, you know, I think I’m gonna agree with you, Ben. I think I’m gonna agree with you.
00:23:59 Ben
It’s reluctant.
00:24:00 Chris
Yeah. No, I mean, you know, you know, I mean, it’s a card. Knows this too. Like, I have a. I have a. I love Haverly. I love them. I like talking to them. I always enjoy whenever I get the chance to interview them. But, you know, some, some of the things I’ve had questions about, you know, over the years and so. But I think this is a smart move. I think it is, I think for the reasons you said. I mean, one, it’s growth via acquisition, which I think is important in and of itself. Because, as you know, I mentioned in the headline read too, it’s been tough for Instacart to crack this market.
Then it sounds like as you’re discussing, there’s probably some IP that they’re grabbing here in terms of how the tech works. And there’s also just the IP of the relationships themselves, which I don’t think. Which is a great point, because I don’t think you can discount that at all. And then the other point too, which I was actually surprised you mentioned it, but you only mentioned it briefly, was, was retail media. That’s what scales. So as you conglomerate all these platforms together, from a software standpoint, the retail media is the engine that drives the profitability of Instacart in the long run. So you’re going to get more scale in that because the brands now can position their retail media across more options globally too, which I think has to be a part of this. Right, Ben? I mean, you know that better than I do.
00:25:04 Ben
Yeah, I completely agree. The potential to scale, particularly carrot ads, that media play is huge. And I think I would just. Look just one more point to help you with that final.
00:25:16 Chris
Okay.
00:25:17 Ben
Make the final decision. You mentioned Ryan Hamburger, Chief Commercial Officer in the intro. He’s actually one of our speakers.
00:25:24 Chris
Oh, yeah.
00:25:25 Ben
At Shop Talk Europe. So he’ll be on stage on the Wednesday. Maybe you should grab him, get an interview, ask him a question. Everybody can come and hear directly from Ryan on this.
00:25:35 Chris
Love to do that.
00:25:35 Ben
Love to do that.
00:25:36 Chris
Still not sold on the cart. Which I had a big long conversation on the cart with somebody at Zebra yesterday, but yeah, still not sold on the cart. But that’s a. I don’t want to take us off topic, Ben.
00:25:46 Ben
That’s the topic.
00:25:46 Chris
Let’s go to the next headline.
00:25:47 Ben
I’m going to go straight. I’m going to plough straight into headline number four, which is that Walmart has announced the first full redesign of its great value private label brand for more than a decade, with plans to roll out new, more modern and colourful packaging. How could it be anything but across nearly 10, 10,000, 10,000 grocery and household items over the next 18 to 24 months? So a bit more detail. According to a Walmart corporate blog post, the new packaging designs were unveiled on April 15, will begin rolling out from May, starting with Salty snacks, which is interesting with the GLP1 conversation, before expanding category by category into more than 100 product categories. The new packaging is specifically designed to improve what Walmart calls shopability, making it easier for customers to identify products in store and on the aisles. Customer research was the catalyst. While shoppers ranked Great Value highly on price and quality, many said they didn’t feel particularly proud to display it in their home. So, Chris, do you think a Great Value packaging redesign will help get more people to buy more Great Value products from Walmart?
00:26:58 Chris
Oh, man, that’s, that’s a tough one. I don’t actually know if it’ll get them to buy more products because, you know, but I think at the end of the day I like this move because I don’t think it’s gonna, it’s not gonna make them buy less products. I don’t think, you know, at the end of the day it’s not gonna hurt anything. I mean, the article said nine out of 10 US households already buy it. So I mean, how much room is there to grow when nine out of 10 are already buying it? I guess you can get them to buy it more often, which I think is the play here. And I alluded to it before because you’re going after the upper demo. If you read between the lines of this, we’re not proud to show it in our pantries, which means we’re not proud to highlight it to when we have guests in the house.
00:27:38 Ben
You’re right.
00:27:38 Chris
And so that’s the upper demographic that they’re trying to get after and they’re going after, you know, because of the success they’ve had with Walmart. Plus they want people to feel more pride in having it in their house. And so it’s not going to hurt anything if it does the move the needle, which it very well could. It, you know, helps them to, helps people to save money, helps Walmart make more money and then look out because that’s more margin for Walmart and also more media dollars from the CBGs who are not going to want to let that happen. Yeah, you’re not going to want to see the territory to Great Value so that the flywheel just keeps on churning. So. So I think it’s a really smart Move from a profitability perspective whether they sell more great value product. I think actually as I’m talking this out loud, Ben, I think possibly. Yeah, I think to the upper income demos for sure.
