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EPISODE 084 : 10/20/2022

Toby Pickard

Toby Pickard is the Head of Insight, Retail, and Innovation at IGD (or, the Institute of Grocery Distribution), a trading company that utilizes high-level commercial understanding to uncover rich insights and data. With over 15 years of experience in research, trends, and eCommerce in the food and grocery industry, Toby truly understands how to create innovative solutions for big challenges. Toby has been named Retail Technology Innovation Hub (RTIH)’s Top 100 Retail Technology Influencers for 2022 and a 2022 Top Retail Influencer by RETHINK Retail, and we’re thrilled to have him on the show!

Host: Ned Hayes and Ashley Coates
Guest: Toby Pickard

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Topics discussed in this episode

  • Detailed small business insights from Olympia, Washington
  • Small business resiliency and adaptation during COVID
  • Doubling community outreach during the pandemic
  • Opportunities for small business loyalty programs

Watch Spark Loyalty’s Small Business Success Channel

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Audio Transcript

Ned Hayes [00:00:00] Welcome to Spark Plug, where we talk to smart people working at the intersection of business and technology brought to you by Snowshoe. Your smarter loyalty leader.

Ashley Coates [00:00:11] Sparkplug is happy to welcome Toby Pickard to the podcast today. Toby is the head of Insight Retail and Innovation at IGD or the Institute of Grocery Distribution, a trading company that utilizes high level commercial understanding to uncover rich insights and data. With over 15 years of experience in research trends and e-commerce in the food and grocery industry, Toby truly understands how to create innovative solutions for big challenges. Toby has been named Retail Technology Innovation, Hub’s, Top 100 retail technology influencers for 2022 and a 2022 top retail influencer by Rethink Retail. And we’re thrilled to have him on the show today. Welcome, Toby.

Toby Pickard [00:01:00] Hi. Thanks very much for having me. Pleasure to be here with you guys. 

Ashley Coates [00:01:03] Pleasure to be chatting with you today. Let’s actually start off by hearing more about your career history and highlights. Will you tell us more about your path leading up to now? 

Toby Pickard [00:01:13] Yeah, sure. Thanks, Ashley. So I actually started my role really focusing primarily on sustainability within the food and grocery sector. So looking at sustainability trends from what shoppers were concerned with back in 2007, but also how industry was responding to shopper concerns and at times more than actually going beyond sort of shopper concerns, trying to address issues around packaging reduction, water reduction, social issues that they were trying to address from things like employability or helping employ people, I should say, maybe to addressing those issues in local communities. So for a number of years, I have focused heavily on sustainability strategies of key retailers and also what that meant for suppliers, say suppliers back then that was supplying key retailers around the world. How could they sort of partner with retailers to ensure the retailers achieve their aims targets around sustainability? So helping build joint business plans and showcasing so some key milestones that suppliers need to focus on. My role then sort of morphed or more towards sort of sustainability meets technology and how technology is actually often quite a big enabler. I certainly think it is for actually solving a lot of sustainability issues, but also other issues. So as my role and sort of create develops, I started to sort of push more into the area of tech within food and grocery, still remaining very focused within one sort of sector. I took on a role that kind of focused very much on multichannel retail. So by this I mean sort of looking across all the different kind of verticals or channels that shoppers can shop by bit small convenience stores, hypermarkets, supermarkets and online. And this was back in about 2010. So I went online, what’s been around for a while, but is still a small percentage of the overall share of the market. And I was really looking at sort of how do shoppers move across those channels. Shoppers, as we all know, we don’t probably just shop in one channel online or physical stores. And then my role sort of moved into sort of innovations around how actually innovations can change shopper behavior and help sort of drive companies forward to sort of become a better business is say ultimately sort of where I am now around sort of innovation and futures, which is arguably sort of trend spotting. So I still focus heavily on sustainability as it’s a really big trend that’s not probably going to go away. And I didn’t foresee it going away anytime soon. But I also look at how technology is an enabler. How technology actually is leading the way for industry and and shoppers in certain areas, but then also covers of other issues from things like health, loyalty and so on. 

