Supporting the Monumental Private Brands Restage for Safeway

Background

Since its inception, BLUE has helped companies become more agile by providing a product labeling solution that reduces errors in the labeling process and speeds products to market. Significantly reducing the risk of recall and lawsuits from labeling inaccuracies and typos is exceedingly important. That said, there’s a difference between a software solution that keeps a number of projects running smoothly and one that’s called upon to help execute the quick redesign of 7,500 Stock Keeping Units (SKUs).

Such was the case when Safeway decided to execute a complete re-stage of their private label brand portfolio, mounting the largest and most agile private brand re-stage in North America.

The Challenge

Private label brands represented $6.8 billion of Safeway’s $40 billion annual sales revenue. This consisted of 4,500 U.S. and 3,000 Canadian SKUs involving an enormous number of design and production files that needed to be successfully and efficiently changed to minimize costs. Not only that, but with Safeway’s private label brands representing such a large percentage of their bottom line, this process had to be accomplished as fast as possible. 

The Solution

Before Safeway engaged BLUE, they had been working with a manual process that was repeatable, but not designed to handle such a massive workload. They quickly realized they needed technology robust enough to bear the weight of their ambitions. What they needed was a centralized database for all their assets, and an automated workflow process combined with online proofing to achieve quick, thorough packaging changes.

By streamlining and digitizing Safeway’s processes and creating a database in which assets could be organized and located quickly, BLUE primed Safeway to hit the target of completing its private label re-stage in record time. Safeway was able to reimagine their private label portfolio and accomplish a $100 million repositioning initiative within their ambitious time frame.  

The Results

So what were the benefits of working with BLUE? Safeway was able to quickly capitalize on changing consumer expectations by successfully re-staging their private label brands. As a result, Private Label Magazine voted Safeway the “Store Brand Retailer of the Year.” Today Safeway (and now Albertson’s) uses BLUE to manage over 1500 suppliers, who work on their private label brands. By playing an integral role in the largest and most agile private brand re-stage in North America, BLUE demonstrated its capability as the leading brand lifecycle management system worldwide.