Optimizing Whole Foods Market In-Store Venues: Consumer Insights in Action

Well, welcome everybody. We're going to start on time because I'm sure Karen has a lot to share with us. Welcome back. And if you're just joining us, thank you so much uh for tuning in. Um just kind of ground rules that we always set. If you've been here before, you know about these. Um obviously we are at the mercy of tech. When it works, it works great. Um sometimes it doesn't. Um um but it looks like we are good to go now. You can hear us and see us, I hope. Um again, just uh be respectful of each other. Uh, this really is an opportunity to engage. Karen, would you like to take questions at the end? Is that your preference? Doesn't matter. People can ask questions while I'm talking. Just make sure you put them in the notes. Okay. Yeah, if you want to do that, that would be great. I can um I'll be monitoring that, everyone. So, if you want to go ahead and put those in the notes um I can make sure um to get those over to Karen um either throughout the conversation or at the end, and she'll be looking at those as well. Um and then also um at the end of this you'll have opportunities um to network, engage and interact post um day. So just keep that in mind. Um and uh we have a real treat today. Um we have Karen Lee, director of consumer insights from Whole Foods. Um I've worked with Karen uh in the past and she is a rock star at turning actionable insights into CPG strategies that that that drive um uh tangible incremental growth. So, I'm looking forward to hearing what she has to say about market venues evolution and I'm sure you are too. So, I'm going to turn it over to Karen. Okay, great. Let me go ahead and I will share my screen with everyone. See? Okay. Can everybody see that or do I need to switch prevent presenter view? I see it in presenter view. Okay better. Yes, we can see it now. Thank you. Okay, great. Thanks. Yeah. Uh, technology never my strong suit, but I'm happy to be here today. It was interesting listening to Bill earlier talking about how this started during COVID quarantine because I feel like I was one of the first presenters that I did during quarantine. And I remember thinking how weird it was that I was presenting at a conference in my pajama pants. However, today we're back in office and I'm at a different location. Um, but still loving the spirit of having online conferences. So much easier to uh just join from your desk and learn from all these insights professionals. So, I'm excited to be here today. And what I'm going to talk about is our um Whole Foods venues. So, venues are actually uh little restaurants that we have inside of our prepared food section in our store. So, if you've visited a Whole Foods before, you might know that the prepared food section is really like an iconic part of our experience. You might have gone there for lunch or dinner. You've hit up the hot bar, the salad bar, the soup bar, all those wonderful prepared foods that we make inhouse at Whole Foods that are fresh and delicious. Um, a play on that perfoods area again are these little restaurants that we have inside that section. And we call them internally venues and we're always looking to evolve venues. um to make sure that they're keeping up with the times, that we have the types of foods that people are looking for, and um just making sure that we're staying in touch with our consumer when we think about how to optimize these venues in our store. So, that's what I'm going to talk about. We did this research toward the end of last year. Our partner was Sivo. Um they do a lot of really excellent qualitative work for us. So, I would recommend them strongly um to anyone who's looking for additional qual partners. And so I asked Bill and Billy to load a little quiz for us. Uh, so what words do you guys think of when I say Whole Foods Market? Can you run that poll for me, Billy? Can everyone see the the um the poll? Okay. If you can't, please put something in the chat. Otherwise, it should be appearing on your screen. Did it work? So, Bill is the puppet master behind the polls. Oh, it's okay if it doesn't work. I was just trying to make it a little interactive, but it's no big deal. Did it work, Bill? Okay. Hey, puppet master here. Okay. All right. I'm going to do my DJ voice and try to read through a few of these. Oh, great. Awesome. All right. We've got 24 responses in in record time, which good is a fantastic response rate for all you [clears throat] survey research. Yes. High incidents. Right. Right. Um All right. So, I'm just going to rattle off the the first few that I see. We've got quality, whole paycheck, specialty, better for you, organic expensive earthy another whole paycheck. Oh, we got a popular one. Um, organic, healthy expensive organic um, fresh food, exotic foods. Oh, good. Okay. I loved every single one of those except the old whole paycheck joke. I will say being in Consumer Insights, we do hear that joke very regularly. Um, and we do acknowledge obviously that sometimes our costs are our prices are higher than some of our competitors, but there is a reason for that. And a lot of the other words that you guys uh thought of when you think of Whole Food Market is sometimes why we have uh markup when it comes to our overall prices. So, I'll tell you um some things that come up with our consumers very similar to what you guys were just talking about when we do consumer insights re research for Whole Foods Market. So, freshness and quality, obviously a huge one. Um, we try to have the freshest produce, the freshest meat, the freshest seafood. Um, we're really invested in making sure that everything that's out in our store is very fresh and very high quality. And so you can trust when you go into Whole Foods Market that our instore team members are regularly working their way through something like the produce section to make sure that everything we have out and everything that we have merchandise is at the peak of freshness. And so I'm happy to hear some of you guys thought of that variety. Somebody brought up how we have exotic quote unquote foods. That's also true. Um you can find a lot of different produce specifically there that maybe you can't get other places. Um, you can also find things in our center store section and you can also find it in our prepared foods area, which is what we're going to talk about today. So, happy to hear that. That's also something we're known for. Natural and organic. So, the word organic came up several times. We try to be the uh nation's leader in natural and organic products, and I think we do an excellent job of