Walmart's Big Week, Starbucks Gets An AI Brain & Aldi's Coming For Everyone | Fast Five

Nothing says welcome to the greatest city in the world like a podcast booth in an exhibition hall.

I've been taking a lot of grief about my takes on Agenda Ki lately.

We still underestimate what the impact of GLP1s is going to be on retail.

If you stuck around to the end,.

If you got here until Inside Baseball, I have literally no idea how we've gone from Aldi's corporate structure to Danny DeVito Tatisi.

Hello and welcome to the Omnitalk Retail Fast 5.

This week's episode was recorded from my favorite city in the world, London, with one of my all time favorite guest hosts, my brother from another monother across the pond, Shoptalk's VP of Original content, Ben Miller.

Ben and I talked a little Shop Talk Europe, Danny DeVito, tattoos and all the week's top retail headlines at the end of a long day which saw me interview over 10 fabulous retail executives right from the floor of the Retail Technology show.

All of which you can find by going to YouTube.com omnitalkretail thanks to Vuzion and RTS for putting me up in a fabulous podcast studio and helping me to interview every mainstage keynote executive as they came off stage.

So let's not keep you in suspense any longer.

Let's get to the headlines right after we hear from all our wonderful partners who make this podcast possible each and every week.

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They said it couldn't be done.

Ben Miller live, live in London, sitting right next to me.

How's the forum, as they say over here?

Christopher Walton, a jolly fine hello on this fine evening for you and welcome to London.

I appreciate you having me on.

And nothing says welcome to the greatest city in the world like a podcast booth in an exhibition hall.

Yeah, the greatest city in the world.

That's like a line from Hamilton.

Yes.

The greatest city in the world.

Oh, man.

All right, so we are now less than two months away, right, from Shop Talk Europe as well.

What's in store?

What are you most excited about for Shop Talk?

You're a Ben, you're kind of the man of the man, one of the men, one of the many men and women of the hour at that show at that conference.

It's like it's coming up really quick.

So we are 9th to, to the 11th of June this year back in Barcelona.

Fabulous, fabulous Barcelona.

I guess for me there's two things I'm really looking forward to.

Okay, so number one, the conversation that we had about AI in retail in Vegas at Shop Talk spring was incredible.

It was nuanced, it was interesting.

People were sharing.

I'm so interested to hear what a conversation is in Europe.

One of the challenges you have in Europe is some of the solutions.

They're not available yet.

Right.

You know, some of the platforms haven't been rolled out yet.

Right.

So the things that you can do and the speed that you want to move at in Europe is different.

So hearing how European retailers are tackling that I think is going to be absolutely fascinating.

We've got a killer, an absolutely remarkable.

Oh, yeah, okay.

This is what I always love when you come on.

I'm always like, okay, who's, who's going to be there?

We've got so l', Oreal, ikea, Nestle, We've got the CEO.

Co CEO of Zalando.

Oh, wow.

Cathor, Sephora, Shopify, Netflix, Reddit, Nvidia.

It's brilliant lineup.

Really looking forward.

So that's number one.

Number two, we're gonna have the mother of all after show parties this year.

Really?

We are.

But that's another day and another story.

Is that or is that just the biggest tease of all time?

Tease of all time.

You're such a tease.

You're teasing me, Mr. Miller.

All right, well, that sounds awesome.

Carfar's been in our headlines like multiple times over the past few weeks, so that's a huge get too.

They're doing some really great things on the smart store front and of course the smart shopping carts down in Israel that they announced as well.

Yeah, and we've got Justin.

Who?

Justin.

She runs E Commerce in Spain.

Used to run E Commerce in Italy.

She's fantastic.

So she's one of our track speakers at the show.

Awesome, awesome.

So should we get to this week's headlines, Ben?

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

It's like 6pm here in London.

Let's do this.

All right.

In this week's Fast5, we've got news on Starbucks launching a beta app, inside chatgpt.

Instacart making its most aggressive international move or leap.

See what I did there, Ben, today when they announced the acquisition of Columbia based retail tech platform instalap.

And Walmart giving its iconic great value private label brand its first full redesign in more than a decade.

Oh, and let me also not forget Aldi quietly using its US Stores and as the testing ground for a new global store format.

I saved that one for you, Ben.

But we begin today with Walmart making a major play in the GLP1 and weight management space.

All right, got to clear my throat there, Ben.

It's been a long day of speaking.

All right.

Walmart is expanding its Better Care Services platform to include weight management support for customers on or exploring GLP1 therapies.

Connecting its nearly 4,600 store pharmacy network with virtual care providers, nutrition support, same day medication delivery, all under one digital destination.

According to Walmart's corporate website, the Better Care Services platform now features weight management support from five third party providers spanning personalized fitness programming, registered dietitian services, AI supported coaching and telehealth based medication management.