Ned Hayes [00:03:48] Got it. Well, you’ve been very focused in grocery and especially different types of grocery and food industry. So why is this field really ripe for retail innovation? Why have you focused there? 

Toby Pickard [00:04:02] Probably couple of reasons for focusing on really passion, interested in food. I love food. So I have that sort of emotive connection to the sector. But I think probably to answer your question about why we’re seeing so much innovation in the area, it’s very competitive. Margins are pretty small. So actually, how can you as a business differentiate or become more competitive than your closest or nearest competitor? And actually, even now, your nearest competitor geographically may not be your number one competitor in this on my online world. So how do you remain relevant? And I just find it really fascinating that we see some players starting up. So even the likes of Amazon, you know, they’re not actually very old companies compared to some traditional food and grocery retailers that may be over 150, 200 years old in Western Europe, let’s say. And then you see the likes of sort of the Alibaba, JD Dcoms emerging from China. So I find all that really fascinating to see how retail is something that we all especially food and grocery retail. Also we do Bailey, arguably, if not more, is playing out and I think we are seeing a lots of innovations. That said, I do still get a lot of inspiration from outside the sector. So I would look at things like the apparel textile industry. I think probably because they have slightly higher margins times, they may be even more innovative because people are willing to pay that much more for their products, especially against things like premiumization. But yeah, I do think there is still a lot of innovation happening within food and grocery, especially when you look at things like how the checkout is evolving in the physical store. 

Ashley Coates [00:05:37] And can you also talk to us about trends spotting in retail, Tobi, that you said you’ve really moved into that area. So what does trend spotting look like in the world of retail and what can retailers learn from trends that you might be researching and analyzing? 

Toby Pickard [00:05:55] For me, the way we sort of transport is utilizing network. So IGD is membership organization. We have over sort of thousand members of food and grocery members around the world. I also have colleagues in Singapore and in North America and a base of colleagues in the U.K. They’re often in Europe, and I utilize them heavily to see what’s happening in the market. So we go into I used to go into sort of over 1000 stores a year before COVID, and we will be getting back up to that number soon. And from what we see in store, what we see when we speak to store managers, this will help inform sort of my ideas and opinions around where the industry is going. And then I’ll also utilize third parties, use networks, members of and as I mentioned previously, look at other sectors. So how has things like payment changed in retail, for example, electronics? And how could that translate into maybe food and grocery retail? So I utilize a lot of touchpoints to sort of identify, let’s say, signals that may become sort of bigger ripples. And that’s something the industry needs to start thinking about. So for example, something like people transitioning to more of a meat free diet is something we were looking at the early 2000. It’s still sort of relatively low globally, but people are transitioning. Retailers are offering more products in this area and they’re even setting targets to try and get more consumers buying meat free products. So those are the kind of things I’ll be looking out for and trying to see what could that mean for a category or what could that mean for the shopper and a supplier? 

Ned Hayes [00:07:33] That’s a great example of a ripple kind of becoming a wave of organic produce, more more vegetarian eating changes in consumer habits. I’m really curious about what technology ripples you see becoming a wave in the future. How is technology transforming retail? 