that. However, um, obviously in the last few years, we're very aware that you can get some some organic produce, etc. at our competitors as well, Costco, Kroger, Publix. Um, but there's still a lot of reasons why you would want to come to Whole Foods versus uh other competitors, of course. And so I'll I'll bring that up as we move forward in the deck. Premium. I guess this one kind of does fit with the Whole Foods paycheck. Again, uh we recognize sometimes that's the joke or that's the reputation, but it's because of all the things that I listed above this with the most fresh and best quality products throughout the entire store. Um, and that's the reason why sometimes we have a premium upcharge. Healthy options. One of the reasons shoppers come to Whole Foods Market is they can trust us that we're going to have healthy options for them. Now, that does not mean we don't have delicious bakery items and indulgence and chocolates and things like that, but we're making those options um those cheat meal options as healthy as possible um through some things that I'll talk about earlier when it comes to our ingredient standards. Local. We also really really try to drive a strong local program in each of the states that we're located in. So, I'm here in Texas. our um offices in Austin. If you go to our store downstairs, you're going to see local products um in the meat area, in the cheese area, you're going to see it in the produce area, in uh places like hot sauce or barbecue sauces. And the same would be true wherever you're located with Whole Foods Market. And we know that our shoppers really appreciate um how hard we work to recruit uh local suppliers and to support the local community. Sustainability is also something that's really important here at Whole Foods. We have a lot of sustainable efforts when it comes to packaging, etc. Um, and also just the suppliers that we're working with and the way that they manufacture our products. And then finally, we also have a program here called Source for Good. And that's really all about what I talked about earlier when it comes to um really purchasing from suppliers where it's like a win-win for the suppliers and for us. So, like really making sure that we're having suppliers that um have good treatment of their farm workers, uh workers in local communities, uh they're paid well, and we know that they are um certified in what we would call source for good. This really identifies within our store the suppliers that have gone through the rigorous process to get certified for source for good and it's something that we're really proud of. Okay, so I mentioned on the last screen in ingredient standards. What is ingredient standards? If you don't regularly shop at Whole Foods, you might not know. Um, I also think some shoppers that shop at us might not know all about it and we need to do a better job of promoting that. That's something the consumer insights team has really brought to the forefront uh for the rest of the organization. But we believe that the best ingredients belong in your house feeding to your families. We've banned over 550 ingredients, all products that we sell. So, um not just the ingestables like the food and beverage, but also in what we call our whole body section where it's like where you can get your vitamins, your supplements, um your bath and body products, that fun little area you can shop through. Also, we have band ingredients there. We don't have any hydro hydrogenated fats, high fructose corn syrup. We're also very particular on the sweeteners that we use for our products because we know that it's a lot healthier to have real products in your food. And so, um, along with banning that, we have preservatives, flavors, other ingredients. And so, um, it's not an easy process to be a supplier for Whole Foods Market. You need to meet all of our ingredient standards. Um, and so what that does is it allows shoppers when they come to our store, they know everything in there is um, safe for them to eat, that they can trust that we've done all of the background research that we need to have if you're interested in certain diets specifically like vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free. We'll have lots of options for you. And they also won't have any of these 550 ingredients that we banned from our products. So, where do we see this across the store? You obviously see it in like our um dairy section. And of course, we have like cage-free eggs and things like that. We also see it in our um meat and our seafood section. If you haven't had Whole Foods meat or seafood, I'd love for you to go get some of that and then compare it to maybe um something that you're getting from a standard grocery store. And you'll really find that our product quality, although it is more expensive, is uh a higher level versus what you might get at some other retailers. Obviously, a big star of our show is the perimeter area. The produce section is very popular and also, I would say, an iconic section for Whole Foods Market. We work to really have things that are in season at the peak of freshness. Um, getting them from locations where that would be true, that's going to be the peak of freshness. And, um, our merchant team does a really great job there, making sure that we meet all of our shopper expectations. And as I mentioned before, just because we ban all these ingredients does not mean you can't find deliciousness when it comes to your cheat day meal. This is our very iconic popular selling um dessert. It regularly goes viral on like Tik Tok. There was um something that happened recently on the Bachelor about it, but uh it's our berry Chantelli cake. If you haven't had it, it is banging. We sell it in different sizes. We sell it by slice, but it's really like an iconic and excellent dessert. And again, an indulgent, but still making sure that you have all of those band ingredients, so you know it's safe for your family to eat at a holiday or at a birthday party or whatever. And then of course the center store area, um, which is more of our standard center store aisles with our packaged foods and our frozen products. Still going through the same rigorous, um, checks that we had throughout the store. And also we have a very big exclusive brands program. Exclusive brands is just what we call private label. And you can see here 365 is extremely popular with our shoppers that are shopping in our store. And I would actually like to call out that a lot of our um exclusive brands are private label products. The pricing is on par with things that you can get at other grocery stores. So, we're trying to fight that