Greg Foran

Look, there's a wider strategic update from Kroger coming up 25th October.

But one thing that you're relatively new, I don't want to call him new, your relatively new CEO, Greg Foran has already talked about is the need to simplify the business for associates so they can spend more time with customers.

So what's your role and what's AI's role in that process?

There are hundreds and hundreds of activities of tasks that our associates, whether they are in our offices, in our supply chain facilities, in our stores, are taking that are, I would say, commodity mundane tasks.

According to Supermarket News, the reduced outlook includes an estimated negative 140 basis point hit from lower pharmacy pricing tied to the Inflation Reduction Act.

And CEO Greg Foran said a cyclospora outbreak Tied to recalled leaf lettuce cost the company roughly 35 basis points of total comps in the back half of the quarter.

Not all the news was soft, and I use air quotes intentionally there, Josh.

E-commerce sales grew 20% with the second straight quarter of profitable e-commerce growth, and retail media revenue was up 24%.

And so it's a hard balance that you have to strike when you're that retailer sitting in that spot to figure out how much of this is retail media that we're pushing versus the media that we need to push to drive our business.

Right, yeah.

Maybe this is the galvanizing rod where Greg Foran stands up in front of the supplier community and says, hey, we need more investment into our store side and price.

Like, you guys need to help us with this if we're going to try to reposition ourselves in the market.

Who can we expect this time around?

Well, we'll be kicking it off with Greg Foran.

And Greg is really well known to New Zealanders.

Obviously, ex-Walmart, ex-CEO of Air New Zealand, and now the CEO of Kroger's, which is a huge retailer in the US.

And I suspect with the red meat, there's no difference there either.

Yeah, absolutely.

So we'll get that really good perspective from Greg Foran, and that'll set a lot of the context.

But look, what we're dealing with as a sector is a huge amount of complexity, volatility, and the velocity of change is increasing markedly.

Who can we expect this time around?

Well, we'll be kicking it off with Greg Foran.

And Greg is really well known to New Zealanders.

Obviously, ex-Walmart, ex-CEO of Air New Zealand, and now the CEO of Kroger's, which is a huge retailer in the US.

And I suspect with the red meat, there's no difference there either.

Yeah, absolutely.

So we'll get that really good perspective from Greg Foran, and that'll set a lot of the context.

But look, what we're dealing with as a sector is a huge amount of complexity, volatility, and the velocity of change is increasing markedly.

So this is kind of a test for them too.

But at the same time is, is Greg foreign, the new CEO of Kroger using this as, Hey, it's the, we're going to pull a couple of these brands, um, and make it look like it's them but it's it's really us because this report came out said government inspectors found about 15 percent of kroger price checks just in ohio anyway failed uh with overcharges outnumbering undercharges nearly three to one uh we have that we have that eight that that you know the case tree egg farm thing we were talking about those protests so there's a lot of pressure on kroger always is but in the public eye and these two things with this report coming out and so do they see that as a way to maybe deflect from them and say it's not us it's our vendors

I don't know in particular the mindset if it's a deflection technique, but that said, we're in a tighter economy.

When you're in a tighter economy, people start looking at every corner and they start fighting over the bill.

As a Kroger new report comes out from an advocacy agency shown Kroger overcharges people or likes the stickers are wrong on the shelf by 15 percent of the time without overcharges outnumbering the undercharged by three to one.

But also news that they're moving away from a lot of popular brands.

The new CEO, Greg Foran, says that he's not going to tolerate suppliers using inflation as a cover for price hikes and singles out Red Bull and Boar's Head Deli.

Now, Boar's Head Deli meets like 15 bucks a pound of stuff like gold.

So this is kind of a test for them, too.

But at the same time, is Greg Foran, the new CEO of Kroger, using this as, hey, we're going to pull a couple of these brands.

and make it look like it's them but it's it's really us because this report came out said government inspectors found about 15 percent of kroger price checks just in ohio anyway failed uh with overcharges outnumbering undercharges nearly three to one uh we have that we have that eggs that that you know the case tree egg farm thing we were talking about those protests so there's a lot of pressure on kroger always is but in the public eye and these two things with this report coming out and so do they see that as a way to maybe deflect from them and say it's not us it's our vendors

I don't know in particular the mindset if it's a deflection technique, but that said, we're in a tighter economy.

As a Kroger new report comes out from an advocacy agency shown Kroger overcharges people or likes the stickers are wrong on the shelf by 15 percent of the time without overcharges outnumbering the undercharged by three to one.

But also news that they're moving away from a lot of popular brands.

The new CEO, Greg Foran, says that he's not going to tolerate suppliers using inflation as a cover for price hikes and singles out Red Bull and Boar's Head Deli.

Now, Boar's Head Deli meets like 15 bucks a pound of stuff like gold.