Service 02
Meat & Perishables Category Management
Fix the case with the data the retailer is already looking at.
Twenty-one years running perishables inside Kroger, then six years selling into it with 84.51°/dunnhumby data. Fact-based selling, assortment, pricing and service case programs that move the whole department, not one item.
Work is led personally by Kent Partida. There is no account team and no junior associate — the person who ran these departments and sold into them is the person doing the work, and the person you call when something changes.
Schedule a free consultationHow the work runs
Four stages, in this order
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01
Read the case
Sales, margin, shrink, and movement by item — plus what the shopper data says about who is buying, what else lands in the basket, and who left.
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02
Cut the tail
Find the items earning their linear feet and the ones renting it. Assortment decisions are the fastest, cheapest lever in most meat departments.
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03
Build the program
Service case, private label, value-added and ready-made — the high-margin items that most departments under-merchandise because nobody owns them.
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04
Hand it over
Train the team on fact-based selling so the next review is built by your people, with your numbers.
Engagements run as a fixed-scope project or a monthly advisory retainer. Scope, timeline and fee are agreed in writing before anything starts.
Straight answers
Questions people ask first
- What is fact-based selling?
- Bringing the retailer a recommendation built from their own shopper data — 84.51°, dunnhumby, Circana — instead of a deck about your brand. It changes the meeting from a pitch into a category conversation, and it is the single biggest difference between suppliers who get shelf and suppliers who get a follow-up email.
- Do you work with retailers, suppliers, or both?
- Both, never on the same category at the same time. Having sat in both chairs is the point — a supplier gets told how the buyer will actually read the deck, and a retailer gets told what the supplier is holding back.
- Is a service case still worth running?
- In the right store, yes — it is where lamb, veal, high-end cuts and ready-made items live, and those carry the department margin. A service case run without a selling program is just labor. That distinction is most of the work.
Next step
Talk through your category management problem
Fifteen minutes with Kent Partida, no deck. Describe the situation and you will get an honest read on whether it is worth an engagement — and what it would take.