Toby Pickard [00:07:50] I think technology is transforming retail massively. I think so. Some of the key ones or the ones that have the biggest impact to the moment, let’s say still relatively small. But I think the reform will become a wave will be around payment, so be it. So the likes of the just out just walk out technologies to Amazon’s offering. But then also the other organizations like I fi tree go stand it all these guys are offering sort of just walk in, pick up products and walk out shopping experiences. Currently we see that quite heavily in sort of smaller formats. Where I think it’ll be actually maybe more interesting is when that technology gets into the larger stores because arguably actually if I train a small store to pick up two or three items, say, for lunch, if the queues not that big, maybe I don’t mind queuing or if the self-checkout, maybe I just do self-checkout myself. But if I’m in a large store, I’ve picked up 100 plus items. Do I want to then load them onto a conveyor to load them back into my basket? Or do I just sort of walk straight out the door? And I think that’s where some technologies like that to get really interesting. That really does change the consumer journey. I think the capability around personalization when it comes to technology search and understanding what I want, when I want it more, is something that’s barely been touched. Retailers are trying to get me wrong. People are trying, but I think there’s much more that they’ve done. They’re always fascinated with smart trolleys. It’s been something that I’ve been watching for over a decade, but arguably we are starting to see more of these technologies coming into store. I think will be interesting to see what wins and where. Often with technology I think is about appropriate technology. It’s unlikely that one tech will go flat across the board. Is the future technology for something like checkout. I think maybe it’ll be a hybrid of mobile scanning, go just walk out smart trolleys, etc., depending on the market, the store size. 

Ned Hayes [00:09:41] Right. And one thing that we hear from our customers, because we work with a lot of retailers and grocery stores, etc., is some exhaustion with the pace of change and technology becomes kind of overwhelming. So how do you think that grocery stores especially can futureproof their operations? How do they keep accommodating consumers but not get overwhelmed? 

Toby Pickard [00:10:02] Yes, it’s a really good point. So whenever I talk to industry about technology, it’s my final slide is often sort of it’s all about the shopper. And a few for famous industry leaders have said, you know, never be more than one step ahead of the shopper. And I completely agree with that. Say, technology for the sake of technology is pointless. It’s got to overcome an issue for the shopper. And I think to a point where actually maybe some technology is quite difficult to onboard. So almost going back to sort of frictionless shopping, it’s not frictionless at the moment. I do have to have a mobile phone. I do have set up an account linked to that retailer. I do have to then scan that mobile phone to access the store. So there is still friction there. More importantly, there’s a massive behavior change to overcome for shoppers. So I think for me, any shopper behavior change takes a long time. It requires a lot of onboarding. So we’ve seen a number of retailers really trying to onboard shoppers at the front of store when it comes to these kind of stores. But it won’t always work. So I think we’ll start seeing what amounts of appropriate technologies in the right place, a bit of a hybrid approach. So stores where, if you want, you can walk in and do a shop issue and early adopter of technology. Or actually I’d still go into that store. And what stopped from going into that store and I can use self-checkout or even a check out this actually staffed by a member of staff because I want to talk to someone I want to have that customer interface. We’ve seen it with Carrefour in France, know they’ve actually set aside certain lanes purely designed for a slow checkout experience because I don’t want to get overwhelmed by technology. I want to have a chat with the cashier. 

Ashley Coates [00:11:42] I love that. That’s so fun. 

Toby Pickard [00:11:44] Yeah, it’s and I think that’s the kind of side where industry retailers always need to remember that technology for the sake of technology probably isn’t a winning solution. It’s got to meet shopper need and not all shoppers are the same in a rush. Yeah. Maybe just going in and grabbing a leaf. It’s great, actually. If I want to peruse, maybe I want an assistant in-store to talk to, to inspire me to tell me about new products. So I think, again, technology can help that. They can help educate the assistant even more or give the assistant a library of information they would never be able to retain themselves or even tell the shopper what other products are in-stock in the back of store or deliver products on one shelf to the shoppers home in aisle. So tech can help. He’s just got to be used in the right way. 

Ashley Coates [00:12:26] I think that’s such a good point. It needs to be used to enhance the customer experience rather than replace it. 

Toby Pickard [00:12:32] Absolutely. It should be on the table and an enhancer. 

Ashley Coates [00:12:35] Mm. Well, Toby, we also wanted to ask you about Aida’s star model, which you created, and it is your four forces of change framework. Can you tell us more about this model and what impact it has? Tab on retailers who have implemented it. 

