Breaking Bread Boundaries
How Bimbo Canada is reducing waste and focusing on a more sustainable future.
Sklar Wilton’s strategic leadership and consumer research expertise provided actionable insights and recommendations that have enabled us to build sustainability actions that are meaningful to the consumer. We can only be a trusted leader in the sustainability space for years to come if we are addressing the issues our consumers care about … the work done by Sklar Wilton will help us achieve that.”
– Teresa Schoonings, Senior Director, Sustainability, Bimbo Canada
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Situation
Bimbo Canada is a leader in packaged bread and snacking products with category-leading brands such as Dempster’s, Villaggio, Stonemill, POM, Bon Matin, Vachon and more.
Recognizing the responsibility to corporate sustainability efforts, and concerned about the impact of food waste in Canada, Bimbo Canada turned to their long-time trusted partners at Sklar Wilton & Associates to gain a deeper, current understanding of consumers’ concerns, behaviours, and attitudes towards sustainability and food waste to create action plans to address these issues.
Process
Sklar Wilton & Associates partnered with Bimbo Canada to scope their business needs, design the appropriate study, uncover meaningful insights, and build a strategic recommendation to gain clarity and help them take action. The study centered around consumers’ sustainability behaviours and attitudes towards bread, with a focus on food waste. We also explored current brand perceptions and impacts on purchase decisions based on sustainability measures to better understand how Bimbo Canada brands were perceived versus competitive brands.
Insights
Our research confirmed that consumers have very strong feelings about sustainability and food waste, which impacts their purchase decisions. Most consumers feel guilty about wasting bread, but are more concerned that packaging is a greater environmental issue. We also uncovered surprising differences in how specific regional and age sub-groups view environmental and food waste issues and take action in different ways.
Impact
By identifying the specific drivers that influence consumers, Sklar Wilton was able to help Bimbo Canada gain clarity on which areas mattered most and focus on the highest impact initiatives. The research findings helped them identify important regional and age sub-group differences to drive targeted short, medium, and long-term strategic planning. These strategies will improve Bimbo Canada’s sustainability and food waste efforts, while also raising the odds of successful in-market impact.