General Mills adopts retail shelf technology for Häagen-Dazs

General Mills France is deploying Dassault Systèmes’ Perfect Shelf industry solution experience to engage in new merchandising strategies for its Häagen-Dazs brand of premium ice cream.

In a product category driven by impulse purchases, Perfect Shelf will enable General Mills to better collaborate with retailers, enhance the consumer shopping experience and accelerate brand growth, Dassault Systèmes said.

General Mills has sought to inject innovation into the retail ice cream category by offering a differentiated and expanded Häagen-Dazs product line. In March 2015, the company launched new ice cream stick bars in five flavours, developed following two years of consumer feedback, and wanted a powerful category management solution to support the project.

Few shoppers plan to buy ice cream before reaching the store. Out of 120 product categories, ice cream is the 27th most impulsive purchase, the Paris-based firm said, and around 75% of category sales occur during the summer. As a result, market growth relies heavily on product innovation – more than 80 new products are introduced on store shelves each year. In addition to new flavours and formats, brands and retailers must consider strategic store aisle placement, shelving and product visibility to inspire consumer purchases.

Perfect Shelf helps General Mills to demonstrate category merchandising expertise to retailers by recommending shelving scenarios, based on shopper research, that enhance its brand and increase the retailer’s category revenue.

Stanislas de Maleissye, director, category trade management for General Mills France, said: “We selected Perfect Shelf to help us shape a new vision for the ice cream category and achieve shelving-related growth solutions for our clients. This collaborative solution brings a new and innovative dimension to category management; we’ve only just begun to use Perfect Shelf. Tomorrow, this solution will show its full potential, from product marketing design to its positioning at the core of retailers’ merchandising strategies.”

Dassault Systèmes vice-president, consumer packaged goods and retail industry Philippe Loeb added: “Dassault Systèmes’ Perfect Shelf industry solution experience was designed to help leading consumer packaged goods companies better collaborate with their customers, and deploy winning merchandising strategies faster. With the 3DExperience platform on the cloud, the shopping experience design process is more collaborative and takes place significantly faster, with greater extent and flexibility and at lower cost.”