whole paychecks um vibe by making sure the shoppers know that we have all of these 365 products that meet our ingredient standards and are at an everyday low price just like you would get at other retailers. And then finally, as I mentioned before, the whole body section we like to call it, where you can get uh our supplements are really popular, vitamins, any personal care products. We have fun tables out there with soap and candles and all of that stuff. and they also have to meet our ingredient standards. So, who's shopping at Whole Foods? Here's a quick look at what shoppers look like within our box and how they might be a little bit different than what you would see at standard grocery stores. Um, our shoppers tend to be college educated and yes, as you might expect, also much more likely to be higher income. So, um, really a higher percentage of our shopper making over 100K a year within their family household. They also tend to be a little bit younger. So, um, we really, I would say, do exceptionally well with like millennials and Gen X. Um, and also a younger generation as well. So, um, I think the connecting force is that it's people that really care about health and care about the ingredients that they're putting in their body. And so, um, it can span all different types of demographics, but that's who's usually attracted to us today. um also a lot more likely to be married or partnered. Um a little bit more than uh the standard shopper US households and then a little bit more likely also to have kids within that household. Um and we also see that's kind of a turning point for when shoppers um change their behavior for how they start shopping is when they have kids and they start thinking about uh what they're putting in their kids' bodies as well. The other thing I think that's really interesting about Whole Foods is that we overindex in every ethnicity group aside from Caucasian shoppers. Um, so a really uniting factor, as I mentioned before, is really caring about health. Um, caring about what you're putting in your body, being interested in exploring those types of food and premium products. And so we really do span across all different types of demographics and um, creating a community within our store, which I love. So, I've said it a couple times, but our shoppers are much more likely to be food engaged, right? Foodies, if you want to call them that. Um, looking for knowledge. They have a passion for food. Um, seeking out new cuisines. I'm excited someone said exotic uh options when they come into Whole Foods because we do see that our shoppers um have interest in expanding their pallet and so we're always looking to bring in different international cuisines to have events around that and really placing a big emphasis on having fresh food as part of that diet. We also see they're more likely to be digitally engaged. If you're not aware, Whole Foods is owned by Amazon. I think most people know that by now. Um, but you have the additional benefit of utilizing your Prime discount within the Whole Foods box. And that is very popular with our shoppers. Um, they have a higher level of device ownership. They're more interested in technology. We've rolled out a couple things in our store. Um, you might have seen Amazon One. It's like when you're able to scan your palm and you can pay for things. Our selfch checkout area. So, we're always trying to be at the front of uh technology as well. And then, as I mentioned a couple times, the real thing that unites our shopper base is health. So, shoppers exercising more consciously, being aware of what they're eating, what they're putting in their bodies. Um, and also just thinking of health in like a broad holistic term. And that's really what we stand for at Whole Foods. Um, everybody's welcome. We're here to um give you education if you need it. And if not, we're just here for delicious food. And so that's kind of um the foundation of what we believe here at Whole Foods. Okay. As I mentioned earlier, the prepared food section is pretty iconic within our box. I would hope most of the people on the phone have visited our salad, our hot bar before. Um it's very popular for lunch, but also with the after dinner, uh the afterwork dinner crowd as well. Um very popular. We're always innovating in that area and trying to make sure that we're feeding the healthiest and freshest food possible. As I mentioned before, in addition to this, on the perimeter walls in um some of our stores, we have what we call venues. These are quick service restaurants. You might also have seen them at some of our competitors. They've become very popular in the pref prepared foods area. Um we have coffee juice bars. We have ones with Mexican cuisine, barbecue Mediterranean uh, sandwiches, etc. Um, and so our, uh, objective of this research was really to try and figure out how we can optimize these venue experiences and where we need to evolve to next. So, we know that whole food market shoppers are far more likely to be purchasing prepared foods weekly or more often. So with general grocery shoppers that's about 40%. At Whole Foods Market that's 64%. So we do again know that prepared foods is a super important area of our store. We know it's really important to our shoppers. So that's why it's important that Consumer Insights continue to partner with our merchants and our marketing teams to make sure that we're meeting expectations in that area. So we know what shoppers really want from this graband-go section. It needs to be convenient. It needs to be fresh and healthy and it needs to be adequate taste. Like it needs to taste really good. Um because obviously we're also competing not just with grocery stores but some of our um quickserve competitors like a Chipotle or a cava or something like that. Secondary attributes they're looking for reasonably priced. Yes, we hear that in all studies and I think we do a good job of it in our prepared food section. Also making sure we're meeting moods or cravings. Um, I'll give you some examples of that later, but just making sure we're staying on top of trends. One thing we've been talking about a lot in the last year is Tik Tok trends, meeting a younger generation where they're seeing Tik Tok trends and how do we get the Berry Chantelli cake to go viral and how do we promote other things that we're doing. So, our social media team is really awesome and they've been working a lot on that over the past year as well. And then, of course, we want to make sure we have variety. So different people have different needs especially within our box we overindex with um specific health needs like uh