This is where we share reflections on the future of Fresh — what’s working, what isn’t, and how clarity, shopper truth, and real-world insight can help the industry grow. Fresh deserves better. This is where we explore how to get there.
I get it already…
Eric Le Blanc, January 8, 2026
I got back from a meeting and my son was watching The Battle of the Five Armies. I made myself a sandwich and sat with him, as I had never seen the movie before. He was just at the beginning of the battle scene of the five armies.
Forty-five minutes later we were still in the battle scene and I can’t remember the last time I was so bored and exhausted watching a movie. Every minute was filled with technical brilliance and the undisputed artistry of Peter Jackson. And I couldn’t wait for it to be over.
Stick with me while my brain makes a lateral jump.
I started thinking of a dinner I had at a very fine restaurant with one of my favorite chefs. I used to work in fine dining and spent a lot of time with chefs and it was always an educational experience dining with one.
We had ordered several entrees because we wanted to get a sense for what this restaurant had to offer. The food was well crafted, presented superbly, and just flat-out delicious. But my chef friend’s comment was interesting. He tried two bites of one of the entrees and then said something like, “This is delicious, but after two bites I get it. What else you got for me?”
I never thought of eating like that. If it’s delicious, stack it high and watch it fly, right?
But my chef was teaching me something that it has taken me a long time to learn. Humans are passionate about experience and process that experience through stories. My chef friend ate two bites, acknowledged the craft excellence, and was ready for the story to continue. He didn’t need or want 10 ounces of entree once he understood that part of the story. He was ready for the next scene, the contrast, the change of focus that makes a story interesting.
Peter Jackson can stage a battle like no one’s business. Acknowledged and saluted. But 45 minutes was too long to spend in that space. The viewer says, “I get it. Great work. What else you got for me?”
It made me think about humans and how we process information. That’s why champions of data storytelling have come forward to help us understand how to tell stories differently. Brent Dykes is a personal favorite, but there are many excellent champions of data storytelling.
But here’s the point: data storytelling is only part of it. The greatest advocates for it understand the power of story, but the principles of storytelling extend, it would seem, to a very wide array of disciplines.
See, whenever we have something someone (client, buyer, retailer, consumer) needs to know, we are telling a story. Point number one: we have to maintain our audiences receptivity if they are ever going to receive the mission. That means understanding pace, contrast, tension, release, and surprise. Does that sound artsy fartsy? Because it’s not. It’s the way humans process.
I don’t care how good you are at battle scenes. Get over yourself and get on with the story. I don’t care how good the food is, if you really want my attention, keep the story going. No one cares about your charts or your trends once they are bored with your story. Your brilliance may not be up for debate, but the old saying goes that the mind cannot absorb what the butt cannot endure.
As analysts, it is so easy to get excited about our own work—and it may be brilliant. But that brilliance is only relevant when we find ways to engage the audience, raise their receptivity, and capture their interest.
That’s data storytelling. But it really comes down to this: if something is worth doing, it’s worth telling someone about it. That’s the only way value compounds. But sending the message isn’t the point. What matters is that the audience receives the message. And whether or not the audience receives the message has much more to do with how we process story than with how brilliant our analysis is.
Seasonal Clarity
Eric Le Blanc, December 18, 2026
This is a good time of year to be with friends and family—and to celebrate whatever it is you celebrate.
Many of us step a little away from work at the end of the year. Even when we do, work has a way of following us. But when the urgency and constant fire-fighting recede, we often find space to think about things that busyness usually obscures.
Stephen Covey used to talk about the difference between efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency, he said, is climbing the ladder fast. Effectiveness is knowing whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall. A little breathing room from the daily grind gives us the chance to ask that quieter, harder question.
It’s a good moment to reflect on how we’re using our limited resources of time and money. Our goals may not have changed—but perhaps there are better, more thoughtful ways to pursue them.
As the year draws to a close, I hope you find time to savor what’s going right, to reflect on what you’d like to approach differently, and to make space for clarity. I’m not one for bold proclamations—but a quiet resolve to make life better for yourself and those around you feels like a very good place to begin.
Wishing you peace and joy this season—and the gift of clarity in the year ahead.
“Fresh Deserves Better Than a Rear-View Mirror”
Eric Le Blanc, December 10, 2025
Why do we think staring in the rear-view mirror will help us get where we want to go?
