After finding success with a meat-department makeover, Walmart this summer turned its sights to another food category: produce. Seeking to change low consumer perceptions about the quality and freshness of its fruit and vegetable offerings, the mass merchant in June introduced a “100% Money-Back Guarantee” to serve as anchor for its “Fresh-Over” campaign. Unsatisfied customers are offered a full refund with a receipt, though the questionable produce itself does not need to be brought back.In stores, pole toppers, headers, banners and other signs tout the guarantee, promising “Fresh, Quality Product” throughout the produce department. To deliver on that promise, Walmart has long been working behind the scenes to make improvements around a category that requires more manpower to stock and rotate product, involves more waste and is overall a higher-cost affair than dry goods.Operational changes include hiring “produce experts” to work directly with farmers in key growing regions where Walmart has produce-buying offices. These experts vet growers offering quality fruits and vegetables, while supply chain improvements and trucks programmed to take the most efficient routes decrease the days needed to get the produce from farms to individual stores.Once on store shelves, a new produce-department inventory system helps manage out-of-stocks while also tracking how many days an item has been in transit and how much shelf life remains, according to a report from The New York Times.“We're getting more efficient at transporting the product from farm to shelf,” president Bill Simon said during an August earnings call. “We're executing weekly store audits and equipping associates with additional skills and tools to ensure quality and freshness.”Independent teams conduct the weekly quality checks, with results reported to every level of a store's management. Meanwhile, a recently launched produce training program is honing the skills of 70,000 of those employees, including store managers, market managers and produce-department managers from every store.Other reported store-level changes include adjusting shift responsibilities so fresh food is put out later in the morning rather than overnight, as well as eliminating huge displays of produce in favor of smaller displays with more frequent restocking.A quality produce offering is tried-and-true fuel for trip frequency, but recently Walmart is placing even more importance on the category to serve an ongoing shopping behavior that will bring consumers through the door.“With the e-commerce world exploding, categories like fresh are strategically really critical to us because they anchor in a loyal customer,” chief marketing officer Stephen Quinn said in May during a conference at the University of Arkansas. He named produce among steak and holiday as Walmart's top three product-centered marketing focuses for fiscal 2014.The “Fresh-Over” initiative is in fact a spin-off of Walmart's “Steak-Over” campaign, which touts the addition of higher-quality, USDA Choice-grade meat to stores, boasts a money-back guarantee and has set the retailer's meat-department business “on fire,” Quinn noted. That effort also benefits from multiple manufacturer partners — including Clorox Co.'s Kingsford and Dr Pepper Snapple Group's Dr Pepper — indicating a possibility for similar CPG support in future “Fresh-Over” flights.Both of the campaigns gain support from national and regional TV spots that actually leverage Walmart's less-than-stellar reputation in those categories to secretly present consumers with the improved product and capture their conversion during a big-reveal moment. The idea is “very real and authentic,” according to Quinn, fitting well thematically with Walmart's ongoing price-comparison spots that also star real consumers.Meanwhile, grocery also supplies a key element of Walmart's corporate responsibility strategy. The retailer's produce experts are helping build long-term relationships with farmers as it works to double sales of locally grown produce by December 2015 (a commitment announced in 2010). In stores, P-O-P materials boast of the “Locally Grown” produce, directing consumers to look for an icon identifying items from regional farmers.Other signs in the produce department also loop in “Great for You,” Walmart's own front-of-pack labeling system distinguishing what the retailer deems “healthier, affordable foods.” The system launched in the spring of 2012, a year after Walmart committed alongside First Lady Michelle Obama to fight obesity by offering healthier foods at lower prices.