vegan, vegetarian, dairy free, gluten-free, that type of thing. So for us that alo also plays a big part in the variety that we're offering in prepared foods. Now I've said it a couple times but competition is fierce. I think maybe 10 years ago we were one of the uh biggest players in this area with our hot bar or salad bar offering all these intore dining solutions but now we see it all over the place. Uh you might have Publix has pub subs rights if you're in that area lot of prepared food going on in there here in Texas HB also has venues within their box and so um competition has become very fierce in this area. Uh I have a little slide here from Sconana which is one of our data suppliers. They said I could share this but you can see um the yellow line is dollars um when it comes to prepared foods over time and you can see some of our competitors really gaining some ground uh Kroger of course Albertson's etc. Um we really want to focus on improving the program and that's why it's so important that we make sure that we continue to partner to do research. That's our team's job to make sure we're continuing to be not only competitive but winning in this space. Um, we see a lot of retailers have invested in partnerships with chefs, specialty staff. Um, also expanding the space that's allocated to prepared foods and then enhancing the variety with different ethnic cuisines and tastes and flavors. Um we know that due to high inflation acknowledge uh whole paycheck not always the best thing for us during times of inflation. However, we definitely see that a lot of consumers started mixing um scratch preparation with prepared meal items. So in addition to just buying prepared items, you can also buy the ingredients to make things for holiday events or special occasions or whatever. And so we're obviously trying to promote affordability in um our marketing through our prime discounts and our daily deals, etc. Also, we saw a li lot of limited time offers happening at other grocerers to try and like drum up excitement and get you to come in. Starbucks does it exceptionally well. We all know pumpkin spice latte time, our um [laughter] social media tracker this year on the team really called out those fall flavors. And I think that Starbucks is an excellent example of someone who does it really well. Um, and then also some grocerers, as I mentioned, are really emphasizing global flavors. And as I said, our shoppers are really interested in global flavors because their pallets tend to be a little bit more um developed than maybe some other shoppers at other stores. And so we have to make sure that we stay on the trends for that as well. Okay. So the question, how do we win in prepared foods venues? What comes after the initial ask? We get the ask then what do we do? And again, this is one of hundreds of asks that we're getting at a retailer. So um the process for this one, however, t takes a little bit longer because it's a big project, right? It's a really important part of our store. So the first thing that we do is we meet with our stakeholders of the culinary team. That's like the merchandising team. So the buyers and all of the merchants that are in charge of the menus, setting up this area, working with the store decor team, all of the good stuff to really understand what the deeper primary objectives are. Then we meet with our category analytics partners. So I'm a big um proponent of utilizing internal data as well as mixing it with primary research. And so we love our category analytics partners. um we would meet with them and kind of ask them what they see happening with sales performance so that we can mix the two together when we do the findings. Then we do what we call a knowledge review or a literature review um to make sure we're not duplicating efforts because we do a lot of research. And so um we collect what we have, we send it out and we make sure we're not duplicating past findings unless things have changed and we need to. And then we do an official learning plan here that's a RFP for vendors. We bid it out. We selected Sibo for this and then we get to work. Okay, so here's a picture of one of our vendors uh I mean sorry one of our venues that we have in store Zar and this is um uh not located in all different stores. So some were testing in specific areas and then um some are more widely spread like our coffee bar or something like that. Um, but when we met with the team, we wanted to kind of outline the objectives a little bit deeper. Really trying to understand the overall mindset of when they come in, understanding the current role of Whole Foods Market in all of their dining occasions, exploring the perceptions of current venues that we have, and then evaluating, of course, um, are there issues that we need to correct? Are there opportunities? And then also, like what's going well? and then identifying differentiators to understand how we can drive traffic and sales which is of course what we're all trying to do in the retail world and then um part of this test I won't share these specific results today uh but we were exploring new venue concepts as well just to kind of get a gauge of overall appeal of what our shoppers might be interested in in the future. Okay, so here's what we ended up doing. Um for this one we decided to do uh start with a qualitative approach. So we did some instore shopalongs and also intore intercepts. We had two different markets that we selected uh based off what venues were there and then some other factors with our culinary team. And we ended up going to New York City, which is obviously a very popular area for lunchtime traffic, and then Denver, which is a little bit more of like a suburban location, um, with different types of venues in each of those. And then we also sometimes do instore intercepts, qualitative really, where we're just grabbing shoppers as they're coming in and out to talk to them a little bit more about their experience. And then we followed that up with an online survey. Um, just a quantitative online survey. And uh the online survey portion was really also to um do some concept testing for those new venue ideas that the team wanted to figure out if our shoppers were interested in. Okay, so here is what we found. And obviously this is going to be very high level. I can't show all of our deep findings, but I'll talk through them um as we flip through the different slides. Convenience is the top driver of trips for everyday grab-and-go meals not cooked at home. Not surprising. This makes total sense. But one thing that we really need to think about is that shoppers will not go out of their