In Fresh Deserves Better, we talk about both the necessity and the limitations of syndicated sales data.
Necessary—because it tells us what sold, where, and at what blended price.
Limited—because that’s all it tells us.
Syndicated data is a scoreboard. You need it.
But you cannot run a business solely by watching the scoreboard.
- The Past Is Not a Strategy
Syndicated data only looks backward. And the past only predicts the future in a world with:
- no innovation
- no shifts in supply or weather
- no changes in distribution
- no retailer consolidation
- no assortment evolution
- no changing consumer values
We do not live in that world.
Behaving as if we do is a form of cognitive malpractice.
2. Information Isn’t Insight
Syndicated data can only answer what happened.
It is silent on why it happened.
It does not know:
- what shoppers noticed
- what they valued
- what they rejected
- what barriers they faced
- what activated trial
- what killed repurchase
If you can’t see the causal factors, you cannot form insight.
If you cannot form insight, you cannot shape strategy.
And this is where everything changes.
INSIGHT REQUIRES A WHOLE VIEW
Not a single dataset.
Not a dashboard.
Not a retrospective summary.
A whole view of what is actually driving outcomes in Fresh:
attitudes → behaviors → execution → availability → quality → conversion → repurchase.
You cannot see that with one tool.
You need a suite of tools.
Working together.
In the right order.
Interpreted with craft.
A Real-World Example (Anonymized)
A retailer—let’s call them Crazy Eric’s—was maintaining year-over-year sales for Adam’s Really Yummy Fruit (ARYF).
Standard data readout:
“Sales look fine. Nothing to fix.”
But that’s the wrong question.
The right question is:
“Is Crazy Eric’s selling as much ARYF as they should be?”
A fair-share analysis using syndicated data showed under-velocity.
Useful information—but not insight.
It could not tell us why.
And without understanding why, how do you create strategy?
This Is Where PI’s Holistic System Lights Up the Invisible
Using RetailerView, we broke the performance into the actual behavioral funnel:
- Awareness → strong
- Trial → strong
- Repurchase → weak
That funnel—an actual behavioral signal—not visible in syndicated data.
So what drives weak repurchase?
Two possibilities: quality or availability.
To isolate the cause, we moved into DemandView, which maps demand conversion store by store to identify where execution breaks down.
And there it was:
A cluster of stores mishandling the product post-delivery.
Quality degradation → poor repeat purchase → under-share.
The answer was invisible in the syndicated data.
But it was perfectly visible when seen through a comprehensive toolkit designed for Fresh.
This Is Why Perimeter Insights Exists
Not to re-package the past.
Not to summarize what anyone can see.
Not to pretend that retrospective sales alone can shape forward strategy.
But to uncover the WHY behind the WHAT.
To take a whole-view approach that explains:
- what’s really happening
- why it’s happening
- where it’s happening
- who needs to do what
- when they need to do it
- and what impact it will create
That is what our tools—RetailerView, DemandView, ExecutiveView, and our broader diagnostic and conversion frameworks—are built to do.
Syndicated sales data is a beginning, not a strategy.
Insight requires curiosity, a holistic system, and tools built to reveal what the eye cannot see.
If you’re only looking backward, you’re missing the map.
If you’re only looking at information, you’re missing the insight.
And if you’re only looking at what happened, you’ll never change what happens next.
“We’re Happy to be in the Chorus”
Eric Le Blanc, December 3, 2025
My mother used to say that whenever she bought a new car, it was something she hadn’t seen before, but once she bought it, she noticed they were everywhere. It might be because I am my mother’s son, but I have noticed the same thing.
When Adam and I started talking about what we wanted to build, we kept landing on a few themes: strategic alignment, ROI, usefulness, craft. We built Perimeter Insights around those themes. Three weeks ago we launched our company, and now I notice other voices raising the same issues.
Now, for a traditional marketer, finding your key messages in other companies might be a bad thing. One of the principal characteristics of a value proposition is that it should be OWNABLE—that is, unique. But, at least in this case, I don’t see it that way at all.
Other voices that deserve and command attention are singing songs from the same hymnal. That’s got nothing to do with us—they’re just speaking as they find. But I find it very interesting.