Toby Pickard [00:12:53] Yeah, sure. Thanks. For those that aren’t aware, IGD is star model. It’s a sort of future gazing framework and we’re kind of utilizing it to look out to about 2030 within the food and grocery sector. And within it, we’ve broken into sort of star standing for societal shifts, the t of stars stunning for transformative technology, a authorities and resource resilience. Basically, there are four big macro trend buckets that impact food and grocery and shopper site ops and societal shifts. We’ll be looking at how increased urbanization is predicted out to 2030 and beyond. Increase life expectancy. Growth of disposable income with Gen Z millennials with things like transformative technology. How data and AI impacts sector in the future, increased connectivity 5G. So we use these big buckets and then focus in on a number of smaller sort of topics, the scale up that will impact the food and grocery sector. So hopefully try and give industry a bit of a lens to say this is what the future could look like. So my category is so your example, your question around how this works with retailers or suppliers. I’ve watched the number of suppliers where sort of taking them through their categories. How could, say, the future of health and beauty look in 2030 and utilizing the star framework kind of crates of an output. Could it be that we become much more socially conscious and health and beauty products are really focused around sort of sustainability for more so re-use or things like that versus actually is it going to be all about technology and actually using things like lenses and augmented reality almost as your makeup rather than actually wearing makeup yourself? Because we’re living in this interactive world where actually we’re not always meeting people physically. So I don’t need to put makeup on. So it’s it’s a framework to try and lead industry to what could be the future and therefore hold themselves or set themselves up to futureproof themselves against what they may have to deal with, such as an aging population, urbanization. What does that mean? 

Ned Hayes [00:15:05] Well, one thing that hasn’t changed, that the stores want to keep people coming back. Right. So let’s talk a little bit about how to retain and gain customers. So how would you suggest people should look to the future in terms of driving customer loyalty? 

Toby Pickard [00:15:21] Yeah, I’d absolutely agree. Do our data sets the same shoppers so retailers are looking to push people back in the store because of profitability issues, especially around last mile delivery of online. And I think the way of doing that is probably when we look at the store of the future in 20, 2030, we still believe the store will be very present. It will be where most people do their shopping, but there’ll be a number of factors in there that still have to sort of deliver on to drive footfall. So it’ll be about sort of making it highly experiential and exciting. So maybe you’ll start seeing much more food service in stores. That’s what we believe. So she having more sort of canteens, catering options and maybe multiple offers. And we’ve seen the likes of Morrisons in the UK with this market kitchen set up where you have multiple vendors in actually the store. We think there’ll be more out seasonal activity to drive people into store and taking it even down sort of weekly and time of day activity to drive people back into store and fresh and quality of produce fresh to those is seen as sort of the area to drive people into store because that’s, again, food as a motive. I want to pick up my bananas, avocados the way I like them. We’re not quite there yet with the technology that pickers are picking perfectly for online shoppers. So there’ll be things like that that will help drive people back store. I think technology will also help. So actually, we think as a as a walk in store, if I signed up to that store’s loyalty app, they have something similar to that. They could recommend products to me as I enter the store. They could even recommend products because I walk around the store. There’s always a fine balance between overloading people I’ve talked earlier and you’ve got to assure that have right recommendations and they’re relevant to that shopper even on the shelf edge. We’ve seen it already where things like Kroger in the US with their digital shelf edge technology, they can offer up sort of promotions to shoppers as they stand at show fit or other examples. I assume the likes of Nestlé with pet food, we’re actually much more shopper information about products. So I pick up a product and I’m told about that product, why it’s good. Maybe sourcing credentials are the areas I might be interested as a shopper and all of those things that actually can really help differentiate the physical to the online. And also me with the physical store, you get that instant gratification of the purchase, which will look low with things like click commerce and delivery times of 10 minutes and Western Europe and other parts of the world. That’s still 10 minutes where if I go into a store, I. Pick it up. I’ve got it. I know it’s mine. And that shopper psychology is quite important still. Shopper satisfaction. 

