Driving category growth through R&D, stakeholder alignment and retail activation

Overview

Reservoir Partners partnered with Hort Innovation to review the Summerfruit category and translate R&D investment into practical, retail-led growth initiatives. The work moved beyond strategy, delivering two core programs: Usage & Attitudes (U&A) research, and retail training, education and engagement.

The Opportunity

The category lacked a clear understanding of consumer behaviour, alignment between industry and retail, and a structured approach to turning insight into in-store execution. There was a clear need to connect R&D investment with real-world retail outcomes.

Our Approach

Reservoir Partners led a structured review and implementation program. We defined where R&D investment should be focused, aligned industry stakeholders and secured engagement with senior buying teams at Woolworths, Coles and Aldi, and designed and delivered a national U&A research program with retailer input. We developed a retail training, education and engagement program to improve in-store execution, and embedded programs within retail environments to ensure participation and impact.

The Outcome

This program demonstrates how aligning R&D investment with retail execution can drive measurable growth and create a platform for sustained category development. Strong stakeholder alignment across industry and retail, direct engagement with senior supermarket buying teams, and a clear connection between insight, strategy and execution were the foundations of its success.