Interesting first in that this chorus we had not noted before has come to similar conclusions. It confirms to me that what we are seeing is being seen by people across a wider industry than Fresh. In just the past two weeks I have collected a number of LinkedIn posts from different individuals that tend in the same direction—pro forma implementation of data, or to put it another way, the way things are done today with regard to data and insights, is a stumbling block for providers and consumers of data alike. These voices continue to say, “There’s a better way.”
I find that reassuring because it tells me that what Adam and I felt is more than a contextual observation: it is a moment. A moment wanting to be a movement. No one OWNS the truth—but together we raise our voices to articulate that truth. We aren’t the only ones saying it: and we’re thankful we aren’t. Not because we wouldn’t say it alone, but because when we say it together it can make a positive difference in more lives.
So, everyone should start talking about these same themes, right? Well, no. Individuals and organizations should start LIVING these themes. Anyone can SAY them. In fact, as the chorus grows louder more companies will claim these same themes. But you can always tell a tree by its fruit.
Here’s a few links to posts that I’ve seen in the past two weeks that resonated with me. As a disclaimer, the fact that I applaud their thinking in no way implies that they would be similarly enamored of ours. For all I know, they may think we’ve got it wrong. But what they are saying deserves to be repeated.
“Why Fresh Deserves Better — and Why We Started With a Blank Page.”
Eric Le Blanc, November 19, 2025
When we first began imagining Perimeter Insights, Adam and I didn’t start with a business plan.
We didn’t start with a list of services.
And we certainly didn’t start by asking how to fit into the existing landscape of data and insights firms.
We started with a blank page.
After nearly three decades each in fresh foods, retail, consumer insights, and category leadership, we’d seen a lot—what works, what doesn’t, and what has simply gone unquestioned for too long. Fresh departments matter now more than ever, but the tools and practices that support them haven’t kept pace with the expectations placed on them.
Fresh deserves better. And we believed the best way to contribute something meaningful was to step back, take stock, and tell the truth about what we’ve learned.
That truth became the foundation of our new book, Fresh Deserves Better, and the foundation of Perimeter Insights.
The Insight Gap in Fresh
Fresh is the heartbeat of the modern grocery store. It’s where shoppers decide whether a retailer understands them. It’s where trust, perception, and loyalty are built—or lost. And yet, fresh is still hampered by:
- Inconsistent data that makes decision-making difficult
- A lack of clear shopper understanding
- Reports instead of insights
- Activity without ROI
- And a disconnect between what retailers need and what suppliers deliver
The result?
Fresh operates with less clarity, less confidence, and less consistency than any of us would accept in center store. And the industry knows it.
But acknowledging the problem is not enough. To solve it, we need a different way of thinking.
Starting From First Principles
On that blank page, we asked ourselves a few essential questions:
- What does the shopper truly need from fresh?
- What does the retailer need to serve that shopper well?
- What tools and insights does a supplier need to be indispensable?
- And how do we prove that the right insights lead to real business results—ROI, shopper satisfaction, and loyalty?
Our answer is simple but transformational:
Fresh succeeds when it’s built on shopper truth.
Shopper truth reveals what shoppers value, what they notice, what gets in their way, and what brings them back. When we start there, everything else gets clearer:
- Shopper truth becomes insight.
- Insight shapes strategy.
- Strategy, well executed, drives influence and action.
- And action delivers ROI that can be measured, defended, and repeated.
This is the framework at the heart of Perimeter Insights.
Why We Wrote Fresh Deserves Better
The book is not a manifesto. It’s not a complaint. It’s not a theory.
It’s a map.
A map of what’s broken in fresh, why it matters, and how to build something better—practical, grounded, and rooted in decades of lived experience.
We wrote it first for ourselves: to crystallize our own thinking and hold ourselves accountable to a higher standard.
We wrote it next for our clients and partners: retailers and suppliers who feel the pain points in fresh every day and want a better way forward.
And we wrote it for the industry at large: because we genuinely believe the future of the perimeter is bright—if we’re willing to start with truth.
Building Something Better, Together
Perimeter Insights was created with a simple conviction:
When we bring clarity, honesty, and strategy to fresh, everyone wins—shoppers, retailers, and suppliers alike.
We’re here to do more than analyze data.
We’re here to elevate the perimeter.
That begins with truth. It continues with insight. And it ends with measurable, meaningful impact for the businesses we serve.
Fresh deserves better. And we’re committed to helping build that future—one insight at a time.