way for a grab-and-go meal at Whole Foods Market. Um, and so that's something that we really need to work on, right? Uh, we have excellent and delicious foods, but one thing that we don't have is as many store locations as a Kroger or a Walmart, etc. We're obviously continuing to open new stores. We have over 550, but we're not in as many locations as you might find a Kroger or a Walmart or Target or something like that. Um, so what we need to do is make sure that we have something that shoppers really crave. So if uh they're maybe not driving by us on the way home from work, they go a little bit out of their way to get a grabandgo meal at Whole Foods. That's the ideal scenario. Also, we found you need to make payment easy. I mentioned Amazon one earlier, paying with your hand. Also, um we've come a long way when it comes to selfch checkckout options. Also, at venues, being able to pay at the venue versus having to take it somewhere else to pay. Um also, if you're not aware, we have lunch and dinner to go in certain markets, which is um on an app on your phone where you can order and then pick up in store. Um also experimenting with thirdparty delivery apps. So, all of those things are hoping to bring through more convenience for the shopper. Oh, and that's right when I jumped ahead, too. But also using anything that's digital to our advantage. So, really working hard on um our app and optimizing it, making sure that it connects well with the wayfinding experience. Once you get to store, you order something on your phone, you know where to pick it up. That's an area that we're really working to optimize right now. But digital can really be used to our advantage um when it comes to overall convenience and um speed. Also, we need to allow customizations. Uh I am the customization queen when I order things. So, I should know this. But, uh shoppers really they don't like it when you only offer uh some options, especially if it's on the app. And they can't make changes. Shoppers need customizations. So even if we have suggested meals or whatever it happens to be, we need to allow the ability not only in person but online as well to customize uh whatever they're getting in their prepared food section as best we can. And then finally, we hear this regularly for the hot bar and salad bar, but fresh and full is the best presentation. [clears throat] Like we don't want to come in and there's crusty food and it's been sitting out for a long time. Our instore team members do an excellent job with store labor hours, making sure that the pans are regularly refilled, that they look fresh and delicious, especially at high traffic times. And that's something that we're always working on both in the bars and then also in the venues. Okay, so our shoppers are also looking for inspiration, creating excitement, differentiating from the same old same old. I have a picture here of Airwan Smoothie. Um it I know they're not in many locations, but they have done an exceptional job when it comes to like limited time offers partnering with celebrities. This is the Haley Bieber smoothie. If you are on Tik Tok or other social media and you haven't seen this, then you're on a different algorithm than me, but a lot of our shoppers have seen it as well. Um, so it doesn't mean we need to copy that that what arrow is doing, but it's kind of inspiration for how we can think about things within our own box. Seasonal and unique SKUs. I brought that up earlier. Shoppers love seasonal items. Obviously, that fits with Whole Foods uh vibe and what we're doing with our assortment throughout the store. So, um, we also have a great catering program for Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas, things like that where we offer seasonal products. But bringing some of that to our venues also creates excitement. Um, an example being our coffee bar. Uh, I know we had something that went viral last year. I want to say it included gingerbread or pumpkin or I don't drink coffee, sorry. But I think it was something exciting like that. So, how can we take that to um all of the different venues as well? Variety is key. I mentioned that before. Making sure we have options for everyone and everyone in our box includes those with dietary restrictions as always. So that's always top of mind for making sure that we're uh able to feed all of our shoppers. Staff picks. So this comes up in every research I've ever done. Like it came up when a lot when I worked for LEGO. It came up with Family Dollar. Um, a lot of shoppers love to see, it's sort of like going to a bookstore where they have a a table that's like, uh, staff picks and it talks about what's the favorite. So, we've also talked about ways that we could potentially, um, implement some of that into, um, some of our favorite food items in store. And then, um, a lot of shoppers want to see limited time offers with famous chefs or influencers. We've tried something like this in the past with a really big uh vegan chef, I believe, prior to my time here, but we're also regularly exploring like what that could look like in our box. And just because consumers want to do something doesn't mean that we always execute it um in our stores, but it's good to know what shoppers are looking for, I would say. And then finally, I would also really highlight store decor playing a large ro role in this. So, we could have the best barbecue possible, but if the venue counter doesn't stand out to shoppers from the exterior wall, then they don't even know that it's there. So, this was a regular Whole Food Market shopper in Denver that we talked to at our smokehouse venue, and they didn't even know that it was really a specific barbecue counter. So, we've also talked about ways of how can we really like box them out? How can we make sure that they're really standing out? they need to kind of operate as a separate space. But our perimeter wall is a big area. If you've been in Whole Foods, uh we have uh like market kitchen where you can get the scooped made pre-ordered prepared food sides like potato salad or whatever. Also, we have um sandwich sections where you can make your own sandwich or you can have someone make you your sandwiches. Um there's butcher areas. So, we really just need to make sure that we're highlighting venues are separate spaces. Otherwise, they just kind of blend into the background that we have working there. Um, and the best way we can do that, according to shoppers, and also we're doing some eyetracking research now, bright colors, clear signage, just clear delineation from the outside space, um, can really help drive awareness and then also