The platform also includes access to a full range of GLP medications including the including the newly available oral option.

Ben?

Yes, it is the newly available oral option Foundeo or or fulgrupron for those that like what?

I mispronounce generic drug names, which I was waiting to do, all of which are available through insurance or transparent cash pay pricing.

All right, Ben, here's my question for you.

In your Shop Talk Zeitgeist, which you gave just back in March.

So less than two months ago, you said that GLP1S was one of the top six or seven trends that would impact retail over the next decade.

So I'm guessing you love this move from Walmart.

My only question is how much?

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

You've guessed it.

I love it and I love it a lot.

So let's take back to some of the points that we made in the presentation back in March.

Why do we think GLP1S is going to have such an impact on on the retail market?

I mean, firstly, look at the growth numbers.

So Morgan Stanley currently predicts that the 2 to 3% of the US population that are taking GLP1s over the next decade could grow to 20%.

At the moment, it's about 1%.

Globally, that could grow to 10%.

So huge growth.

Okay, now what we do in the Zeitgeist is we look at, okay, what do we think are the big trends and what do we project them forward?

And the point that I was trying to land in the Zeitgeist is that I think collectively as an industry, we still underestimate what the impact of GLP1 is going to be on retail.

So let me kind of unpack this.

Yeah.

Just this week, McKinsey published some brand new research.

They looked at 21 food and beverage categories to look at what the spend trend is.

For people who've been on GLP1s for over six months.

Of the 24 categories, only four had seen an increase in spend.

And of those, yoghurt had seen the biggest increase.

But that increase was only 2 and a half percent.

Okay, okay.

On the other side, it was negative 11.5% for crisps and savoury snacks.

It was negative 8.5% for sweet bakery.

So, so look, why do I love this headline?

I love this headline because clearly Walmart doesn't underestimate its impact.

Yet Walmart has recognized it and it's connecting its digital ecosystem in a way that it can because the properties that it's built to really help customers to understand and at the same time to learn more about what's going on.

So Ben, I'm curious, does that mean that Walmart and others are also just at risk from GLP1 in terms of declining revenue overall as people are just starting to eat less as well.

Yeah.

So one of the things we found people are eating less but what they are prioritizing is small portions on the go, convenience solutions, products that help with digestive, easy digestive solutions.

So diets are changing that people are buying more often so it leads itself to more convenient products, more fresh, which are higher margin.

So there's some massive category shifts.

If you follow those shifts and provide the solutions that people in need, there's actually margin gains to be made there.

But it's about recognizing and not underestimating.

That was the point I was trying to make.

Right, right.

And the pharmacy keeps the foot traffic, foot traffic coming to the Walmart store too.

Can I just say as a final point.

Yeah.

I'd really love to hear what you think of this but I love anything that connects the pharmacy to the rest of the store.

Look because running pharmacy, it's a hard business, it's hard people cost could be dangerous.

Anything that provides a greater halo than just footfall I think is a real positive and I love that Walmart leaning into that.

Yeah, Yeah.

I mean 100% on the pharmacy side.

I mean I don't have much to add.

I mean that's why I wanted you to share the data that I know you always bring to the table on this because it is really interesting to think about, you know and then there's also the question that I have too, which I didn't ask you about, which I'd love to get your thoughts on.

Maybe at the end is like, you know, you get all these reports and some, in some ways all these reports happening at the same time get a little bit self enforcing in terms of the predictions that everyone's making around the severity or the impact.

And so you always have to take that with a grain of salt.

But, but to your point you're saying like there's going to be a probable impact here.

So, so I like it because you know, Walmart is basically attacking what is a sizable trend through their pharmacy which engenders loyalty in their customer.

I think it's a pretty, it's pretty remarkable given the effort and some would say failed efforts they put into their clinics as well.

And now they're doing this digitally.

So I think that's important.

You know, it's asset light approach to doing this which is very different than where they were like two or three years ago.

Yeah, I love that.

And then the other point I'd make too, the second thing I make is they've learned Walmart has done a great job of learning how to speak to their customer digitally and specifically via the Walmart plus subscriber too.

So I think this is a very this, and this is very much who this is geared after.

Even though you're saying in those numbers, you're probably hitting the broad base of America too, and the broad base of consumers globally, but that is who you're gearing this towards.

And Walmart plus, it's going to come up again later too, as part of their strategy, but you can see how they're continuing to try to lean into that as kind of their competitive moat, so to speak, in the landscape.

Okay, we're going to move on.

On headline number two, Starbucks has launched a beta app within ChatGPT.

It allows customers to describe their mood or upload a photo to receive personalized drink suggestions and then customize and then begin the order in ChatGPT before completing checkout in the Starbucks app or on Starbucks starbucks.com so according to Starbucks, the beta app launched on April 15 and is accessible by enabling it through ChatGPT's App Directory and then tagging at Starbucks in a prompt.

