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Performance Food Group: Winning The Content Quality Game With Excellence & Perseverance

READ TIME: 4 MINUTES
November 10, 2020

The spread of COVID-19, with its lockdowns and stimulus payments, has shaped consumer behavior significantly in 2020. With every state and region in varying phases of closing, and reopening, the idea of eCommerce is brought sharply into focus.

Performance Food Group (PFG) is a leading distributor for foodservice clients, working to ensure their recipient clients have the tools and resources they need to deliver positive operating experiences.

We all know that Data Quality continues to have an even greater importance today, with supply chain and eCommerce teams needing to get it right,”

SAID BRAD BEST, VP, ENTERPRISE DATA & PROCESS AUTOMATION.

“Even before the pandemic situation there was a sense of urgency around data quality, and now there is a sense of heightened urgency that we know recipients are trying to drive with their vendor community.”

The PFG team, along with executives from Syndigo and GS1 held a webinar recently to share how PFG is thinking about eCommerce, and specifically the importance of clean and consistent content to drive it all.

At the end of last year, PFG expanded its scope through the acquisition of Reinhart. This makes PFG one of the largest food distributors in the US. With Reinhart becoming an important part of PFG’s Foodservice segment, there are many opportunities for the organization to share and learn its best practices, as well as network efficiency gains and an expanded presence.

With such a broad scope and organization, PFG realized that there were many inconsistent workstreams where different teams were using different sources of information. This led to multiple internal groups working against different business issues. This obviously adds to systemic cost. According to AT Kearney, companies invest an average of 25 minutes per item per year manually cleansing out-of-sync item information – which can lead to operational costs in the millions of dollars for manually cleaning data.

To help its customers PFG implemented an online solution with Syndigo’s help, that allows PFG to collect item information electronically. “We’re very passionate about product content and how it helps us win in the market,” said Best. “Internally we know products sell when they have complete sets of data…and (Core content) are table stakes but it’s not enough.”

Syndigo echoed the need for accurate information to drive a better online experience. In surveying a segment of their clients, Syndigo highlighted these insights around eCommerce trends impacting business decisions in today’s continually changing environment.

The survey noted that 74% of consumers said they were trying to recreate in-store shopping experiences online, and an analysis of online data in recent months showed as much as a 400% increase in visitors who engaged with Enhanced Content.

Our clients have seen a average lift of 90% increase on average in conversions, when shoppers engage with Syndigo’s Enhanced Content,”

COMMENTED CHRIS BARNES, SYNDIGO SVP, SOLUTIONS DELIVERY.

As the curtain closes on 2020, the PFG team is focused on delivering complete product information and engaging consumer experiences, as everyone’s content game has risen to become “the new norm” in their industry.

By understanding the huge impact that complete and engaging content has on the foodservice space, PFG is in the center of an exciting eCommerce and product content space, and they are looking for their brand partners to join them!

Whether it’s sharing best practices with clients on managing through today’s challenges or ensuring that product information is accurate and complete for their recipients, PFG is looking to deliver the best eCommerce experience.

Syndigo helps our vendor partners be sure that their product information is delivered to distributors like PFG in proper formats to ensure the best content experience. Syndigo can help you learn more about complying with GDSN standards. To get started working with PFG, please contact us.

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