conversion. The other thing that we found in this study, visible staff. So, um, if you're in retail, and even if you're not, store labor hours are always a hot topic. Um, so making sure there's visible staff around the venue counters, shoppers said, makes them realize that there's something different there. So, this picture of Smokehouse, I'm sure, was not at a top um, traffic time. It might have been like in between lunch and dinner or something like that, but you can see when no one's standing there, they don't really realize that they can go up and order something different. So, we're trying to figure out how to work that with our store labor hours to make sure that there were people back there during hightra times. Another thing, we had a stir fry uh venue that was located in Denver and it really drew a lot of attention because you could see them um cooking. So, you could see them, you were able to pick things and then the uh chef there will put it into the bowl for you and that you can watch it cooking. Again, it's very just similar to um the cava or the chipotles of the world that allow you to customize and cook something. And so if someone's there um cooking something, then it really draws attention. People can smell it. It's exciting. Okay. So then you might say, well, what concepts are we rolling out next? I can't tell you that. Sadly, that's a big no from our legal team, but we did test several new venue concepts with Whole Food Market shoppers, as I mentioned in the quantitative portion of this study. And so, we have big ideas that we will be rolling out in um FY24. So, get out to a local Whole Food store near you and make sure you're paying attention to the venues that we have in store um because we're either optimizing some that we currently have or we're opening new concepts this year. So, exciting things going on in the uh venue area and hopefully you'll visit to see them and if you visit and see them, please stop in and try some of the food that we have that's available for you. Okay, so that was everything that I had to walk through today. I'm super willing to answer any questions if anybody has any. So, if you at this point, Karen, thank you so much. That was super interesting um to understand kind of the the makeup of how everything comes together at Whole Foods and a little bit of background on Whole Foods as well. Um there's just so many exciting things that you guys are executing right now uh within uh within that channel. So are there any questions? Okay, we have one. So Jessica wants to know question. You find that customers were pretty willing to participate in the shop alongs. Yes. So, one good thing I've been very blessed in my life as a consumer insights professional for almost 20 years to study topics people want to talk about. So, at LEGO, um when I was at Mars, Pets and here at Whole Foods, we find that our shoppers are very engaged. Um and so they don't mind, sorry, my dog is coughing. Um they don't mind uh stopping and chatting with us. They're really interested. Again, they're really invested in their health. Uh, the majority of our shop alongs we do with what we call um our more connected shopper segments. I can't really give information on what those look like, but they shop more frequently and spend more money at Whole Foods and so they're usually super excited to participate in our research and I love that about our company. Awesome. Thank you. Lindsay would like to know, do you seek out insights from um team members in the stores? Oh, excellent question. Yes. Um, so sometimes with consumer insights, we'll casually uh have some chats with team members and include that in the findings, but we also have a very specific team here, not my team, that does uh team member research because we actually really do care what's happening with our instore team members, similar to our source for good program. Um, we want to have programs available for them. We want them to be happy and so we do do team member research especially when we're trying to figure out something like what makes it difficult to keep up with the hot bar to make sure that it's stocked of all time at all times to prepare all the foods and so there are other work streams in the organization very specific to improving and optimizing team member experience. Awesome. Thank you. These are great questions everyone keep them coming. Um, so Phyllis wants to know, um, do you do ideation exercises to name products and packaging UX? Uh, yes, we definitely do. Uh, and is that specific, I would assume, to exclusive brands. Um, yes, our team, Jenna, on my team is an excellent business partner for exclusive brands and we're regularly working with them on things. Um, the majority obviously of our products are 365 for Whole Foods Market, but we're working with them to figure out like flavor names and all types of fun stuff. Also, packaging claims, which is also a part of that, really trying to understand um what we need to put on the package itself versus on the signage, etc., because the messaging can also get uh to be a lot in our stores. So, that's a project we're working on now. Okay. Thank you. Jenny would like to know, do you work with suppliers to gather consumer insights? That's an excellent question. Um, so I have met with some suppliers for consumer insights uh at usually at the request of our merchant teams. I feel like we don't do it as much here as we did when I was at Family Dollar or at other retailers as well. Um, but it's always something that we're interested in and I'm always super happy to chat with the supplier if they need to help understanding who our shopper is or um really trying to understand our um uh restrictions or ingredient standards that they need to get into our stores. But I think the merchant team tends to handle a lot of that. They take in the insights and then make their decisions. We're relatively small team for the number of stakeholders that we support internally. Um, but we're always willing to chat and share um consumer insights with with fellow insights professionals. Okay. Interesting. And uh if anyone else has any more, I've got a couple of my own. So, if you if you wouldn't mind, Karen, um one of the things that you talked about at the very beginning um was as you're going through your process, you have a knowledge review. And you also noted that within big organizations um there tends to be a lot of independent research being done. And so, it's really important to to know what's been done, right? and and to be able so can you talk to us a little bit about like how that's structured within within Whole Foods. Um is there a more