Ashley Coates [00:17:56] Are there any projects that you’ve worked on in the past, Toby, that have been very successful at developing long lasting customer loyalty? Or it’s not your own projects, any grocery brands who have been very successful in your eyes at building customer loyalty? 

Toby Pickard [00:18:11] I think building customer loyalty is the Holy Grail. I think most retailers have gone through sort of ebbs and flows of building customer loyalty, the likes of Tesco with their Clubcard a while ago. So it’s sort of the impressive customer base in the UK. But then the likes of the Discounters Event UK, which arguably are no longer really discounters, started to erode that, that loyalty. So I think what we start to see is retailers and brands pushing much more in terms of a lifetime loyalty program where they try and really sort of get to understand you as a shopper better, understand your household better, and therefore be able to provide you with better products, personalized products or tailored products. This reality of personalized. In food and grocery, it’s probably a way off because of mass production of products. To get it down to precise level is very challenging and to keep it within sort of an economic model. I think we’ll may even start seeing some really interesting initiatives from retailers around actually asking shoppers for that data and rewarding them for it. So I kind of just they take it via sort of what if you buy through the till or through your loyalty cards. But as you’re going forward, maybe shoppers will start to realize, actually, my data is really important to me and I should be rewarded more for that. So I think that might become quite an interesting thing around loyalty as we move to the future of actually how much do I get rewarded for the data that I then should be getting sort of reward for either financially or through better services and products? 

Ned Hayes [00:19:41] Right. And when we talk about rewarding customers and using technology to understand their behavior, what we’re really trying to do is engage them and to help them to feel that our store or our retail environment is one that they want to return to. Right. And so can you speak a little bit to engagement ideas that go beyond just reward points or giving people a discount if they come in a certain number of times? How else can we ensure that our retail customers want to come back? 

Toby Pickard [00:20:13] I think we’ve seen some in the past, some quite interesting examples with things like gamification, especially around seasonal activity. Often I see at the most with things like Halloween, gamification, activities, where in-store you can get rewarded by sort of collecting points with augmented reality, pick up virtual pumpkins or at Christmas meeting Father Christmas virtually and things like that. So I think there’s an element of play, make it fun to get people to go back in the store and do things. I think fundamentally price and promotion will always be very high on shoppers agendas and even more so now as we face into sort of some cost of living issues and crises. But then there’ll be other things, I think, around social activities, around cooking schools, things like that groceries can do and that can transition to other sectors, bringing products to life so that actually it gives you a reason to go to that store. And that could be around some some seasonal activity at the Central Store, weekly promos on certain products, things like that. So I think there are actually a fair few levers that can be pulled. I just think traditionally industries led towards sort of price and promotion. I think probably, as you say, that we have to start seeing smarter levers being pulled to drive that true sort of engagement that gets you towards that sort of lifetime loyalty. I buy this like this retailer because I love the experience. I love what they offer me. And I think that ultimately people I have to try and strive for, and that means the brands that supply that retailer have to fall into that camp as well. 

Ned Hayes [00:21:40] Right. So the experience matters more than any particular technology. It’s more. Are you creating an experience that is enjoyable, right? 

Toby Pickard [00:21:48] Yeah, I would agree. So, I mean, and again, that’s what technology can help even down the sense of some retailers use senses as you walk into a small store it smells like fresh technology can help stimulate those taste. Lots of minds think I want to buy these products, but actually just having someone at the bakery in-store or someone at the fish counter or the meat counter, the deli counter that can really explain the products to you and bring them to life, can also help drive sales and loyalty. 

Ned Hayes [00:22:15] Right. A friendly face goes a long way. 

Toby Pickard [00:22:18] Exactly. 

Ned Hayes [00:22:19] Yes. Behind the fish counter or whether that’s somebody serving you down and somebody smiles at you, you’re going to remember that place is friendly. Right. 