Critically, as I just said, checkout does not happen within ChatGPT.

Customers complete the purchase in a Starbucks app on Starbucks.com, which means Starbucks retains all the first party loyalty data and it keeps the transaction in its own ecosystem.

And Chris.

Yes, here we go.

This is also the A and M.

I love what the guest horse puts me on the spot.

I've been waiting to do this.

Right, the A and M put you on the stop question.

So firstly, they've asked me to imagine that I'm not in a coffee shop.

I'm in a tea store, a very British tea shop.

To play into the full Britishness.

Sounds like A and M to me.

So thank you, Chad.

Okay, here we go.

Given the high usage and historical praise of Starbucks mobile app, are these ChatGPT and other agentic AI integrations a more offensive or defensive play?

So look, in other words, do Starbucks and other brands believe that consumers truly are looking for more inspiration and discovery when they're on the AI platform compared to when they're on the apps.

Therefore, it's incremental or.

Or keep going.

Wow.

Or the customer journeys will eventually go direct to the apps, less in favor of these platforms, so they'll have to integrate everything to avoid losing traffic.

Oh my God.

That.

Jeez.

Oh my God.

I took, you know, I've been taking a lot of grief from some folks that I know pretty well about my takes on agentic AI lately, Ben.

Like, I had a friend of mine who I respect a lot.

He told me, and he works for a data company, which I won't say who they are.

I won't say his name either.

But he said his, his, his boss called him and said, dude, they're Walton's totally wrong on his takes.

So I don't know what I'm missing here because I don't like this move, Ben.

I think that's my answer to the question.

And, you know, especially if I was lauding Starbucks last week for their weekly pay and they're increasing their barista bonuses.

So good.

So good.

And so this move smells of.

It's.

I think it's important to put it in context.

This move smells to me of tech teams not being aligned to the business problems and kind of chasing the shiny tech that's out there.

I don't like it because all the reasons I've expressed on past shows and which gets to the heart of the question that A and M is asking, which is, does the consumer really need this inside of a chat GPT experience or some other LLM experience?

I don't think so.

You could ultimately do that in the Starbucks app.

So I don't get why the traffic is necessarily going to go here to do this.

So it begs the question, me, why, why now?

Why do you need to do this?

It's not make or break for you.

Starbucks, at this point in time, why be the first penguin in the water?

That's the reason.

I don't like it.

Interesting, interesting.

I mean, look, in principle, I don't disagree.

Yeah, I don't entirely agree.

I mean, no, it's fine.

I don't know what I think anymore on this one.

Look, I mean, look at the bear numbers.

There is 800 million people on ChatGPT every week.

So it's really hard to walk away from that levels of eyeballs, that level of traffic and agent E commerce.

We've already hit one of the really big talking points in our industry.

Genti Thomas is another one.

And what became super clear in Vegas is we don't know what the end game is going to be.

Nobody knows what the end game is.

One thing that became really clear, though, is you can't risk not being, being part of the conversation and not trying things because one of these solutions might suddenly be the one that works.

And if you stepped out of that conversation, you're playing catch up on the speed at which he's moving.

So there is that that jeopardy.

Having said that, there's always a but.

There's always a but.

The but is I don't love the in app approach either.

You don't?

Personally, I think there is too much friction for this to be the end game.

It doesn't feel like this is where things are going to end up.

I'm not going to get in the weeds on the, on Starbucks actual application.

Yeah.

I think everybody needs to test things at the moment.

Yeah.

If anybody wants to see it.

Scott Wingo has done a great video on his LinkedIn.

He goes through it, he shows you, shows you what it is.

He gives it two out of ten.

Two out of ten.

Two out of 10.

Wow.

And we know how good the Starbucks digital experience.

Yes.

So look, have a look at that.

If you want to get in the weeds on the actual tool as a direction of travel.

I think every brand have got to understand how they show up in agentic commerce in apps.

I'm not there on yet.

Yeah, see I get the whole thing about like you need to experiment, you need to show up.

But do you, do you really like, do you need to do it right now?

Because like, you know, like the other point I bring up, like I can remember just even a few years ago, like with TikTok, people were complaining about how TikTok was inspiring all these crazy, crazy drink formulations that people were bringing into the stores and it was causing the baristas headaches.

So like if you think about this and you're like, oh, I make, I'm experimenting with this and it works, that's you're gonna have that problem exponentially and you don't want that.

So I don't really get what the end game here is in the experimentation other than to say, oh, we're experimenting.

And that really leads.

Look, there's a couple of other things that I couple of other issues I've got with this and okay, it's Peter.

That's fine.

Number one, the merchant in me is still worried about how ruthless Brian Nichols and the team are being with the range rationalization at Starbucks.

