Skip to main content

64 rules to help you sell food

Don't eat anything your great-grandmother would not recognise as food, says Michael Pollan in his new, cheap book called Food Rules An Eater's Manual. If you sell treats, top-up food items or everything, this book will help you plan your future.

"There are now thousands of foodish products in the supermarket that our ancestors simply wouldn't recognise as food. The reasons to avoid eating such complicated food products are many..." he writes in rule two on great-grandmothers.

However, in his introduction, Pollan offers his basic philosophy for healthy eating: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.

Rule 64 is break the rules once in a while. Rule 60 is Treat treats as treats. Rule 44 is Pay more, eat less... Rule 36 is Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk.

What makes this book so enjoyable is it is very short, well written and provides you with plenty of food for thought about what is going on in your shoppers' minds. Perhaps you might think that your shoppers are not the "foodies" and "Guardian-reading Londoners" that this book might be aimed at? Even so, there is bound to be something in it that you can profitably share with your shoppers.

As a local shopkeeper at the heart of your community, what is in the best interests of local people should matter to you deeply and this book offers you an insight into ideas that are shaping the way that food and "foodish products" will be sold in the future.

It is £4.99 and sold by penguin and they did not send me a review copy!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Digital disruption in the UK wholesale space

“Twenty years ago I was driving boxes to the post office in my Chevy Blazer and dreaming of a forklift,” says Jeff Bezos in his most recent letter to shareholders. A blink later and he points out that the company has grown from 30,000 employees in 2010 to 230,000 now. But his ambition is the same. “We want to be a large company that’s also an invention machine. We want to combine the extraordinary customer-serving capabilities that are enabled by size with the speed of movement, nimbleness and risk-acceptance mentality that is normally associated with entrepreneurial start-ups.” Amazon is great at disruption because of its customers focus and the fact that the internet means it needs none (or very few) people between its warehouses and the shopper. The threat of Prime, its membership service, is the biggest challenge facing the UK retail market and the wholesale market by extension. It is both a direct threat and an indirect threat in that is inspiring countless numbers of othe...

New look: big copy small?

The owners of B&Q are talking up how they have cut the price of a store refit from £2.5m to £1m by using wood-effect vinyl instead of wood and painted MDF backboards for displays. Managers are learning to live with grey shelving instead of a warmer-looking cream. Shoppers notice the produce, not the fixtures, suggests one executive. Up to a point! Most local retailers will extract the maximum possible life from their fixtures, sometimes taking too long to change equipment that has become tired. As in all business, it is getting the balance right. Shops need to be refreshed and with a purpose.

What do shoppers see

I read a good post (http://www.newsagencyblog.com.au/2009/08/28/what-do-newsagents-charge-for-faxing.html) asking what price local shops charge for providing a fax service. The blogger had attached a photograph of his sign with his prices on it. What struck me was the message on the sign. "You drop, we fax," it said. "Pressed for time, drop your documents with us and we'll do it for you at no extra charge." That is a message that will persuade most shoppers that you want to give them good value, even if they stay to do the copying or faxing themselves.