Food Forum: Pushing Product Discovery

Global Market Development Center is taking product discovery to exciting new levels. During our recent Health Beauty Wellness Marketing Conference in San Antonio, Texas, we hosted a product pitching Demo Day session.

The standing-room only crowd saw pre-selected companies presenting innovative concepts and services to accelerators, retailers, suppliers and potential investors. The event was held inside an environment called Store of the Future that was designed to help retailers enhance their shoppers’ experience for consumer health and wellness.

Companies presenting at the Demo Day included:

•  Akibah—akibah.com 

•  EverlyWell—everlywell.com 

•  Focal Systems—focal.systems 

•  Herbal Zap—herbalzap.com 

•  Impax Media—impax.media 

•  incentaHEALTH—incentahealth.com  

•  June20—june20.com 

•  Nicotrax—nicotrax.com 

•  Recoup Fitness—recoupfitness.com

•  Rhelief—rhelief.com 

Judges included Bill Anderson, group vice president of operations SAFD for H-E-B; Tim Buskey, vice president of consumer products for AmerisourceBergen; Dave Jones, vice president industry initiatives for Kellogg Co.; Shari Wynne Ressler, founder and president of SKU; and Kosta Skoulikaris, vice president of the Innovation Lab for Nielsen.

There was also a panel discussion featuring Larry Myler, a Forbes.com entrepreneur columnist; Chris Skyers, vice president, health and beauty care at Wakefern Food Corp.; Adam Simons, head of emerging brands at The Clorox Co.; Doreen Lorenzo, director for the Center of Integrated Design at The University of Texas at Austin; and Titus Jones, GM R&D at The Kroger Co., Edge Project.

The Demo Day initiative was fueled by GMDC’s Retail Tomorrow Advisory Board, which launched earlier this year to introduce innovation in the marketplace through development and advancement of unique and first-mover products, services and technologies for members. The board accelerates retailer “next practices” process and provides insights into the future.

Nielsen Holdings is a founding sponsor of Retail Tomorrow, and will be a key partner as the initiative gains momentum to fuel startups, accelerate retail category growth, and spark entrepreneurial engagement.

“Retail Tomorrow will drive the consumer trends of the future and leverage innovative companies and organizations for success,” said Skoulikaris. “This visionary strategy focuses like a laser on gaining retail distribution based on addressable, omni-channel delivery and personalization.”

Members of the Retail Tomorrow Advisory Board include co-chairs Mark Ciccone, industry consultant and pioneer for the Innovation Center at Procter & Gamble; and Trey Holder, principal at Propeller Retail—a venture capital and private equity firm; Tom Duffy, vice president of industry services for Nielsen; Mark Deuschle, president of Navajo; and Scott Shillington, vice president of sales and business development at Tile, a wireless tracking app innovator.

We reinvented and reinvigorated our marketing conference by turning HBW16 into a next-level event with the Retail Tomorrow Demo Day—connecting suppliers and retailers in a whole new way that inspires actionable results in solving problems and identifying opportunities. This event was all about creating change in the marketplace by awarding innovative, daring companies with opportunities to pitch their ideas to decision makers.

Our Retail Tomorrow website, retailtomorrow.com, is the hub of the initiative that delivers opportunities and opens pathways of discovery for provocative, product-and process-changing solutions in the marketplace. The new platform also drives innovation education, networking and engagement with industry thought leaders.

Retail Tomorrow is fueling tomorrow’s trends today.     

Patrick Spear is president and CEO for GMDC. He can be reached at [email protected].