One of the problems, one of the issues that caused the operational challenges that Starbucks are having, particularly in the US is that it overranged.

The range was far too great.

If you go on the Starburst website, yeah, it says this new ChatGPT app and I'm gonna quote here is a new way to discover your next favorite drink.

Alright, Starbucks, you've gotta take a step back, right?

You're a coffee shop, you shouldn't need a Gentic commerce to help people understand what your products that you sell.

If that's the case, you've overcomplicated it and that just creates those operational pressures.

Mic drop.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if this gets killed sooner rather than later.

I really wouldn't.

But mark it down.

We'll see if I'm right.

We'll see if I'm wrong.

All right, let's keep moving on.

Headline number three.

Instacart has announced the acquisition of instalap, a Colombia based global fulfillment and Enable it platform that serves nearly 100 grocery retailers and marketplaces across 13 countries in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.

According to Grocery Dive, the deal gives Instacart an immediate foothold with established retailer relationships outside North America, including Senko Suit.

I hope I'm saying that correctly.

Ben in Latin America, Continente in Portugal, my.

My favorite Portuguese retailer.

And Geronimo, Martins, Lulu and Spar.

Instacart's Chief Commercial Officer Ryan Hamburger said the company has already seen growing global demand for its enterprise products, including Storefront Pro and Kaper carts, with early traction for Kaper in Europe and Australia.

And its first Storefront Pro launches outside North America with Costco in France and Spain, which I believe we covered on this show.

Over time, Instacart plans to bring its broader suite of enterprise technologies, including carrot ads, connected stores and and AI and data solutions to instalap's international retail partners.

Ben, buy or sell Instacart's acquisition of Instalap as a smart step forward for Instacart?

Yeah, I'm buying.

Okay, so let me take through it.

I think it's a really interesting story and part of the interest in the story is when you view how quick commerce, delivery, connections and profitability is playing out in the grocery space.

So one thing that we know is that no matter what your fulfillment route is, ensuring that your in store operations are efficient as possible is absolutely critical for grocery retailers.

Okay.

So therefore, seeing Instacart continue to develop and invest in that part of its proposition I think is huge.

Now if you take this acquisition in isolation.

Okay, yeah.

It's always really hard to judge an acquisition without knowing how much you paid for it.

Right.

That's a good point.

Fair point.

Yeah.

The financial terms for this haven't been disclosed, so I'm going to talk about directly, strategically and directionally with that kind of quite big caveat.

Right, right, right.

Instacart has been building momentum and I think one of the things that we should absolutely think about, I Hope everybody's taken enough notice of is the fact that Aldi us went with Storefront Pro.

Yeah, we talked about that too.

That's huge.

It's a huge signal that Aldi are moving the entire operating model for their E Comm to Instacart.

And you already mentioned Costco in Europe.

So I see this as the next step in that journey.

So then it comes to what is Instacart buying for how much we don't know.

Okay, so it's buying scale and crucially is buying relationships.

Grocery relationships are really hard, hard fought, hard build.

Here's 100 retailers, 30 countries outside the U.S. strength in LATAM, strength in the Middle East.

That's a really, really big step forward.

So that's a big tick for me.

Yeah, hard to dislodge too.

Grocery relationships are hard to dislodge, especially in this front when.

Who's running your website?

You?

Well, not only the website, the full fulfillment and the store solutions to enable it.

You mentioned upsell.

Of course there's Upsell, Retail media, paycat.

We can come back to that one.

The bit that really intrigued me was, okay, you're buying, you're fast tracking your international book of business, Great.

But what about the tech?

Is there something new coming into Instacart that they're buying from the tech as well?

And I know Insta Leap is highly considered, so look, that's interesting.

I knew we were going to talk.

You told me we were going to talk about this one.

So I asked the Instacart team outright, did you?

I did, I did.

Nice.

And they said, look, they are excited about the fulfillment elements that instalap have developed.

So order, managing, picking, routing, these things are built.

So we explore that side.

So that is two elements to it.

I think the right term is an Instacart spokesperson said, and I think the quote is, over time, we expect to consolidate the tech stacks into a single, unified platform that brings together the best of both products.

So it looks like you've got an acquisition that gives a needed shot in the arm for international expansion.

It's aligned with a profitable kind of platform strategy play.

And it brings in tech that can also help develop the core offer.

So we found paid to achieve all that.

That feels like a good place to be, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I think, I think, you know, I think I'm gonna agree with you, Ben.

I think I'm gonna agree with you.

I think it's reluctantly, you know, you know, I mean, it's a card knows this too.

Like, I have a. I have a. I love Haberly.

I love them.

I like talking to them.

I always enjoy whenever I get the chance to interview them.

But, you know, some.

Some of the things I've had questions about, you know, over the years and so.

But I think this is a smart move.

