Almond Roca must be the most popular candy among 80-somethings. I’ve only bought it once in my life, and that was for bait in Monkee’s leprechaun trap we built last St. Paddys. When we thought of that perfect bait, I was, at first, not entire sure where to buy the stuff. Then I remembered the one store on earth that carries Almond Roca: the drugstore. Sure enough, the Bartells down the street not only carries it but has a perennial end cap featuring both kinds of Roca (can’t forget about cashew). Then I was in a small downtown drugstore the other day and what is on one of their 5 end caps? You guessed it.
I have not realized that Almond Roca is owned by a private northwest company Brown & Haley. The founders created the confection in 1923, and selected its current packaging with the pink tin and Sicilian coat of arms in 1927, and built their business through the fat times of the 20s, the depression in the 30s, the war in the 40s, and the rise of the Roca-chomping middle class in the 50s. This explains why it’s so popular with the 80-something crowd.
So, what can we learn here? First we need to decide if their attention to channel is good execution or over focus. I’ve never noticed Almond Roca for sale at grocery stores, in snack bags at 7-11, at airport shops, in super stores like Fred Meyer or Target, or online. Now, I imagine that they take up their 2 or 3 linear feet of shelf space in some of those channels, but they’re not on the end caps. So, they’re not spending co-op to get on the end caps in these channels for a few reasons: cost of competing in a grocery store or super store, relative return of the co-op spent. When I head into a drug store, I’m typically in a more casual mood. I’m usually picking up just a few things, I don’t have to wander the 8-foot-high aisles finding fifty items. Many people are trapped in the drug store waiting for… well… drugs. Those make great casual shoppers as well.
My thoughts? Almond Roca is making short-term decisions that will eventually kill the company. They are serving their multi-decade customers well by finding them where they frequent, but with a tasty treat, they should be expanding their market. Their brick-and-mortar co-op spend is a short-term optimization that will kill this centenarian institution. Unless they spend for the future and break out of those drugstore end caps, they will never reach the generation that hits the drug store 3 times a year. In the end my children will probably never know that crunchy butterscotch goodness, except as leprechaun bait.
