When shoppers know what they want
A Banquet case study in distribution-led growth at Walmart
With Scintilla, we were able to develop an assortment recommendation that supports different customer needs and drives growth for the category.
Conagra Brands faced a challenge when expanding distribution for one Banquet product line appeared to be negatively affecting sales of another. The team turned to Scintilla to better understand why this shift was taking place and ended up uncovering ways to drive growth across Walmart's frozen single-serve meals category.
The opportunity: Balancing assortment to protect category sales
In Walmart's frozen food aisles, single-serve meals are big business, accounting for more than 40% of Frozen Meals sales—with Banquet from Conagra Brands leading the category in unit sales.
But a shift in shelf space presented a challenge. Banquet Dinners, the brand's value-oriented platform, had gained distribution, while Banquet MEGA, known for larger portions and bolder flavors, had lost space.
On the surface, expanding one platform at the expense of another might seem like a reasonable trade-off. After all, both belong to the same brand. But the shift was affecting more than Banquet's performance. It was also creating challenges for the broader single-serve meals category.
Conagra needed to find out if Walmart shoppers would switch between Banquet products when their preferred meal wasn’t available, or if reducing the assortment meant losing sales altogether.
The approach: Connecting shopper insights with shelf performance
The team started with Customer Perception to understand how frozen single-serve meal shoppers make purchasing decisions.
The results revealed a highly intentional customer:
- 75% know what they want before entering the store.
- More than 50% have a preferred brand in mind.
- Nearly 50% will abandon the category if their planned purchase is unavailable.
These findings challenged the assumption that shoppers would readily substitute another frozen meal. If their preferred product wasn't on the shelf, many might skip the category altogether.
Conagra used Shopper Behavior to find out that Banquet Dinners and MEGA appealed to distinct customer groups with limited crossover. Dinners appealed to older, price-sensitive shoppers, while MEGA attracted younger, more upmarket customers seeking larger portions and bolder flavors. Reducing MEGA distribution risked losing purchases rather than shifting them to Dinners.
Measuring the impact of distribution changes
To understand the business implications, Conagra analyzed post-mod sales performance across stores with different distribution changes. Expanding Banquet Dinners clearly benefited the category. Across all stores, single-serve meals unit run rates improved by approximately 1.8 points, while stores that expanded Dinners saw improvements exceeding 3 points. Stores that reduced Dinners distribution experienced declines.
However, MEGA told a different story. Most of its assortment ranked in the top two performance quartiles for single-serve meals, meaning the products losing shelf space were productive items rather than underperformers. Unit losses associated with MEGA distribution reductions outweighed gains in stores where its distribution expanded.
The findings confirmed that both platforms played complementary roles in the category. Conagra used these insights to develop store- and item-level assortment recommendations that maintained the strength of Dinners sales while restoring MEGA distribution, helping Walmart retain planned purchases, reach distinct customer groups, and drive category growth.
The results: A stronger assortment fuels sales
Conagra's analysis helped secure increased distribution for both Banquet Dinners and Banquet MEGA, with the overall brand achieving double-digit distribution growth. Following the assortment changes, the total single-serve meals category saw a 10-point improvement in unit run rates, while Banquet achieved a 12-point improvement.
By combining insights from Customer Perception and Shopper Behavior, Conagra transformed what initially appeared to be an internal brand trade-off into a broader category growth opportunity. This demonstrated how understanding the customers behind each product can lead to smarter assortment decisions that benefit brands, retailers, and shoppers alike.