00:28:23 Ben
Yeah, I agree. I mean, look, firstly, I love. We’re talking about private label. Yeah, that’s another big things.
00:28:29 Chris
I don’t talk about private label very often.
00:28:30 Ben
Yeah, we must keep talking about it as an industry more. But let’s, let’s talk about Walmart first. Because look, because it’s Walmart. Yeah, because the scale, because it’s 10,000 products, because it’s their core great value item, then it’s a storey. Yeah, but it’s really not a storey in some ways. I mean, look, 30 years ago I sat my desk in, the marketing team of the grocery retailer was next to the packaging design team. They were on a constant cycle of redeveloping packaging for the private labels. It’s not news, it’s just how you run a private label business, right? Yeah. So scale makes it notable, Walmart makes it notable, but it’s just how you should be doing. Having said that, to do it now is a huge signal and for that to read the signal, you got to look at what the CPGs did.
So we had inflation out of COVID CPGs, CPGs took the price increase, the branded CPGs took the price and they’ve grown through price. So if you sit here now and you read the financial results of any of the big branded CPGs, there’s growth coming from two places. One, value, that is price, it’s not volume. Two, digital. Come back to the conversation we were having earlier in the Instacart Bunsen. That’s where the growth is now. In the last six months we’d hit a point where CPGs, it felt like the conversation that they’d realised that, that they realised price had been touched too far and the differential to private label had opened up too much. And that was happening just at a time that the inflationary pressures thankfully had eased off. Okay. The world’s changed in the last month. We’re suddenly in an environment where inflationary pressures are coming in. This is a critical time. Walmart is saying, okay, we’re going big on our private label. The industry cannot risk pushing price too much, otherwise that differential is going to increase even further. And you’re seeing the investment that’s going in. So. So that for me is the big storey. It’s watching how that goes. Now, having said that, I also have, I also slightly don’t agree with you. Okay, yeah.
00:30:46 Chris
How dare you.
00:30:48 Ben
Okay, great, great. Nine out of 10 households. But it doesn’t tell you how many items.
00:30:54 Chris
No, it doesn’t.
00:30:54 Ben
It doesn’t tell you what frequency. It doesn’t tell you how many categories they’re buying into. Nobody’s gonna do a packaging redesign because they, they think they’re going to sell less. So this is about modernization, it’s about pushing. There’s categories where it’s fascinating. They’re selling with salty snacks and crisps, a category being hit by the GLP.1 impact. I hope that they recognise why it’s been hit, rather than just saying, here’s another performer, let’s put the investment there. But they’re smart people, so I’m sure they do. If they get this right, it will help them grow penetration, growth frequency. And that’s a real watch. And it’s a real watch out for other grocers. Because one of the things that sometimes gets lost in the conversation about private label is it’s not just switching from branded to private label, it’s switching store locations to retailers that have a higher private label mix, like a limited line discounter, like a warehouse club. So if you’re sat in a major mall or even a regional grocery and you’re thinking about, what do I know? How do I respond to this? It’s so important to get that private label range back. Right? Yeah.
00:31:53 Chris
Wow.
00:31:53 Ben
Okay.
00:31:53 Chris
So there’s a lot of points I heard you say there that I think are important. Just to reiterate. So, like one is, one is the continued digital growth of grocery and showing up better there.
00:32:03 Ben
Huge.
00:32:03 Chris
One is the inflation impact. 1. And then the other thing is the point that I think you and I both ended up making it. I came around to it at the end too.
00:32:12 Ben
You did. Thank you, thank you, thank you for that.
00:32:15 Chris
But it’s right to disagree with me based on how I said it. But like that there are more people that could be buying more great value products. My only question for you, Ben, is when they said that they haven’t done this in 10 years, you know, were they kind of derelict in not doing it sooner?
00:32:31 Ben
Yeah, that surprised me.
00:32:32 Chris
It surprised me too.
00:32:34 Ben
I think part of it is just the sheer scale of the range.
00:32:38 Chris
Right.
00:32:38 Ben
You know, this is the core range. It’s a big undertaking. So big, big, big undertaking. And what stood out to me was, and I think I’d love the next time one of us is talking to a merchant at Walmart to understand, like we’re talking a 12 to 48, a 12 to 24 month rollout for this. I’d love to know how you can make that quicker. You know, it feels like with the technological advances with AI that seems an awful long time to roll this out. Okay, 10,000 is a huge change, but it’d be interesting to know, is Walmart doing anything different in the process to be able to improve this?
