ECRA Board Appoints new Board Chair

Gareth Edgecombe, President, Campbell Arnott’s Asia Pacific, has replaced Martin Drinkrow, General Manager, Clorox ANZA - Australia, NZ, RSA as the Chair of Efficient Consumer Response Australasia. 

Gareth Edgecombe was appointed President, Campbell Arnott’s Asia Pacific in August 2011. In this role, Gareth oversees Campbell's businesses across the region, including Arnott's Biscuits and Campbell's in Australia and New Zealand, as well as our baked snacks, simple meal and sauce businesses in Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. 

Gareth joined Campbell Arnott’s from The Coca-Cola Company, where he held the role of President, South Pacific Business Unit.  In this role, Gareth was responsible for the strategic direction, marketing and product strategy for the Coca-Cola business in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. He also managed Franchise Territory Agreements and led Franchise Bottling partners in those territories.   

He holds a First Class Honours Graduate from the University of Waikato, Hamilton, where he earned his Bachelor of Management Studies, Marketing and Communications.  

ECRA Annual Supplier and Retailer Convention

Winning at the Shelf - Report Available Now!

In the third of ECRA Winning series of reports – Winning at the Shelf: Key Insights into Causes of Out of Stocks at the Shelf the opportunities open to suppliers, manufacturers and retailers to deliver improved on-shelf availability through a focus on the in-store replenishment process is examined.  

The aim of the report was to understand the key issues faced by store personnel in ensuring that the product existing within the store building is replenished to fixtures - both shelf and display - in a timely fashion to avoid out of stocks. 

The report details considerations for suppliers, manufacturers and retailers to assist the store replenishment process and ensure stock is available for sale when shoppers wish to purchase.

To access the report go to: http://www.ecraustralasia.org.au/publications/

Release of Carton Identification Guidelines

The ECRA Board sponsored the development and execution of ECRA’s third Winning’ project – Winning at the Shelf: Key Insights into Causes of Out of Stocks at the Shelf. 

At output of this work stream was the recognition that back of store areas can, at times, be congested and difficult to work in. Unless your product is clearly recognisable it can be difficult to find and subsequently may not be replenished on the shelf in a timely fashion. 

A set of industry guidelines, developed to address this issue,  deliver practical suggestions on how to label cartons to ensure the choice of the correct product and rotation of stock through the supply chain is achieved. The guidelines focus on distribution centre, back of store and shelf replenishment processes.  

The aim of the guide is to help to produce cartons that are easy to identify to assist in the shelf replenishment process and ensure product is available for sale when the shopper wants it. The guide is relevant to all grocery retail categories. 

The Guidelines have been endorsed by Coles and Woolworths in a joint presentation at the ECRA Annual Retailer and Supplier Convention. The Guidelines are an adjunct to (not a replacement of) the retailer specific specifications.  

The Guidelines can be downloaded from the ECRA website http://www.ecraustralasia.org.au/toolkits/

ECRA acknowledges IGD from whose original Easy ID Guidelines (www.igd.com/easyidguidelines) the document is adapted.

Winning in January 2013 - Report Available Soon

Australasian retailers Woolworths/Progressive and Coles have again provided ECRA with outbound service level data following Christmas 2012 and January 2013 to facilitate an industry report into this on-shelf availability performance indicator. 

In summary, 2012-13 saw a mixed bag in OBSL performance - whilst some categories have improved performance greatly over past years, for others there continues to be an opportunity to close the residual gap that exists between service levels in the Christmas and January period versus those experienced at other times of the year. As such ECRA continues to view Winning in January as an ongoing opportunity for collaboration to the benefits of suppliers, retailers and shoppers.

 The report for January 2013 will be released shortly on the ECRA website.