Toby Pickard [00:22:25] Yeah. And I think that’s where it’ll be interesting to see how retailers sort of keep pushing forward to sort of use their store associates as sort of store ambassadors. But I think that we’ve seen it before. We start to see it again, things like almost having greengrocers on the shop floor. So as a shop, as a shop within the fresh produce aisles, there’s someone I can talk to that can actually explain to me about this product. Some products. I just may not know that much about, or I might not know that it has something else. So the opportunity for the upsell there as well from a retail perspective. 

Ashley Coates [00:22:58] Well, so let’s shift to talk about sustainability, which I know has been a real focus for you in your career. How can the food and grocery industry focus more on sustainability and where does technology come into play? 

Toby Pickard [00:23:12] Parsley I think actually that’s focused quite heavily on the sustainability. I think one of the things that’s probably been around a while since its early 2005, it’s been on and 2007 the the major retailers sort of strategies, Wal-Marts, Tesco’s, etc. I think often it’s below the radar site. Shoppers themselves may not know what industry has been doing. What shoppers most are not will see or complain about things like plastic packaging this. That’s the stuff they take home and have to deal with themselves. But around things like efficiencies. Industry has been dealing with sort of sustainability in that respect for a long time. If you take sustainability as sort of the triple bottom line of economic sustainability, social sustainability and environmental sustainability, it’s by being quite not always, but often by being more environmentally sustainable, you can actually be more economically sustainable because putting things like doors on fridges or freezers cuts your energy bill, investing in solar. If in the right part of the world, you’ll have a return on investment timeframe. But once you’ve gone beyond that, again, you’re saving money. So I would say the industry is doing and has done actually a fair amount within sustainability for a number of years. The biggest challenge around sustainability, I perceive, is complexity and sheer scale. So do you as a retailer, focus on food waste and packaging, or do you focus on biodiversity along with food waste and packaging, along with logistics, road miles, sourcing, ethically embedded water, embedded carbon, etc., etc. It becomes very challenging very quickly and often. That’s unintended consequences when you try and solve one issue or challenge with sustainability can be negative to something else. So it’s something I see industry continuing to battle with and continue with. So things like net zero, it are committed to achieving not by 2040. A number of major retailers around the world have committed to sort of halving the packaging of plastic or products that can be recycled by sort of 2025, 2030. So I think they’re doing more than probably the most of us understand or see. Your second question was about how technology can help. And I think, again, technology is a real aid. Like sustainability side examples, like with refrigeration and energy efficiency. One example of a British retailer called Sainsbury’s, they took an innovation from a Formula One and it’s basically the rear fender on a Formula One car, which helps push the car down as it moves over the car. And they basically put that kind of wing onto their fridges and store, which stops your hair getting blown out into the aisle and actually keeps it back into the fridge. So that’s just one example. And there’s similar examples where they’ve used similar doorways on front of store to keep stores more efficient. But we’re even seeing stores using ground source heat pumps to power the stores. So that’s taking the heat from the renewable source to actually hit the stores to even a trial store, Zabka and Highland, where they introduced sort of 15 different tech samples at once. So it’s quite an ambitious test plan and one of them was to actually have a kinetic floor. So as shoppers walk around the floor, that could power or help contribute to powering the store. So again, utilizing tech to potentially overcome some challenges. 

Ashley Coates [00:26:34] Thank you for those examples. That’s actually really great, Toby, to hear your perspective on the fact that the grocery industry has already been focused on sustainability for a long time and has really made some huge strides in that area. I’m just curious, in comparison with other retail industries, do you think groceries on the forefront of sustainability these days. 

