Our partnership with Bob’s Red Mill started more than a decade ago. You know this household name — their consumer staple products are throughout the store: up and down the baking aisle and among snack bars, breakfast foods and other essentials for a well-stocked pantry.

They’ve successfully branched out into a wide variety of categories, well aware that placement is as important as the product.

“In grocery stores, it’s a game of space. Secondary placement with permanent racks is a very efficient way to grow SKU count and drive sales. It’s how we reach critical mass with customers.”

Sturdy, efficient display design

With their breadth of products and retail channels, a one-off presentation for each environment or new release would not make business sense. Bob’s Red Mill needs retail displays that give them flexibility from season to season and maximize their return by holding up over the long haul. And many of their SKUs are quite heavy, meaning sturdiness is not a tradeoff they can make.

Our most recent floor display development, like all our projects, is tailored to this unique business and channel strategy. They can rotate a wide variety of SKUs by rearranging the adjustable shelves and replacing the graphics to showcase the product line or meet a retailer’s specifications. The knockdown construction creates efficiency in palletizing and shipping, allows for easy in-store setup, and can still hold more than 400 pounds of product.

In short, strategic investment in displays for Bob’s Red Mill was not a matter of product focus — rather, a more nimble approach lets them adjust their retail presence based on timing, channel, or other dynamics in their business.

“When you’re dealing with staple products, you need a good ROI. Products from Platform are high-quality and a great value.”

Business integration

In the past, the Bob’s Red Mill team didn’t always have a clear plan for visual merchandising, how to budget for it or assess the ROI. Today, after seeing the impact on sales, they’re planning ahead with retail displays as part of the annual marketing budget and operations management. Each display has a dedicated space in their warehouse, where inventory is routinely turned and reordered.

“It’s part of the fabric of our business now. If it’s working, we find that everything is smooth, and it’s part of our process. That’s what’s important to us. I’m old school — it’s all about people. Platform checks two big boxes: excellent customer service and excellent value. The relationship is good, and we’re meeting our goals. What else is there?”