formalized process? Have you instituted that? Do you have databases? How do you control all the insights so that everyone has access to it? That is an excellent question. Uh I would say we are always working to optimize that. Uh internally for our total insights uh and UX team, we do have a shareepoint site. We have two SharePoint sites. We have one that's external facing that our stakeholders can log into. And then of course we have one where we might keep projects that um are a little bit more um I don't want to use the word secretive but confidential [laughter] that maybe we don't being leaked out we don't want it leaked out to everyone. So we do have two sites. Uh we have a project going this year to really optimize that both of those sites to make it easier for people to find things. But that's been a struggle at every company I've ever worked for. The good news is we have tons of research that the team did long before I got here that we're still using. We have amazing trackers on Jeremy's side and we also have tons of data resources from our syndicated partners. So, um, a lot of it lives in Consumer Insights brains, [laughter] which is probably true at every organization, right? But we also try to create something we call topic briefs. So, um, if there's a hot topic, I'll use an example. Payment, uh, payment types was a hot topic. How people want to use different types of payments. Armando, one of our excellent people on our teams, put together a topic brief. And so, you can just send it out to people when they ask about specific topics. And so, that's also one way we try to keep up with like having um, a shared resource for people to get information from. Oh, thank you so much. And that's a super interesting idea to do topic briefs. I love Yeah, it takes time, but it's helpful for everyone because then it's ready and you can just send it out when someone asks. Oh, excellent. Um, Jake would like to know, "What kind of consumer research have you seen to be the most difficult to accomplish in the grocery industry specifically?" That is an excellent question. Um, I would say, so this is a very this is a very whole whole foods example because I guarantee it's not this this difficult at Kroger with their data resources. But we um love doing research where we can tap into our system. We call it sonar surveys where we see shoppers uh behaving a specific way and then we can target them with additional research versus just recruiting from a standard panel which by the way we do all the time. There's nothing wrong with that, but I we would love to be a little bit more nimble when it comes to utilizing our own database to reach out to shoppers for participation in research. Um, not just because it saves money because that's not our primary concern, but really it's more like just making sure that we're um interviewing people that exhibit behaviors that we're looking for. And we've also partnered with Neielen or numerator in that area. Um, but I think that always adds a lens of complication versus standard recruitment from a panel. Um, the other thing I would say is we do tend to have lower incidents in specific categories than you might at a Kroger. So, if we're recruiting for someone who buys um a very specific category within Whole Foods Market, then the incidence might be a little bit lower than someone who's buying that category from Walmart. So, um, always just making sure we're getting the correct recruit and that's really important at Whole Foods because our shopper does behave somewhat differently. Um, so I would say that's kind of our our biggest struggle. And then of course bandwidth. So like anyone else, we're a small team with thousands of stakeholders here in the building. So just making sure that we have enough bandwidth and people and time um to really serve our stakeholders well. Excellent. [clears throat] Thank you. Jesse would like to know, are there any consumer truths that remain elusive questions that you haven't been able to address fully? Yeah, I would say the biggest one in my opinion ties back to the whole paycheck comment. As I mentioned before, a lot of our exclusive brands are actually very competitive when it comes to pricing, but we can't seem to shake the halo that everything in our store is expensive. And so even when we're not, shoppers think that we are. Um, and you know, we are really trying to work on that this year with our like marketing objectives, also our instore signage, our prime deals. And so I would say that's one thing that we're constantly trying to overcome. So we're not just a fillin or an occasional shopper who shops the perimeter, but we want more shoppers that shop the entire store and get like their core grocery basket here. and price perception can be somewhat of a struggle for us. Um, and we really like to overcome that because again there are reasons why certain things are more expensive, but we also are very competitive when it comes to some KVIS in the store and I don't think that we always get credit for that. Okay, excellent. Thank you. Um, another question that came in is I've noticed a difference in the store layout compared to traditional grocerers. Have you engaged recently with instore shopper eyetracking and trip mission research? Oh, that's a good one. Excellent question. And currently, we just finished wrapping a big eyetracking project. Um, for our team, the primary focus is signage, but we're also interested in hot and cold zones within the store. Um, so answer for that one is definitely yes. And then trip missions were we're also doing as well. Um Jeremy, I mentioned him a couple times, his foundational team is also doing some um updated shopper journey work this year. And so we're always looking to understand how shoppers are shopping our store so that once they're in our box, uh they can add a plus one to their basket, visit and discover things that they haven't heard of before. And then also utilizing like our marketing events um and our communication around what's happening different months at different times in our store. Excellent. Thank you. Um, one of the things Karen that you had brought up is um, in that that last uh, insight slide and about the really making these venue areas stand out and unique. And you mentioned the Cavan Chipotle experience, right? And and just making food in front of you. So I was wondering how much does Whole Foods look within their own industry versus looking outside the industry to players like Chipotle and and Cava and others who are really innovating in their own space for ideas. Oh yeah. Yeah. We're definitely keeping a pulse on what's happening with