Does anyone have any insight to why WFM pulled the rug out from Atlanta Fresh last fall, eventually driving them out of business? The 7 year contract had only been in effect for 14 months. I saw a press quote where WFM said something about sales not living up to expectations. That's ridiculous as Atlanta Fresh was a top mover in Dairy (especially their yogurts). WFM was moving over an estimated 1 million in product across all stores per fiscal quarter. Plus, they had given a Atlanta Fresh a 500k loan at the beginning of the contract.
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https://newfoodeconomy.org/atlantafresh-whole-foods-contract/ from 3/8/18
Yeah, outside of the "unique" flavors, there was nothing that set this product apart from the 50 other choices on the shelf. My store did tons of demos, put the stuff on sale, etc. Nobody was buying it. It is sad that they went out of business and people lost jobs but face it, it was not a great product.
The answer is here - products that don't sell and don't fill a niche don't have a place in crowded categories. Time to move on - customers don't seem to miss this outside of Atlanta.
Less hate, more actual answers please.
The bacon flavored yogurt? Yeah, pretty much instant spoilage.
Are we talking about Lazy Meadows? That was instant spoilage every time it was forced out to us.
At the Nashville store, those were just sitting on the shelf until they went out of code (the milk and the yogurts).
I'm in the Midwest. We have lots of yogurt options here. Something branding itself as being from Atlanta doesn't necessarily help sales like it might down south. Sounds possible the majority of that $1,000,000 sold in the South too if it was doing that well there.
I don't know about other stores or regions, but they took up a lot of space in my dairy and didn't make it worth it to carry here. I'd imagine that things played out similarly in a lot of other stores near me.
S---s when the local company goes national and fails, and it's fun when they succeed. A few local products around me have suffered that same fate. It's the nature of the business. At least you have your logical explanation for why the company is extinct now.
They were carried in the metro Atlanta market for nearly 10 years. Customers around here are extremely disappointed. Also, they weren't carried company-wide, so before you get snarky with your math skills go ahead and do that equation again.
I have access to a movement report from right before they were disco'd. They were in the top 25% of the entire yogurt category. They sold like crazy in Ga. What is your region?
I would also mention that I haven't heard a peep from anyone since they got disco'd. Good riddance.
In my region these were pure spoilage despite constant vendor supported sampling. The product didn't stand out for any reason - except it had unique flavors, but they were disgusting. There are better products in the yogurt category and we needed the shelf space for those. No customer had a compelling reason to buy this product over the other yogurts available, and they didn't.
And think about $1,000,000 across all stores in a quarter. That's only $19 per day per store for that whole line. Yogurt space is valuable - that is not enough sales. Not even close.