Easyfood: Turning in-store behaviour into category opportunities

How do you understand what really drives choice in the bread cabinets – one of retail’s most sensory and operationally complex categories.

Easyfood from Orkla Foods wanted a deeper understanding of how supermarket bread cabinets are experienced and used in real life. Not only what customers buy, but how they navigate the cabinet, what influences their choices, and where the operational barriers appear for store staff.

The project set out to uncover the role of the bread cabinet in the full store experience – as a driver of traffic, impulse, freshness perception and everyday convenience.

The challenge

The bread cabinet is a highly important retail touchpoint. It creates scent, warmth, appetite appeal and a sense of freshness. But it is also a demanding category to manage.

Products need to look fresh throughout the day, shelves must stay inviting, and stores need to balance availability, waste, hygiene and staff workload. At the same time, customer needs shift across the day: from morning grab’n’go to lunch breaks, afternoon snacks and evening top-up shopping.

Easyfood needed a clearer picture of these behaviours to identify where the category could create even more value for both retailers and shoppers.

The approach

We conducted qualitative fieldwork across four different supermarket settings, combining in-store observations, customer interviews and staff interviews.

This allowed us to understand the bread cabinet from multiple perspectives: how customers behave in front of the cabinet, what they value, what creates friction, and how staff experience the operational side of keeping the category attractive and well-stocked.

The analysis mapped key usage moments, purchase drivers, operational pain points and opportunities for improving the category experience.

The result

The work showed that the bread cabinet plays a bigger role than simply offering baked goods. It acts as a freshness marker for the store, a traffic driver and a small everyday treat that customers actively seek out.

The insights helped identify where Easyfood can create stronger value – not only through product innovations, but through solutions that support better availability, stronger sensory appeal, smoother store operations and more relevant category development.

The project gave Easyfood a stronger strategic understanding of how to support retailers in making the bread cabinet work harder –  commercially, operationally and experientially.

It positioned Easyfood not just as a supplier, but as a potential category partner with insight into real shopper behaviour and the everyday realities of store operations.