I think it is, I think for the reasons you said.

I mean, one, it's growth via acquisition, which I think is important in and of itself.

Because, as you know, I mentioned in the headline read too, it's been tough for Instacart to crack this market.

Then it sounds like, as you're discussing, there's probably some IP that they're grabbing here in terms of how the tech works.

And there's also just the IP of the relationships themselves, which I don't think.

Which is a great point, because I don't think you can discount that at all.

And then the other point too, which I was actually surprised you mentioned it, but you only mentioned it briefly, was, was retail media.

That's what scales.

So as you conglomerate all these platforms together, from a software standpoint, the retail media is the engine that drives the profitability of Instacart in the long run.

So you're going to get more scale in that because the brands now can position their retail media across more options globally too, which I think has to be a part of this.

Right, Ben?

I mean, you know that better than I do.

Yeah, I completely agree.

The potential to scale, particularly carrot ads, that media play is huge.

And I think I would just.

Look, just one more point to help you with that final.

Okay.

Make the final decision.

You mentioned Ryan Hamburger, Chief Commercial Officer, in the intro.

He's actually one of our speakers.

Oh, yeah.

At Shop Talk Europe.

So he'll be on stage on the Wednesday.

Maybe you should grab him, get an interview, ask him a question.

Everybody can come and hear directly from Ryan on this.

Love to do that.

Love to do that.

Still not sold on the cart.

Which I had a big, long conversation on the cart with somebody at Zebra yesterday, but yeah, still not sold on the cart.

But that's a. I don't want to take us off topic, Ben.

That's the topic.

Let's go to the next headline.

I'm going to go straight.

I'm going to plow straight into headline number four, which is that Walmart has announced the first full redesign of its great value private label brand for more than a decade, with plans to roll out new, more modern and colorful packaging.

How could it be anything but across nearly 10, 10,000.

10,000 Grocery and household items over the next 18 to 24 months.

So a bit more detail.

According to a Walmart corporate blog post, the new packaging designs were unveiled on April 15, will begin rolling out from May, starting with salty snacks, which is interesting with the GLP1 conversation before expanding category by category into more than 100 product categories.

The new packaging is specifically designed to improve what Walmart calls shopability, making it easier for customers to identify products in store and on the aisles.

Customer research was the catalyst.

While shoppers ranked Great Value highly on price and quality, many said they didn't feel particularly proud to display it in their homes.

So, Chris, do you think a Great Value packaging redesign will help get more people to buy more Great Value products from Walmart?

Oh, man, that's, that's a tough one.

I don't actually know if it'll get them to buy more products because, you know, but I think at the end of the day I like this move because I don't think it's gonna, it's not gonna make them buy less products.

I don't think, you know, at the end of the day it's not gonna hurt anything.

I mean, the article said nine out of 10 US households already buy it.

So I mean, how much room is there to grow when nine out of ten are already buying?

I guess you can get them to buy it more often, which I think is the play here.

And I alluded to it before because you're going after the upper demo.

If you read between the lines of this, we're not proud to show it in our pantries, which means we're not proud to highlight it to when we have guests in the house.

You're right.

And so that's the upper demographic that they're trying to get after and they're going after it, you know, because of the success they've had with Walmart.

Plus they want people to feel more pride in having it in their house.

And so it's not going to hurt anything if it doesn't move the needle, which it very well could.

It, you know, helps them to, helps people to save money, helps Walmart make more money and then look out because that's more margin for Walmart and also more media dollars from the CBGs who are not going to want to let that happen.

Yeah, you're not going to want to see the territory to Great Value so that the flywheel just keeps on churning.

So.

So I think it's a really smart move from a profitability perspective whether they sell more Great Value product.

I Think actually as I'm talking this out loud, Ben.

I think possibly.

Yeah, I think to the upper income demos for sure.

Yeah, I agree.

I mean, look, firstly, I love.

We're talking about private label.

Yeah.

Big things.

I don't talk about private label very often.

Yeah, we must keep talking about it as an industry more.

But let's look, let's talk about Walmart first.

Because look, because it's Walmart, because the scale, because it's 10,000 products, because it's their core great value item, then it's a story.

But it's really not a story in some ways.

I mean, look, 30 years ago I sat my desk in, the marketing team of the grocery retailer was next to the packaging design team.

They were on a constant cycle of redeveloping packaging for the private labels.

It's not news, it's just how you run a private label business, Right?

Yeah.

So scale makes it notable, Walmart makes it notable, but it's just how you should be doing.

Having said that, to do it now is a huge signal and for that to read the signal, you got to look at what the CPGs did.

So we had inflation out of COVID CPGs.

CPGs took the price increase, the branded CPGs took the price and they've grown through price.

So if you sit here now and you read the financial results of any of the big branded CPGs, there's growth coming from two places.