00:33:15 Chris
Yeah. Well, and then there’s also the correlating things that are changing in terms of packaging design and requirements in the industry as well and how they’re syncing all those up. So this is not an easy undertaking by any means, in any way, shape or form.
00:33:26 Ben
Agreed.
00:33:27 Chris
All right, headline number five. Aldi South Group is using its US Stores as the testing ground for a new globally unified store format developed over 14 years in partnership with Australian design firm Landini Associates. With trials already underway in Aventura, Florida. And further US rollout planned through 2026. Landini Associates. Ben? Yes, for those wondering, I’m sad to say has no affiliation with the fictional law firm Bandini Lambert and Locke from the wonderful Tom Cruise film the Firm.
Thank you very much. Anyway, according to Chainsaways, the new design is built on a modular, adaptable framework, meaning it can be scaled and reconfigured across different store sizes and building types. The format is designed to create breeder, brighter, greater, some would say, some who could speak English would say greater brand consistency across all five of Aldi South’s global territories. The news also comes. This is important as Aldi is in the middle of an enormous 2026 expansion push. The company plans to open more than 180 new stores this year, convert close to 80 former Southeastern groceries locations to the Aldi format, and reach nearly 2800 total US stores by year end. On its way on its way to a target of 3200 in just two years. By 2028. Oh, man. In 2025 alone, 17 million new customers visited Aldi for the very first time. 17 Million. Ben, first question. I’ve got two questions for you to close us out.
00:34:56 Ben
Go for it.
00:34:57 Chris
Do you think Aldi gets enough credit in the US for being the grocer that it is? And second, how scared should US Grocers and and even global grocers for that matter, be with this news?
00:35:06 Ben
Wow. That’s. Okay. Wow. Okay, big question. Aldi is a phenomenal business and the Aldi subdivision is the most exciting, the most dynamic division. It is years ahead of the Aldi Nord business. Low price, strong quality, amazingly cash generative as a business model. Very long term in its strategic thinking. So I guess it’s a very long way of saying if people don’t recognise this and haven’t given them credit by now, they’re in for an increasingly rude awakening.
00:35:44 Chris
Right?
00:35:44 Ben
Yeah. So let me give you an example here in the UK, in London, Aldi opened his very first store in April 1990. Okay. So not that long ago, he says, sounding old, it’s now grown to be one in one of the most competitive grocery markets in the world. It’s got over 10% market share, it’s got over a thousand stores and it’s on track at the moment to probably take over the number three position. So it looks like it’s in the medium term, it’s going to displace asda. So ASDA for those who remember was Walmart subsidiary here in the UK and it’s going to replace that as the number three. Look, the US store growth is, is equally, is equally striking. So underestimate your peril. Super strong business. This particular storey look really interesting. A couple of things. Landini, look, they are a globally renowned design organisation. They’re innovative, they’ve worked for ALI for a long time. They’ve had a really long association with McDonald’s. So like all the concept McDonald’s stores around the world are stores that they’ve created.
00:36:54 Chris
Interesting.
00:36:55 Ben
If anybody’s been, if any of the listeners have been to the McDonald’s in Sydney Airport, which is incredible. It’s a multi storey. It’s got this incredible machine that takes food cooked from downstairs to downstairs. It’s like an elevator. It’s beautiful. They designed it, Mandini designed it. They designed it.
00:37:13 Chris
So they get formats and modularity then that’s what you’re telling me.
00:37:16 Ben
Yeah. And I think that, and I know when we were chatting about this earlier, so I’m not going to steal your thunder, the modularity element of this, that’s the big, that’s, that’s the, that’s the bit to listen out for. But I’m going to let you cover that. We’ll talk about that more.
00:37:30 Chris
Well, I think I 100% agree with everything you said. The point that you unlock for me in a more palpable way than I thought about before I came into this podcast, which is why I love doing this podcast, is when you told me they have a thousand stores in the UK and they’re still only targeting like 3200 in the States, it still seems like there’s room to grow. Oh yeah, even you agree. Even more so.
00:37:52 Ben
Yeah.
00:37:52 Chris
And that’s why modularity is going to be so important because it’s 100% aligned strategically to where the growth has to come from. And that is through the acquisition of existing grocers regionally whose footprints aren’t of the prototype design of a typical Aldi box.
00:38:06 Ben
You got it.
