What International Food Brands Need to Understand About Winning in Australian Grocery

Recently, I was invited to speak to a United States Department of Agriculture delegation in Australia about what it takes for international food brands to succeed in the Australian grocery market.

It was a significant room: state agriculture commissioners and senior representatives from 11 U.S. states, alongside trade organisations, industry leaders and food businesses looking at Australia as a growth market.

My brief was very practical. Once an international brand gets ranged in Australia, what happens next? What will retailers expect of them? What actually works? What isn't worth pursuing? Where should they invest? How far ahead do they need to plan? And how do they turn that initial supermarket listing into lasting sales and a strong retailer relationship?

It reinforced something I've seen repeatedly over nearly three decades working with brands in Australia.

Getting ranged creates the opportunity. Keeping the product moving creates the business.

Australia is not simply a smaller version of America

For an international brand, one of the first things to understand is just how concentrated Australian grocery is. Coles and Woolworths together account for approximately 67% of national supermarket retail sales. That fundamentally changes the dynamics of the market.

In a large, fragmented market, there may be multiple channels, retailers and regions through which a brand can build scale or recover if something isn't working. Australia gives you fewer major doors to get through, and fewer places to hide once you're through them.

So getting ranged by one of the major supermarkets is a huge achievement. But it is not the finish line. It is the starting point.

Once you're on the shelf, the conversation changes

Before ranging, the conversation is about the opportunity. Once you are ranged, it becomes about performance. Is the product moving? Is it staying in stock? Are you supporting the launch properly? Are you working with the promotional calendar? Do you understand the high and low periods in the category? And, importantly, do you know your numbers?

The retailer has given your product space. That space now needs to earn its place. Which brings us to one of the most important measures in grocery: velocity.

How many units are you selling, per store, per week? Strong velocity builds confidence and creates a very different conversation with the retailer. Weak velocity creates questions. This is where international brands need to understand that Australian grocery has no real set-and-forget function. Every part of the business can affect what happens at the shelf.

Don't start with an activity. Start with the blockage.

One of the most common mistakes I see is brands reacting to a sales problem by immediately buying an activity. Sales are down, so let's discount. Let's run some ads. Let's change the creative. Let's put the product on promotion.

But none of those things necessarily answer the most important question: what is actually stopping the product from moving?

I tend to look at the business through six connected areas — price, promotion, position, stock, timing and demand. Think of them as parts of one machine.

• Is the price inconsistent with what shoppers expect from the category?
• Are promotions failing to cut through?
• Has the product become difficult to find?
• Are there stock or distribution problems in particular stores?
• Are you promoting at the wrong time?
• Or is the underlying issue simply that there isn't enough consumer demand?

The objective is not to continually rebuild the machine. It is to diagnose it, fix what needs fixing, watch what happens and back what works. Each product almost needs to be treated as its own microbusiness.

A great example: Jarlsberg

One of the examples I discussed with the USDA delegation was Jarlsberg. The premium imported cheese was dealing with declining sales and at-shelf visibility issues. The challenge was to attract new customers while also re-engaging people who already knew the brand.

Rather than treating it simply as a price problem, the activation addressed several parts of the machine at once. The brand used in-store sampling and 'try before you buy' messaging, recipe inspiration across deli screens, point-of-sale assets and digital retail media across the Woolworths ecosystem. In other words: position, promotion, demand.

The result, as reported by Cartology, was:

• 54% retail sales-volume growth year on year
• 32% new-to-brand customers
• 29% repeat customers

There is an important lesson in that. If the brand had automatically assumed price was the issue and simply discounted harder, it may have spent more money without fixing the actual problem. Instead, it found the blockage. Then it concentrated its investment there.

You have to understand where the buying decision happens

Another important conversation with international brands is around the shopper journey. We often think about a supermarket purchase as one event. It isn't. There are multiple moments where a brand can influence the decision: out of store, front of store, in aisle and at shelf.

Out of store, you are building familiarity and getting onto the consideration list. At the front of store, there is still an opportunity to influence what the shopper is thinking about. In the aisle, the category becomes much more immediate. And at the shelf, the actual choice is made.

This matters because most grocery shoppers are creatures of habit. They know the brands they buy. They recognise the pack. They reach for what they reached for last week. So growth often requires finding a way to interrupt that habit at the right moment — through retail media, retailer search, front-of-store screens, in-store audio, sampling, point-of-sale or activity immediately around the store.

This is also why retailer media ecosystems have become so important. They can connect brands with shoppers across digital and physical moments much closer to purchase. Recent Cartology research, for example, points to stronger results when campaigns connect multiple stages of the shopping journey rather than operating individual channels in isolation.

The right money in the wrong week is still wasted money

Timing is an area international businesses can underestimate. Australian supermarkets work well ahead. Promotions need to be planned. Stock needs to be committed. Retail media needs to be booked. Seasonal periods matter. Category reviews arrive whether the brand is prepared for them or not.

So part of running the machine properly is knowing when not to spend. There will be periods when shoppers are naturally coming into your category and you want to maximise velocity. There will be seasonal moments where you should increase activity. And there may be quieter periods where constantly discounting simply destroys margin without solving anything.

The right investment at the wrong time can still be wasted investment.

Strong performance changes the retailer conversation

There is another reason velocity matters. Performance gives a brand something to negotiate with. When a product is working, it can help open conversations around more distribution, more shelf space or stronger facings, range extensions, better promotional opportunities and, ultimately, a stronger retailer relationship.

That is when the listing starts becoming a business. The objective should not simply be to keep defending the space you already have. It should be to create evidence that gives both you and the retailer confidence to grow.

None of this works in silos

The final point I made to the delegation is one I feel particularly strongly about. Making this work requires several disciplines to operate as one connected team. You need strength in five areas: strategy, consumer, retailer, data and delivery.

The people building the strategy need to understand what is happening with the consumer. The consumer insight needs to connect with what is happening inside the retailer. The data needs to tell everyone what is working and what isn't. And the delivery team needs to make sure the work actually reaches stores, shelves and shoppers at the right time.

If those areas sit in separate divisions that barely communicate, the machine becomes very difficult to tune. When they work together, you can move quickly. You can diagnose. You can optimise. You can respond. And you can keep improving.

The opportunity is significant, but Australia requires a reframe

What struck me after speaking with the USDA delegation was not that international brands lack ambition for Australia. Quite the opposite. There is enormous interest in the market. But Australia needs to be approached on Australian terms.

It is concentrated. Retailer relationships matter enormously. The commercial calendar matters. Shopper behaviour matters. Velocity matters. And once a retailer gives you space, what you do with that opportunity becomes critical.

After nearly three decades working with brands in this market, the principle remains remarkably simple: getting ranged creates the opportunity, and keeping the product moving creates the business. For any international food brand serious about winning in Australian grocery, that is where the real work begins.