MSA, General Mills to Deliver Complete Salty Snack Data

PITTSBURGH — Through a joint effort of Management Science Associates (MSA) and General Mills Convenience, distributors supplying the convenience channel will now have access to manufacturer, brand and item performance and trend reports for the salty snacks category.

This complete category information will include direct-store-delivery (DSD) data to assist the distributors' retailer customers with category management activities, new item recommendations, and assortment and planogram decisions.

"We are excited to be able to partner with MSA to provide syndicated salty snacks category data for distributors to leverage. It's important for distributors to have a holistic lens to the entire category, incorporating key performance metrics for DSD and warehouse," said Kelly Fulford, senior category development manager for General Mills Convenience. "Access to multiple sources of data enables distributors to understand trends from the category level all the way down to SKU-level performance. This type of information allows the industry to focus on driving sales and profits across key categories like salty snacks, and ultimately increasing consumer reach."

The projected retail scan-based information will provide insights on retail pricing, emerging flavor and pack-type trends, "fair share" comparisons across manufacturers, and regional item rankings based on volume. Quarterly updates will begin in April.

"MSA and General Mills Convenience have been working together for several years in the management and analysis of convenience channel data, including shipments-to-retail data from their strategic distributors," stated Suzy Silliman, senior vice president and managing director of MSA's Information Management Solutions Division.

MSA provides information- and analytical-based business solutions to channel partners in the consumer packaged goods demand chain.

"We are pleased to expand this partnership to developing highly sought information and reports to distributor customers on an ongoing basis," Silliman added. "It's another example of General Mills' commitment to the channel and category management. This effort also aligns with MSA's goal to provide the industry with advanced information, analysis and insights for accurate and fact-based decision-making and business process improvement."

MSA and General Mills Convenience will showcase these new data reports at their respective booths this week at the American Wholesale Marketers Association (AWMA) Marketplace and Solutions Expo, taking place Feb. 24-26 in Las Vegas.