NRF 2023: H-E-B, Albertsons & Chipotle Talk the Benefits of Weather-Driven Demand Analytics

Grocery Dive recently covered (see “Friday Checkout: The unexpected impacts of weather on supply chain”) a panel discussion that took place at the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) annual “Big Show” conference in New York City.

“The weather’s impact on consumer behavior and product demand can be a no-brainer. Warm temperatures typically spur demand for cold beverages and ice cream sales, for instance. But then there are the weather-driven behaviors that retailers and restaurants wouldn’t typically expect. A Tuesday session at the National Retail Federation’s annual conference in New York that included an H-E-B vice president, Albertsons senior director and Chipotle Mexican Grill data science manager explored how predictive weather-driven demand analytics can help better anticipate customers’ needs. “

Grocery Dive when on to say that the “panelists noted overlapping weather data with demand forecasting can provide a better understanding of product demand — influencing inventory management and consumer pricing.”

Coresight Research in a note entitled “NRF 2023: Retail’s Big Show Wrap-Up—Business Agility, Purpose, Technology and Personalization Characterize Retail’s Future” also referenced the panel discussion.

“On the demand side, companies including Albertsons, Chipotle and H-E-B are working with technology partners such as Planalytics to forecast demand, report performance, understand in-store replenishment and make progress in other areas such as digital marketing. Companies want to understand the factors that impact traffic, conversion and sales so they are using data to examine various factors.”

Follow this link to view the replay of the Nailing Demand Foreasts: From machine learning to replenishment and everything in between panel discussion from NRF 2023.

Comments from the panelists include:

• “It’s really neat to see how the data can be overlaid on top of our demand forecast to drive a better in-stock, to set conditions in our stores, to ultimately drive sales and increase our availability” (Tyler Scott, Senior Director, Demand Planning/Retail Support at Albertson’s)
• “Enables the business to unlock much better accuracy, much better understanding of what our sales and transactions are… it makes it easy, not just as the analysts, but also being able to roll that up to the executive level” (Jeremy Elster, Data Science Manager at Chipotle Mexican Grill)
• “We’re talking about consumer demand here… not weather data… we’re talking about the money and talking about making sure the product is in the store” (Ross Giambalvo, VP of Inventory Management at H-E-B)