Toby Pickard [00:26:54] I think is something that is very important to the vast majority of the major retailers and manufacturers. And I think often the food and grocery sector is almost my point of the beginning of why I love the sector is because it’s something that I touch. Everyone touches daily, we will eat, but because of that I think often it’s in the spotlight a lot hence sort of things like packaging, product packaging, often being seen to be a negative. So I do think it is pushing very far ahead. As I say, I mean is often actually ahead of legislation on a number of key initiatives and even sort of trying to innovate to get itself out of these problems around packaging. So a number of retailers in Europe are using plant based packaging to protect products to make them last longer rather than single use plastic. That said, I still think there is quite a big piece around education to the shopper and then consumer where in the UK for. We almost go straight in the bin. We waste a lot of food. I think in the U.S. it may be higher. And the fact that we’re not using the products we’re buying as a consumer actually has a huge environmental impact. But that doesn’t get talked about that much, unfortunately, because I suppose we don’t really like holding the mirror up to ourselves now and again. And I think that’s a piece where maybe industry can help us or it can educate us about how to use leftovers more, how to store products better. Actually, some products are better when they are packaged in plastic like some cucumber. The shelf life can be extended by up to four times and actually I think that’s a bit of a consumer awareness exercise about that. Sometimes it’s it can be good time get real if do want that product still to be recycled and or to be sort of reused in an appropriate way. And again, we’re seeing retailers pushing forward in that where they’re even going as far as choice editing products. So one major retailer in the UK actually banned suppliers from supplying it with plastic shrink wrap on beer and cider cans and moved to cardboard. And a few British retailers have recently banned choice, edited out of suppliers of providing baby wipes that have any plastic in them. So I think we’ll also see that. So this sort of between education, encouraging a shopper industry choice, editing out products and then industry trying to work together to overcome some of the really big challenges around things like sustainable palm oil and so on. 

Ned Hayes [00:29:14] Well, so as we think about the future and where retail is going, can we ask you to use your consultants hat and look into the future? Where are we going to be in 5 to 10 years? What’s going to change? What’s going to be the same? 

Toby Pickard [00:29:27] Pretty good. I think it’s a bit of a boring answer. I think the reality is not much will change in our sort of predictions out to sort of 2027 for retail, we see the most growth coming from sort of convenience and discount channels online still play a part, but still a significantly small part of the overall pie. And the majority of food grocery shopping in the U.K. alone will be done in supermarkets. So I still think that sort of core brick and mortar is here to stay for the foreseeable future. I think what we will start seeing is actually how stores can become much more efficient, but also much more sort of experiential. And I know they sound like the odds with one another. I think that’s why we’ll see sort of parts of maybe the fresh produce becoming much more center and becoming more important. And actually, the ambient products they’re the kind of products will probably flip out to be more sort of online purchases, the repeat purchase. So it’s a bit of a challenge for what we call maybe center aisle, but we’ll see more of this push towards more interesting and innovative fresh produce. And then I think sort of an evolution of some more store concepts. So micro stores, things like that. I think we’ll start seeing more of those being dotted around the world, but they’re still tiny percentage of the market. 

Ashley Coates [00:30:40] Well, thank you so much to me for being here today. We have one final question for you, which is what would you like your legacy to be? What would you like to be remembered for? 

Toby Pickard [00:30:50] Okay. First of all, I hope I’ve got a few more years left in me. I really hope that the companies I work with, the people that read my insights, find them helpful. I’d like to be able to think that what I provide is helpful, insightful, and also inspiring. And so that’s the sort of come across me as an individual that’s passionate about technology, innovation and the future of retail and actually how businesses need to sort of futureproof themselves. So yeah, a bit of a long winded answer, but I think the element of helpful and inspiring for those that read my insights and collaborative but we’d like to share. 

Ned Hayes [00:31:25] Well, it’s been great to collaborate with you today. Thanks for your insights and for sharing your great perspective on retail, especially in the grocery sector. 

Toby Pickard [00:31:34] Thanks so much. Thanks, Ashley. Appreciate the time. 

Ned Hayes [00:31:36] Spark Plug is a wholly owned property of Snowshoe. Copyright 2022 2023 Spark Plug Media.