Thursday, November 05, 2026

Most owners do not lack ideas. They lack a weekly rhythm that turns a plan into action. A five-question check, who Making It Happen ($297) suits, who should skip it, and the real next step. Checked 5 November 2026.

Your sales team didn't lose that account. Your customer didn't switch to a cheaper brand down the aisle. They just started eating less — and there's a good chance nobody in your business has put that into a single planning meeting this year.

New data from McKinsey's State of Grocery North America 2026 report — based on a March 2026 survey of nearly 5,000 grocery shoppers and an April 2026 survey of more than 40 grocery executives across the US and Canada — puts a number on something FMCG and SME owners have been feeling without being able to name it: 16% of grocery shopping households now report someone in the home is currently using a GLP-1 medication (Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and similar), with another 7% reporting past use. Among households currently using these medications, 48% say they're buying smaller portions and 46% say they're buying fewer snacks and indulgent items.

That's not a marketing problem, a pricing problem, or a private label problem. It's a straight reduction in how much of your category actually gets eaten — and most ranges were built and priced for a market that's already shifted underneath them.

Why Your Range Planning Is Still Fighting the Wrong War

When sales go soft, most owners run the same three checks: pricing, competitors, marketing spend. All reasonable. All can miss the real story entirely.

Grocery's own decision-makers are already responding to what the data shows. According to McKinsey's State of Grocery North America 2026 report, close to 90% of grocery executives expect to expand high-protein shelf space over the next two to three years — not because protein is a passing trend, but because it's where a genuinely changed shopper is spending. Units per trip fell across nearly every retail channel in the 12 months to June 2026, and over half of shoppers report cutting back specifically on impulse purchases — the exact category most exposed to reduced appetite.

If your last range review didn't ask "has consumption itself changed," it wasn't a full review. It was a pricing exercise wearing a strategy hat.

The Appetite Audit: A Three-Step Range Check

Kevin runs this framework with every FMCG and SME client before a range or NPD decision goes to market:

1. Exposure Check. List every SKU and mark which sit in the categories most exposed to reduced consumption — snacks, large-format packs, indulgent or "treat" positioning. These are the lines most likely to be quietly losing volume for reasons that have nothing to do with your marketing.

2. Format Response. Test smaller pack sizes and portion formats against your current best-sellers. A shopper eating less isn't choosing to abandon your brand — they're choosing the format that matches how much they actually want now.

3. Category Reallocation. Shift a defined share of your NPD pipeline and shelf-space negotiation toward where consumption is genuinely growing: fresh, protein-forward, and wellness-adjacent lines. Don't wait for the retailer to tell you; bring the data to them first.

"Kevin has some amazing ideas around marketing, things we would have never thought of ourselves. He also helped us through the process of getting into supermarkets. He has gone above and beyond what he needed to!"

— Amy Nixon, Icehouse Coaching Programme

The Execution Gap

Most owners who see this data will nod, agree it's real, and change nothing for another two quarters. Not because they don't believe it — because there's no system forcing the question onto the agenda. Range reviews happen annually, GLP-1 usage keeps climbing month on month, and by the time it shows up as a clear sales trend, a competitor with a smaller-format or higher-protein alternative has already taken the shelf space.

The real obstacle usually isn't insight. It's sequencing: no owner has built "consumption shift" into their regular planning cadence, so it only gets attention once it's already cost them a quarter of flat or falling volume. That's exactly the kind of system gap coaching exists to close — not by telling you what to think, but by building the cadence that makes sure you ask the right question before the market answers it for you.

Quick Wins

Three things you can do this week, before a full range review:

  • Pull your last 12 months of unit sales by SKU and flag anything in a snack, indulgent, or large-format line that's down on units even where dollar sales held or grew.
  • Ask your top three retail buyers whether they're seeing category-level softness beyond your own brand — it tells you whether this is a you problem or a category problem.
  • Check your smallest current pack size against what a GLP-1-adjacent shopper would actually want. If your smallest format is still built for a bigger appetite, you're already behind.

Key Takeaways

  • 16% of grocery households now include a current GLP-1 medication user, with another 7% having used one previously, per McKinsey's State of Grocery North America 2026 report.
  • Among current users, 48% buy smaller portions and 46% buy fewer snack or indulgent items — a genuine consumption shift, not a pricing or loyalty issue.
  • Nearly 90% of grocery executives expect to expand high-protein shelf space over the next two to three years in direct response.
  • Run the Appetite Audit — exposure check, format response, category reallocation — before your next range or NPD decision.
  • Build consumption-shift review into your regular planning cadence, not just your annual range review.

If your range hasn't been stress-tested against this shift, that's the conversation worth having before your next planning cycle.

...and you become the owner who spots the shift in your range before the shelf does.

Tuesday, October 27, 2026

They nodded, asked great questions, said it's exactly what they need — then disappeared. Here's why warmth isn't a buying signal, and the three-message sequence that gets stalled deals talking again.

Tuesday, October 27, 2026

Most SME marketing describes the product and targets a demographic — and both miss why people actually buy. Here's the Jobs To Be Done framework, and how to find the job your business is really being hired to do.

Tuesday, October 27, 2026

Nearly half of businesses miss the target they set for themselves — and it's rarely because the team didn't try hard enough. Here's the three-number check that builds a 2027 target you can actually hit.

Monday, October 26, 2026

ActionCOACH, an EOS Implementer or an independent coach? A fair, source-linked guide for US owners, with a six-question test to match the help to your biggest constraint.

Monday, October 26, 2026

Gallup's 2026 global workplace data shows manager engagement is collapsing faster than everyone else's. Here's the research-backed 3-step fix for SME owners wearing the manager hat too.

Monday, October 26, 2026

Only about a third of seasonal businesses hold enough cash to cover their leanest months before the slow season hits. Here's the ten-minute reserve check before this year's peak trade.

Monday, October 26, 2026

A well-known coaching ROI study found a $7.90 return per $1 spent. Here's an honest look at where that number comes from, and what actually transfers to an SME owner.

Monday, October 26, 2026

Only around 20% of companies complete 80% of their strategic goals, and fewer than half of employees know what's expected of them. Here's how OKRs fix that at SME scale.

Monday, October 26, 2026

Bain research shows winning a new customer can cost up to 25 times more than keeping one you already have. Here's the CLV/CAC discipline that flips where your sales effort goes.

Monday, October 26, 2026

A 2026 Gartner survey found SMEs put just 12% of marketing spend into brand-building, against the 60% long-term research recommends. Here's what that costs you eighteen months from now.

Monday, October 26, 2026

Fewer than 5% of employees understand their company's strategy well enough to act on it. Here's the one-page scorecard that fixes it, reviewed in 15 minutes a week.

Sunday, October 25, 2026

Help to Grow: Management, a peer group like Vistage, or a business coach? An honest UK comparison, with best for and not ideal if for every option.

Sunday, October 25, 2026

Free and low-cost mentoring suits some NZ owners; paid coaching suits others. Here is how to tell which fits your stage, your problem and your budget.

Sunday, October 25, 2026

Most SME owners know their follower count, not where their last ten paying customers actually came from. Here is the 2026 data on what really drives growth.

Sunday, October 25, 2026

ANZ's September 2026 survey shows NZ business confidence easing again. Here's the trap that data creates for SME owners, and how growth-minded owners should read it instead.