Sucker Punched By Retail Disruption: Can Big Consumer Brands Reclaim Market Share?

Recent moves by the nation’s biggest supermarket chain echo the disruption rippling through grocery and mass-market retailing. This year alone, Kroger acquired British online grocer Ocado Group to process its e-commerce orders; purchased meal-kit company Home Chef; and set plans to blow out its Simple Truth house brands on store shelves. Meanwhile, big legacy consumer products brands are scrambling to consolidate their way to solvency and rejuvenation via mega-mergers like Kraft Foods-H.J. Heinz, SABMiller-Anheuser-Busch amid whispers that Kraft-Heinz might purchase the faltering Campbell Soup Company. Longtime CPG giants have been hobbled by the rise of alternative retail channels from Amazon to Whole Foods (now one in the same), and European grocers like Aldi, just as scrappy niche brands, direct-to-consumer e-tailers, and higher-end private-label lines appeal to changing consumer tastes, while chewing away at their market share. Read more at Forbes.