One, value, that is price, it's not volume.

Two, digital.

Come back to the conversation we were having earlier in the Instacart Bunsen.

That's where the growth is now.

In the last six months we'd hit a point where CPGs, it felt like the conversation that they'd realized that, that they realized price had been touched too far and the differential to private label had opened up too much.

And that was happening just at a time that the inflationary pressures thankfully had eased off.

Okay.

The world's changed in the last month.

We're suddenly in an environment where inflationary pressures are coming in.

This is a critical time.

Walmart is saying, okay, we're going big on our private label.

The industry cannot risk pushing price too much, otherwise that differential is going to increase even further.

And you're seeing the investment that's going in.

So that for me is the biggest, big story.

It's watching how that goes.

Now, having said that, I also have, I also slightly don't agree with you.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

How dare you.

Okay, great, great.

Nine out of ten households, right?

Yeah.

But it doesn't Tell you how many items.

No, it doesn't.

It doesn't tell you what frequency.

It doesn't tell you how many categories they're buying into.

Nobody's gonna do a packaging redesign because they think they're gonna sell less.

Right?

Yeah.

So this is about modernization, it's about pushing.

There's categories where it's fascinating.

They're starting with salty snacks and crisps, a category being hit by the GLP1 impact.

I hope that they recognize why it's been hit rather than just saying he's an over performer, let's put the investment there.

But they're smart people, so I'm sure they do.

If they get this right, it will help them grow penetration, growth, frequency.

And that's a real watch.

And it's a real watch out for other grocers.

Because one of the things that sometimes gets lost in the conversation about private label is it's not just switching from branded to private label.

It's switching store locations to retailers that have a higher private label mix, like a limited line discounter, like a warehouse club.

So if you're sat in a major mall or even a regional grocery and you're thinking about what do I know?

How do I respond to this?

It's so important to get that private label range back.

Right?

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay.

So there's a lot of points I heard you say there that I think are important.

Just to reiterate.

So, like one is the continued digital growth of grocery and showing up better there.

Huge.

One is the inflation impact 1.

And then the other thing is the point that I think you and I both ended up making it.

I came around to it at the end too.

You did.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for that.

But it's right to disagree with me based on how I said it, but like that there are more people that could be buying more great value products.

My only question for you, Ben, is when they said that they haven't done this in 10 years, you know, were they kind of derelict in not doing it sooner?

Yeah, that surprised me.

It surprised me too.

I think part of it is just the sheer scale of the range.

Right?

Yeah.

This is the core range.

It's a big undertaking.

So big, big, big undertaking.

And what stood out to me was, and I think I'd love the next time one of us is talking to a merchant at Walmart to understand like we're talking a 12 to 48, a 12 to 24 month rollout for this.

I'd love to know how you can make that quicker.

You know, it feels like with the technological advances with AI that seems an awful long time to roll this out.

Okay, 10,000 is a huge change, but it'd be interesting to know, is Walmart doing anything different in the process to be able to improve this?

Yeah.

Well, and then there's also the correlating things that are changing in terms of packaging design and requirements in the industry as well, and how they're syncing all those up.

So this is not an easy undertaking by any means, in any way, shape or form.

Agreed.

All right, headline number five.

Aldi South Group is using its US Stores as the testing ground for a new globally unified store format developed over 14 years in partnership with Australian design firm Landini Associates.

With trials already underway in Aventura, Florida, and further US rollout planned through 2026.

Landini Associates.

Ben?

Yes, for those wondering, I'm sad to say has no affiliation with the fictional law firm Bandini, Lambert and Locke from the wonderful Tom Cruise film the Firm.

Thank you very much.

Anyway, according to Chainsaw Age, the new design is built on a modular adaptable framework, meaning it can be scaled and reconfigured across different store sizes and and building types.

The format is designed to create breeder greater.

Greater some would say, some who could speak English would say greater brand consistency across all five of Aldi South's global territories.

The news also comes.

This is important as Aldi is in the middle of an enormous 2026 expansion push.

The company plans to open more than 180 new stores this year, convert close to 80 former Southeastern groceries locations to the Aldi format, and reach nearly 2800 total US stores by year end.

On its way on its way to a target of 3200 in just two years.

By 2028.

Oh, man.

In 2025 alone, 17 million new customers visited Aldi for the very first time.

17 Million.

Ben, first question.

I've got two questions for you to close us out.

Go for it.

Do you think Aldi gets enough credit in the US for being the grocer that it is?

And second, how scared should US Grocers get, and even global grocers, for that matter, be with this news?

Wow.

That's.

Okay.

Wow.

Okay, big question.

Aldi is a phenomenal business and the Aldi subdivision is the most exciting, the most dynamic divisions.

It is years ahead of the Aldi Nord business.

Low price, strong quality, amazingly cash generative as a business model.

