Kroger announced that natural and organic product sales not total more than $11 billion annually.

Mike Donnelley, Cincinnati-based executive vice president of merchandising, stated that figure during Kroger’s annual investor conference with analysts and investors on Tuesday. It is the first time in history that Kroger has stated how much its natural and organic business generated in sales for public knowledge. That is about 10% of Kroger’s annual sales, which was more than $108 billion last year.

The store brand for natural and organic foods is Simple Truth. It has generated double-digit percentage sales increases every year it has existed. Donnelley said that millennials are the driving force behind the tremendous growth in natural and organic foods.

Stuart Aitken, Kroger CEO of data analytics reveled that the data is gathers helps Kroger to focus on areas where the trends take customers. Natural and organic products clearly are the focal point of one trend.
Kroger had previously said Simple Truth is now the nation’s largest brand of natural foods, just two years after it launched the brand.

“We’re delivering on millennials’ needs,” he said.

Kroger had previously said Simple Truth is now the nation’s largest brand of natural foods, just two years after it launched the brand.

Aitken also said at the conference he felt obligated to explain the oft-criticized name of the segment of DunnhumbyUSA’s data analytics business that Kroger added in April. The short answer is 84.51 represents the longitude of the company’s headquarters at Fifth and Race streets in downtown Cincinnati. But why did that become the company’s name?

When Aitken said he felt the need to explain, Donnelley, his co-presenter during that portion of the conference, said, “Good luck.”

“The amount of abuse I’ve taken for that is priceless,” Aitken said.

Aitken told analysts that his favorite blog post about the name was: “Clearly the creative department wasn’t part of that decision.” He gets plenty of criticism for the name, in house and outside. CFO Mike Schlotman once said the name is proof that Kroger executives really do let 84.51 operate on its own.

Nevertheless, Aitken forged ahead in explaining the move.

“Our name actually represents us very well,” he said. “Longitude was one of the biggest problems to solve. It took 100 years. We solve big problems. It’s also a direction, and we’re about where people are going. And it’s a number. And we’re all about numbers.”

Finally, Aitken said, the name shoves the company to the top of any alphabetical list.

Featured Image: credit to Flickr/Nicholas Eckhart

Source: BizJournals.com

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