00:38:07 Chris
And I know that’s true, and here’s how I know that’s true. The part I’ll bring to the table here is I had the chance to interview all these VP of Real Estate Dan Gavin at a conference a couple years ago and he basically told us that was the fact, like that was the problem with all these acquisitions that they made, is that they had to think about this because the box wasn’t going to work the way it was. And so if there is that room to grow, which it’s got to, there’s got to be, you know, this is the way to do it. Now, the big question, though, like you said with Instagram, we don’t know how much they paid, we don’t know if it works, you know, we don’t know that this new format is working, you know, or that it’s going to continue to work. You got to think that there’s a high probability that it’s going to, given all these track record.
00:38:47 Ben
Yeah, I think you would too. It’s been. It’s based on the Aldi Sud concept stores in Australia, which are really good stores. I think the Aldi have traditionally a cookie cutter approach and that’s, that’s what drives the synergies. So this modular idea that is we can put the Aldi footprint into more varied real estate, is fascinating. And the final thing, look, it’s got me thinking about this. There has been rumour and speculation for months now that Aldi Sud and Aldi Nord might finally come together.
00:39:22 Chris
Oh, wow.
00:39:23 Ben
So, look, very, very quick for people who are not familiar to the storey. Aldi was created by the Aldrich brothers. The brothers fell out, one brother took the north, one brother took the south. So mostly non overlapping territories.
00:39:37 Chris
Right.
00:39:39 Ben
This is a business that if you put the two bits together, the buying scale alone, so the fact that they’re building this in a modular basis, it could be about small acquisitions, but it could also be about how do we take the best performing concept in the whole group and help put it into more stores.
00:39:55 Chris
Set that up for success too, Right?
00:39:58 Ben
Yeah. If I had a pound for every time Aldi Nord and Aldi Sud were going to come together as being rumoured. Yeah. I wouldn’t need to be doing this with you today, sir. Despite how great it is. But. But genuinely, I think. I think there’s been more talk now than there has been for quite some time on that.
00:40:13 Chris
Yeah. But the interesting thing about this, though, if you step back from it, is modularity does not generally go hand in hand with scale. You know, so there is something that you are trying to inherently crack the code on. If you’re going to use this in the way that you’re. That we’re hypothesising.
00:40:28 Ben
That we’re hypothesising. Right, absolutely.
00:40:30 Chris
All right, let’s go to the lightning round. Ben. A tattoo artist inked a portrait of Danny DeVito on his. His or her. It doesn’t say. On a client’s big toe. Danny DeVito. On your big toe. Ben. Ben, do you have any tattoos? And if not, and you were ever to get one, what would you get?
00:40:46 Ben
I have literally no idea how we’ve gone from Aldi’s corporate structure to Danny DeVito. Tatis. No, Chris, I did not.
00:40:53 Chris
You did not. I did think you did, which is why I asked you the second part.
00:40:56 Ben
And I think my window for tattoos looking good. Is probably closed.
00:41:00 Chris
Yeah, Right, right, right. Yeah. The saggy arms and everything. Right.
00:41:03 Ben
Yeah. Thank you. Right, moving on. Chris. Earlier this week, it was announced that after 15 years in Roel and having added a cool 3 1/2 trillion dollars. That’s trillion with a T. To its market capitalization, Tim Cook is going to step down as Apple CEO. Chris, what is the one Apple product you could not live without?
00:41:25 Chris
It’s gotta be my phone, right? It’s gotta be your phone too, right?
00:41:28 Ben
It’s gotta be the iPhone.
00:41:29 Chris
Yeah. Although I couldn’t even go off a MacBook now, either. I don’t think, you know, if I had to.
00:41:34 Ben
And I couldn’t probably surrender my AirPods either. Yeah.
00:41:38 Chris
Oh, really? See, I’m not a big. I’m not a big Airpod guy. Yeah. Really? Okay. All right, all right, all right. Next one. Eddie Murphy received a lifetime achievement award by the American Film Institute last week. Ben. Ben, what is your Mount Rushmore of Eddie Murphy movies? And if you don’t know what Mount Rushmore is, Ben, it’s the big statue of four presidents in South Dakota. So four favourite Eddie Murphy movies.
00:41:57 Ben
Yes. Thank you very much, Chris. I do know what Mount Rushmore is. 1. It’s got to be. I’m going to go right back. Beverly Hills Cole.
00:42:03 Chris
Yes.
00:42:04 Ben
But the original. Got to be the original.
00:42:06 Chris
Okay.
00:42:07 Ben
Eddie Murphy, Axel as Axel Foley. Brilliant.
00:42:10 Chris
Okay, just. That’s just one.
00:42:12 Ben
Yeah, that’s just one.
00:42:13 Chris
Just Give me one. All right, all right, all right.