Very long term in its strategic thinking.

So I guess it's a very long way of saying if people don't recognize this and haven't given them credit by now, they're in for an increasingly rude awakening.

Right?

Yeah.

So let me give you an example here in the UK in London, Aldi opened its very first store in April 1990.

Okay.

So not that long ago, he says, sounding old, it's now grown to be one in one of the most competitive grocery markets in the world.

It's got over 10% market share, it's got over a thousand stores and it's on track at the moment to probably take over the number three position.

So it looks like it's in the short term, in the medium term, it's going to displace asda.

So ASDA for those who remember was Walmart subsidiary here in the UK and it's going to replace that as the number three.

Look, the US store growth is equally, equally striking.

So underestimate at your peril.

Super strong business.

This particular story look really interesting.

A couple of things, Landini, look, they are a globally renowned design organization.

They're innovative.

They've worked for ALI for a long time.

They've had a really long association with McDonald's.

So like all the concept McDonald's stores around the world are stores that they've created.

Interesting.

If anybody's been, if any of the listeners have been to the McDonald's in Sydney Airport, which is incredible.

It's a multi story.

It's got this incredible machine that takes food cooked from downstairs to downstairs.

It's like an elevator.

It's beautiful.

They designed it.

They designed it.

So they get formats and modularity then that's what you're telling me.

Yeah, and I think that, and I know when we were chatting about this earlier, so I'm not going to steal your thunder, the modularity element of this, that's the big, that's, that's the, that's the bit to listen out for.

But I'm going to let you cover that.

We'll talk about that more.

Well, I think I 100% agree with everything you said.

The point that you unlock for me in a more palpable way than I thought about before I came into this podcast, which is why I love doing this podcast, is when you told me they have a thousand stores in the UK and they're still only targeting like 3200 in the States.

It still seems like there's room to grow.

Oh yeah, even you agree.

Even more so.

Yeah.

And that's why modularity is going to be so important because it's 100% aligned strategically to where the growth has to come from, and that is through the acquisition of existing grocers regionally whose footprints aren't of the prototype design of a typical Aldi box.

You got it.

And I know that's true.

And here's how I know that's true.

The part I'll bring to the table here is I had the chance to interview all these VP of Real Estate Dan Gavin at a conference a couple years ago and he basically told us that was the fact like that was the problem with all these acquisitions that they made, is that they had to think about this because the box wasn't going to work the way it was.

And so if there is that room to grow, which it's got to, there's got to be, you know, this is the way to do it.

Now, the big question, though, like you said with Instagram, we don't know how much they paid, we don't know if it works, you know, we don't know that this new format is working, you know, or that it's going to continue to work.

You got to think that there's a high probability that it's going to, given all these track record.

Yeah, I think you would too.

It's been, it's based on the Aldi Sud concept stores in Australia, which are really good stores.

I think the Aldi have traditionally a cookie cutter approach and that's, that's what drives the synergies.

So this modular idea that is we can put the Aldi footprint into more varied real estate, is fascinating.

And the final thing, look, it's got me thinking about this.

There has been rumor and speculation for months now that Aldi Sud and Aldi Nord might finally come together.

Oh, wow.

So look, very, very quick, for people who are not familiar to the story, Aldi was created by the Aldbrecht brothers.

The elder brothers fell out.

One brother took the north, one brother took the south.

So mostly non overlapping territories.

Right.

This is a business that if you put the two bits together, the buying scale alone, so the fact that they're building this in a modular basis, it could be about small acquisitions, but it could also be about how do we take the best performing concept in the whole group and help put it into more stores.

Set that up for success too, right?

Yeah.

If I had a pound for every time Aldi Nord and Aldi Sud were going to come together as being rumored.

Yeah.

I wouldn't need to be doing this with you today, sir, despite how great it is.

But genuinely, I think there's been more talk now than there has Been for quite some time on that.

Yeah.

But the interesting thing about this, though, if you step back from it, is modularity does not generally go hand in hand with scale.

You know, so there is something that you are trying to inherently crack the code on.

If you're going to use this in the way that you're.

That we're hypothesizing.

That we're hypothesizing.

Absolutely.

All right, let's go to the lightning round.

Ben, A tattoo artist inked a portrait of Danny DeVito on his.

Or her.

It doesn't say.

On a client's big toe.

Danny DeVito on your big toe.

Ben.

Ben, do you have any tattoos?

And if not, and you were ever to get one, what would you get?

I have literally no idea how we've gone from Aldi's corporate structure to Danny DeVito.

Tatis.

No, Chris, I did not.

You did not.

I did think you did, which is why I asked you the second part.

And I think my window for Tatisse, who's looking good, is probably closed.

Yeah, right, right, right.

Yeah.

The saggy arms and everything.

Right.

Thank you.

Right, moving on.