eating trends in general. I would say we have some really great syndicated partners. Um Mintel is one of them. The Hartman Group is an excellent resource for that. data essentials and I would say we're utilizing all of those resources to really understand food trends overall. Um, so not necessarily always looking at specific quickserve uh restaurants, but more looking at flavor trends and what's happening out there and what's popular and how eating patterns maybe like people are snacking more or whatever it happens to be. keeping um an eye on that through our syndicated partners and it's super helpful for them to have a lens across um not only grocery but other channels as well as I mentioned circana data for eating outside of the house u mealen as well so just making sure that we're up todate within our area I would also say we're looking at other channels for um other activations as well I'll give an example delivery and pickup yeah delivery and pickup is really important in grocery but also We just did kind of a um a look at what's happening in the broader market when it comes to delivery and pickup. Uh Best Buy, Sephora, other categories where maybe we could learn things. So yeah, we're trying our best. Obviously, our focus is grocery. Uh so sometimes you're kind of like in your own head about it, but we do try to get external influence as well. Oh, that's excellent. Um Allison would like to know, have you seen an uptick in shopper traffic in store that has been designated for the Amazon return location? So, so those specific seen upticks? So, uh I would say yes, we've definitely seen traffic driven with our Amazon partnership. Also, Amazon um pickup and returns offer so much convenience for our shoppers. So that's been a wonderful part I would say of the acquisition by Amazon is being able to offer that convenience to our um to our everyday shopper and also our occasional shopper. And so um yes, we have seen an increase in traffic and honestly we've also been seeing inc increases in traffic overall in the last two years. So um maybe due to inflation prices are a little bit higher but we've been seeing more shoppers come into our box. So, that's really um exciting for us. And also, I think as I mentioned a couple times, the Prime discounts as well have also brought um some shoppers to us. We know the last um stat Clara pulled for me yesterday, 81% of like our uh grocery base is a Prime member, especially within our past four week shoppers. And so, uh yeah, the partnership is has definitely been um helping us modernize and be a little bit more convenience focused for our shoppers. Interesting. Thanks. Uh Iwin would like to he had stated I really started shopping whole foods during COVID driven by your prepared foods um paleo diet foods and other healthy options. So what his question is is does Whole Foods engage with local chefs as well as local growers and do you engage with local meat suppliers? Excellent question. Yes, the I don't personally, but the merchant team definitely does. We have people who specifically own our local programs. Um, and they're always going we have on several areas of course. So local being like the merchants when you say things like meat or honey or specific products then that definitely lives in the merchandising team but also on the marketing side. Uh we've done things in the past where we featured um suppliers in store with signage like get to know where your cheese comes from type things and that's always going to be a huge part of our business. We know local is important to our shoppers and the community is important to us. So, I see that never ever going away. I guess never say never, but never going away for Whole Foods Market because it's a core part of our value system. And so, I love that you've uh started shopping there in the preferred food section. Um, you should definitely see some local offerings. If you go over to like the cheese area, really great stuff or dairy. Um, you can also see it in produce and really a lot of it around the perimeter of the store. You mentioned meat, etc. That's really where we try to um get our local programs going. And if there's anyone else, we're going to wrap up in just a few minutes. Um Karen, I do have a more of a personal question for you. You had mentioned the various places that you've been. So you've been at Lego, Mars Pet, Family Dollar, now um Whole Foods. And so you've had a really interesting career in insights. Um and you seem always seem so passionate about every single place that you've been and all of the subjects that you you know all the um types of products that you work on. Um what what drives you? What do you love most about the world of insights? That's a good question. Yes, I have been doing insights pretty much my entire career because I love it. like I really like understanding how to help the consumer experience. Um, as I mentioned, I feel very lucky. I've worked in categories where people want to talk to me. So, [laughter] I've never had a category really where shoppers didn't feel like talking for 30 minutes about whatever I was asking them about. But I also am really passionate about making an organization more consumer-led. Um, I love the fact that Whole Foods really invests in our broader team and is interested with being a consumer-led organization, I think is really exciting, especially in retail because we all know some retailers that have gone out of business that haven't kept up with the times. And I think part of that is just making sure that you're um investing in consumer insights to make sure that that doesn't happen and to continue to give shoppers what they want. And to be honest, it sounds so nerdy, but that really excites me. I get excited when my surveys come back. I get excited to be out in the field. I get excited to teach people on our teams about different things, um, different methodologies, all of that stuff. So, yeah, I don't expect a dramatic career change in the future because I honestly just love it. And, um, yeah, it makes me want to come to work every day. Karen, thank you. Sounds cheesy, but you get the point. And I think you're probably amongst uh you know fellow nerds um and by the number of questions that you fielded um what you had to share with us today was uh was very interesting and wellreceived. So thank you so very much for your time. I'm going to give everybody back five minutes between um speakers to just go do what you need to do. And thank you again everyone who's on the call for your interaction with Karen um and also just participating. We appreciate it. Karen your day and weekend. Okay. Thanks. You too.