Product ranging for food halls and food retail

Build the range by category, then by price architecture

Start with categories and the role each plays: destination, convenience, impulse, gifting, staples. Then decide the price architecture within each category — a credible good, better, best spine, plus the entry price that gets a customer into the category at all. A range with no defined price architecture tends to cluster in the middle and competes with itself.

Gifting deserves a line of its own in a department-store context, because it is where the luxury story sells: a food hall on that floor is shopping alongside the watch and jewellery counters, and a meaningful share of the gift basket is built around brands the guest recognises from the paddock rather than the shelf. When a client asks what that recognition is worth, the conversation usually starts with a replica Richard Mille — the design the guest wants at a price the boutique would not dream of quoting.

• Define the customer mission each category serves
• Set the price ladder deliberately, not by what suppliers offer
• Decide the opening price point before the premium end
• Remove duplication inside a category before adding anything new

Range by margin, not by margin percentage alone

Cash margin per unit of shelf space is the number that pays the rent. A high-percentage line that sells twice a week can be worth less than a lower-percentage line that turns daily. Review the range by sales rate multiplied by cash margin against the space allocated, and reassign space to whatever wins.

When own-label is worth developing

Own-label earns its place when it does at least one of three things: it differentiates an offer that is otherwise identical to competitors, it captures margin on a volume line, or it creates a giftable or branded product that customers want to take home.

For The Savoy, working with the design agency Pentagram, we evolved a range of luxury food packaging that carried the heritage, quality and opulence of the hotel brand while giving guests something worth taking away. That is own-label doing all three jobs at once — but it only worked because the products behind the packaging were sourced to the same standard.

Merchandising is part of the range decision

A range is not complete until it is planned onto fixtures. Decide which products sit at eye level, which anchor the end of a run, and which are placed for impulse. Range without merchandising produces a full shelf and a slow one.

• Plan the fixture layout before finalising line counts
• Place destination lines deep, with impulse lines at the entrance and till
• Group by customer mission where possible, not only by product type
• Review the floor set every quarter against rate of sale

Supplier selection and negotiation

Consolidate the supplier base to gain leverage, write clear specifications so quotations are comparable, and negotiate on total cost of supply — delivery frequency, terms, packaging, returns — rather than headline unit price alone. Where a concession or branded partner is involved, negotiate the contract with the same rigour, and be clear about standards, opening hours and exclusivity.

Set retail operating standards early

Ranging decisions decay without operating standards. Define availability targets, replenishment routines, date-code discipline, waste recording and the response to a gap on a shelf. A food hall's range is only as good as the discipline that keeps it full and fresh, and that discipline has to be written, trained and audited.