Chris, earlier this week, it was announced that after 15 years in Roel and having added a cool 3 1/2 trillion dollars.

That's trillion with a T. To its market capitalization, Tim Cook is going to step down as Apple CEO.

Chris, what is the one Apple product you could not live without?

It's gotta be my phone, right?

It's gotta be your phone, too, right?

It's gotta be the iPhone.

Yeah.

Although I couldn't even go off a MacBook now, either.

I don't think, you know, if I had to.

And I couldn't probably surrender my AirPods either.

Yeah.

Oh, really?

See, I'm not a big.

I'm not a big AirPod guy.

I love my AirPods.

Yeah.

Really?

Okay.

All right, all right, all right, next one.

Eddie Murphy received a lifetime achievement award by the American Film Institute last week.

Ben.

Ben, what is your Mount Rushmore of Eddie Murphy movies?

And if you don't know what Mount Rushmore is, Ben, it's the big statue of four presidents in South Dakota.

So four favorite Eddie Murphy movies.

Yes.

Thank you very much, Chris.

I do know what Matt Murshima is one.

It's got to be.

I'm going to go right back.

Beverly Hills Cop.

Yes.

But the original.

Got to be the original.

Okay.

Eddie Murphy, Axel as Axel Foley.

Brilliant.

Okay, just.

That's just one.

Yeah, that's just one.

Just give me one.

All right, well, look, when you've got something that high, you don't need to go out anywhere.

Okay.

All right.

It's just one marble.

Eddie Murphy.

Axel fully stands above everyone.

Single person.

I don't even know if it's marble.

I don't know what Mount Rushmore.

It's granite, I think.

But anyway.

All right.

All right.

Gone.

Chris.

So I understand the next stop in the Walton world Tour is.

Is Berlin.

Yes, it is.

World tour.

That's great.

Yes.

What is your favorite German food?

Oh, man.

Oh, my God.

I like a good schnitzel.

Nice.

I do.

I do a good schnitzel.

Yeah.

I'm actually looking forward to getting some schnitzel.

And does beer count as a food?

Because I like the beer gardens over there.

The big ones are very good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Food and drink, I guess.

Very good.

All right.

All right.

Today's podcast was produced with the help and support, of course, of our great producer, Ella Seward.

Ella couldn't be with us today because we're on location.

She's in a completely different time zone.

But, you know, we couldn't do this without her, and we want to thank her for her help in producing this podcast at the end of the day and in time for you all to enjoy.

Happy birthday today to Amber Heard Jack Nicholson, and to Lance Gabriel, guess his love interest in the last starfighter, the great Catherine Mary Stewart.

Ben.

And remember, if you can only read or listen to one retail blog in the business, make it Omnitalk.

Our Fast five podcast is the quickest, fastest rundown of all the week's top news.

And our daily newsletter, the Retail Daily Minute, tells you all you need to know each day to stay on top of your game as a retail executive and also regularly feature special content that is exclusive to us and that we all take a ton of pride in doing just for you.

Thanks as always for listening in.

Please remember to like and leave us a review.

Wherever you happen to listen to your podcast or on YouTube, you can follow us today by simply going to YouTube.com omnitalkretail Ben, before we let you go, if people want to join you in Barcelona for Shop Talk Europe in June, what's the best way for them to do that?

Great.

So europe.shoptalk.com takes you directly to our European webpage or just hit shoptalk.com and select Shoptalk Europe.

It's nice.

We've got seven weeks till show, so all of the ticket types are currently open.

And for retailers and brands, the application process for our hosted program, which is the free tickets and support with travel expenses that closes in the middle to end of May, so you've absolutely got time to do that.

But it's better to get your application in sooner rather than later.

And just.

Okay, one final.

This is like a little.

If you stuck around to the end,.

If you got here, it's still inside Baseball.

If you're coming to Barcelona, and I hope you join us, we're in the same venue.

Okay.

Yep.

So the Fira Grand Via.

Beautiful venue.

Beautiful Barcelona.

We're in a different bit.

We've grown.

So we're in a different bit of the building.

Okay.

Which means a different entrance.

Okay.

Yeah.

So in your joining instructions, it will tell you how to get to the entrance.

Don't go to where you usually do on autopilot.

Oh, no.

Or you'll have the big sign saying, please go around the corner.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

I was at the hotel directly across from that entrance, Ben.

Oh, no.

But, hey, hey, I'll adjust.

Because that's what we do here at Omniton.

We adjust.

We work on the fly and we improv, and we have fun doing this show every week.

Thanks for joining me, Ben.

Absolute pleasure.

Always a pleasure.

Always a pleasure having you.

Can't wait to have you back.

And until next week, on behalf of all of us at Omnitok, on behalf of Ben, the Shop Talk team, everyone, producer Ella, as always, be careful out there.