The podcast discusses favorite holiday food items, Walmart's ability to offer last year's prices on holiday food items, and preparations made by Walmart's merchant team for the holiday season. They also talk about family traditions and meals, including non-traditional Thanksgiving meals and the importance of breakfast in their family's Christmas meal.
John Laney emphasizes the importance of food merchandising and its role in the customer experience.
Walmart's customer-focused approach of stripping out inflation from holiday meal items demonstrates their commitment to providing value to customers.
Deep dives
John Lainey's career at Walmart
John Lainey has been with Walmart for his entire career, starting as a buyer's assistant in seasonal candy and growing within the company to his current position as the leader of the entire food team. He emphasizes the importance of food merchandising and its role in the customer experience.
Walmart's holiday season preparations
Walmart's merchant team invests six to eight weeks of preparation before major holidays, ensuring that the stores are ready for the season. By focusing on customer value, they have successfully positioned themselves to meet customer expectations. The team meticulously plans and makes adjustments based on previous years' learnings, constantly striving to provide a seamless experience and offer competitive prices.
Challenges of food inflation and Walmart's response
The recent food inflation caught the attention of the merchandising team, and they quickly adapted their strategies to meet changing customer needs. Walmart designed the holiday basket program to strip out inflation, offering Thanksgiving meal items at the previous year's prices. This customer-focused approach resonated well, with items like canned vegetables, priced at 50 cents, flying off the shelves. Walmart's investment in margins demonstrates their commitment to providing value to their customers.
The holidays are a time of special moments and memories, and food plays a huge part. We treasure those delicious Thanksgiving and Christmas meals with our favorite dishes and family traditions.
For the Season 3 finale of the Huddle, I talked to John Laney, who runs Walmart’s U.S. food business. John talked about some of his favorite items, and how HIS family does holiday meals for their family of 10! John and I were especially proud to share how Walmart was able to strip the inflation out of an entire basket of holiday food items, so our customers can serve this year's big meals at last year’s price!
I hope you'll enjoy this episode, and I hope you'll come to Walmart for all your holiday needs. Thank you so much for tuning in this year. Happy holidays!
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