Dive Brief:
- Kroger earned the number eight spot in the Omni 50, an annual ranking of America’s top providers of products and services to women and multicultural shoppers, according to a company statement. Wal-Mart, meanwhile, placed second.
- Published by Omnikal, a consulting and networking firm focused on inclusive business, the ranking is based on a survey distributed to more than 2 million business owners.
- According to Omnikal, the list gets distributed to more than a thousand organizations, who in turn circulate it to millions of members, workers and consumers.
Dive Insight:
Diversity isn’t just a box that supermarket leaders need to check off. It’s a value that informs how effectively they’re able to reach the many different customers they serve.
A white paper from the Food Marketing Institute a few years back spelled it out pretty effectively. Rather than just a “do-gooder” practice, the paper stated, diversity is now “a sustainable business practice, a competitive advantage and a necessary means of increasing market share.”
Retailers like Kroger and Wal-Mart want to reach as many shoppers as possible, and their increasingly data-driven approach helps them see the full spectrum of individuals who are entering, or could potentially enter, their stores. As a business principle alone, diversity in products, in staffing and operations is something supermarkets take very seriously.
But these efforts aren't always visible to their customers. Indeed, a ranking like this allows Kroger and Wal-Mart the opportunity to do more than just say they value diversity. It gives them something tangible to prove this value to shoppers.