00:42:14 Ben
Well, look, when you’ve got something that high, you don’t need to go out anywhere. Okay?
00:42:18 Chris
All right. It’s just one marble. Eddie Murphy. Axel Foley stands above everyone.
00:42:23 Ben
One single person.
00:42:23 Chris
I don’t even know if it’s marble. I don’t know what? Mount Rushmore. It’s granite, I think, but anyway. All right, all right.
00:42:28 Ben
Go on, Chris. So I understand the next stop in the Walton World Tour is Berlin.
00:42:34 Chris
Yes, it is. Walton World Tour. That’s great. Yes.
00:42:36 Ben
What is your favourite German food?
00:42:38 Chris
Oh, man. Oh, my God. I like a good schnitzel.
00:42:42 Ben
Nice.
00:42:43 Chris
I do. I do a good schnitzel.
00:42:44 Ben
Yeah.
00:42:45 Chris
I’m actually looking forward to getting some schnitzel. And does beer count as a food? Because I like the beer gardens over there.
00:42:49 Ben
The big ones are very good.
00:42:50 Chris
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Food and drink, I guess.
00:42:52 Ben
Very good.
00:42:53 Chris
All right, all right. Today’s podcast was produced with the help and support, of course, of our great producer, Ella Seward. Ella couldn’t be with us today because we’re on location. She’s in a completely different time zone. But, you know, we couldn’t do this without her, and we want to thank her for her help in producing this podcast at the end of the day and in time for you all to enjoy. Happy birthday today to Amber Heard, Jack Nicholson, and to Lance Guess’s love interest in the last Starfighter, the great Catherine Mary Stewart.
00:43:20 Ben
Ben.
00:43:21 Chris
And remember, if you could only read or listen to one retail blog in the business, make it Omnitalk. Our Fast five podcast is the quickest, fastest rundown of all the week’s top news. And our daily newsletter, the Retail Daily Minute, tells you all you need to know each day to stay on top of your game as a retail executive and also regularly feature special content that is exclusive to us and that we all take a tonne of pride in doing just for you. Thanks as always for listening in. Please remember to like and leave us a review wherever you happen to listen to your podcast or on YouTube, you can follow us today by simply going to YouTube.com omnitalk retail. Ben, before we let you go, if people want to join you in Barcelona for Shop Talk Europe in June, what’s the best way for them to do that?
00:43:59 Ben
Great. So europe.shoptalk.com takes you directly to our European webpage or just hit shoptalk.com and select Shoptalk Europe. It’s nice. We’ve got seven weeks to show, so all of the ticket types are currently open and for retailers and brands. The application process for our hosted programme, which is free tickets and support with travel expenses, that closes in the middle to end of May. So you’ve absolutely got time to do that, but it’s better to get your application in sooner rather than later. And just. Okay, one final.
00:44:31 Chris
Okay.
00:44:32 Ben
Like a little inside.
00:44:33 Chris
If you stuck around to the end.
00:44:35 Ben
Got here.
00:44:35 Chris
Here.
00:44:36 Ben
Inside baseball. If you’re coming to Barcelona, and I hope you join us, we’re in the same venue.
00:44:41 Chris
Okay.
00:44:41 Ben
Yep. So the. The Fira Grand Via. Beautiful venue. Beautiful Barcelona. We’re in a different bit. We’ve grown, so we’re in a different bit of the building.
00:44:50 Chris
Okay.
00:44:50 Ben
Which means a different entrance.
00:44:52 Chris
Okay.
00:44:52 Ben
Yeah. So in your joining instructions, it will tell you how to get to the entrance. Don’t go to where you usually do on autopilot.
00:44:58 Chris
Oh, no.
00:44:59 Ben
Oh, you’ll have the big sign saying, please go around the corner.
00:45:02 Chris
Oh, no.
00:45:02 Ben
Oh, no.
00:45:03 Chris
Oh, no. I was at the hotel directly across from that entrance, Ben. Oh, no. But, hey, hey, I’ll adjust. Because that’s what we do here at Omniton. We adjust. We work on the fly and we improv, and we have fun doing this show every week. Thanks for joining me, Ben.
00:45:16 Ben
Absolute pleasure.
00:45:17 Chris
Always a pleasure. Always a pleasure having you. Can’t wait to have you back. And until next week, on behalf of all of us at omnitalk, on behalf of Ben, the Shop Talk team, everyone, producer Ella, as always, be careful out there.
Omni Talk® is the retail blog for retailers, written by retailers. Chris Walton founded Omni Talk® in 2017 and have quickly turned it into one of the fastest growing blogs in retail.