Being a global leader in the convenience store industry, 7-Eleven has recently focused on shifting towards new and unique offerings for each of their stores. Their “Lab Store” in Texas is currently testing multiple new sections offering anything from made-to-order smoothies to fresh bakery items. MBD was tasked with coming up with a design for their new refillable beer and wine station called The Cellar.
MBD recently started working on non-food items for our client, Natural Grocers. Natural Grocers is a specialty retailer of organic and natural products, with over 150 stores in 19 states.
The paper goods design challenge was unique, and we needed to take a different approach. We wanted to leverage the animal character design element as we do with all Natural Grocers items, but we also had to consider the clear film that the product was packaged in and how the placement of imagery and color would translate best to consumers.
We used to say quality and value were two keys to success. But the value of quality alone has come and gone. Quality backed by transparency is the new requirement. Trendy companies like Everlane, BeautyCounter, and Allbirds are all leading the charge by demonstrating maximum transparency to their consumers. And there’s a lot we can learn from them.
We are excited to announce that MBD won 7 Vertex Awards for 2019! Congratulations to our clients as well as our team at MBD for all of your hard work this past year.
GOLD WINNER: 7-Eleven 7-Select Animal Crackers
Well, another great Velocity Conference in the books and what a great one it was.
The 2019 Velocity My Private Brand Conference, and Vertex Design Awards, was held in the beautiful city of Charlette, North Carolina at the lovely Le Meridian Hotel. The weather held out with not a hurricane in site.
At the end of March, Natural Grocers estimates that they eliminated more than 300 million single-use plastic bags and donated $1 million to food banks!
In 2009, Natural Grocers began an initiative to reduce plastic bag usage and they began offering customers the opportunity to bring their own bag. Each time a costumer did this, Natural Grocers would donate 5 cents to a food bank. Over these last 10 years, Natural Grocers has not only eliminated 300 million bags from the planet, but they have also provided over 4 million meals to people in need.
This year marked the 39th annual Natural Products Expo West Show! There were 86,000 people exploring the products from 3,600 exhibitors. Here’s our take on the top 10 trends from the show.
Leading up to the annual Vertex Awards International Private Brand Design Competition, Christopher Durham of My Private Brand spends time with each of the judges and asks them five questions about the state of Private Brands. Below is a recap of his conversation with MBD's President, Maria Dubuc.
1. How will the growth of online shopping and home delivery change private brand?
Chris Durham of My Private Brand recently had the opportunity to interview Brent Tininenko, Vice President Private Brands at Dallas, Texas based discount retailer Fred’s Inc. MBD partnered with Fred’s to launch 40+ new items in less than 5 months in 2018. Brent is a gifted leader who had this program off and running with speed to market levels never heard of in this industry.
How do you change the world on that large a scale? It seems impossible. The key is to build upon your brand. Like any other workout, it takes a strong core – in this case, a strong core brand.
Over the years, I’ve learned there are things you need in order to build that foundation and brand strength that then allows you to make change happen on a grand scale… even 10,000 SKUs at a time.