INSIGHTS AND PERSPECTIVES

The news that Walgreens is to scrap its $9.4 billion merger with Rite Aid is unsurprising. The glacial pace of the Federal Trade Commission investigation and increasing signals that the federal government would disallow the merger have forced a rethink.

In some ways, the process so far has been a colossal waste of resources and effort. Walgreens has to pay out a $325 million termination fee to Rite Aid, and all parties — including Fred's, which was due to acquire some Rite Aid stores — have invested time and money with very little to show for it.

As part of the DSNTV’s Executive Viewpoints series of interviews conducted at the National Association of Chain Drug Stores Annual Meeting, DSN caught up with Piping Rock Health Products SVP sales and marketing Kimberly Vigliante to talk about the high-growth aromatherapy segment.

My daughter and I were experimenting in the kitchen the other evening — cooking up what was sure to be a masterpiece. Reaching into the lazy Susan in the spice cabinet, I had a eureka moment.

To be honest, this is not the first time that this fleeting thought has crossed my mind. But it resurfaced with a vengeance when my daughter commented about the lazy Susan, “This is so cool. Everything I need is just a quick spin away from being right in front of me.”

The New General Market is not about demographics — it is a cultural shift and a change in the consumer mindset that has been brought on by the growth of multicultural and millennial consumers and the impact they are having on ALL consumers. It is changing the rules for how brands market. For this virtual roundtable, DSN talked to leading CPG executives about how to better engage the New General Market.

The opioid abuse epidemic has justly garnered much of the nation’s attention. Reports show that on an average day, 91 deaths occur daily due to opioid-related overdoses in the U.S. As a society, we shoulder $55 billion annually in health and social costs related to prescription opioid abuse.

Earlier this year associates from Hamacher Resource Group, Inc. (HRG) returned from the Natural Products Expo West with armfuls of literature, samples, and ideas. In fact, the sheer volume of items they saw with the probiotic, ready-to-drink, immunity, or wellness-boosting attributes could easily fill a warehouse. The challenge, as I see it, is how in the world does a consumer know which products to consider, how to manage their consumption, and how to avoid hypervitaminosis or other supplement over-saturation?

The other day, I saw a young man in baggy jeans — that ridiculously enormous cut from the late 90s/early 2000s that seemed to fit every waist size from 28 inches to 4.5 ft., and gave every person the illusion of being their own “after” picture in one of those bad billboard weight loss ads. It was just another reminder that either, for a lack of creativity or extremely bad taste, every bad idea that ever existed eventually will be recycled.

Food retailer Aldi is known for its low prices, high quality, small stores and exclusive brands. But it represents something else as well.

The company is one of the best U.S. examples of a retailer that combines discount pricing with a big commitment to health and wellness. The impact is fairly large because this global company operates more than 1,600 stores across the United States, and is on a growth spree with remodels and newly added stores.