What the market is telling us

derivzero tracks the economic and competitive forces shaping grocery retail — and publishes what we find. One post every week. No filler.

Why Grocery Planning Is Strained — And What Comes Next

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The supermarket channel has lost nearly 40 share points to Walmart, Costco, Amazon, and Aldi. Price gaps are widening. Units are declining. Traditional planning models were not built for this environment.

This paper examines what changed — and what a modern planning system looks like.

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Food Inflation

Oil Prices Are Up 60%. What Does That Mean for Your Grocery Bill?

Last week I talked about how oil ripples throughout the grocery supply chain. This week I add some numbers to the story. The Timeline On December 16th, 2025 oil prices bottomed out at $55 and then started to creep up in the new year. January 26th U.S. warships arrived in the Middle East and oil prices jumped from $60 to $65 and then leveled out. Iran and the U.S. held direct nuclear talks on February 6th and oil prices dropped from $64 to $60. Then prices increased 10% on Fe

Eric Karlson

4 days ago5 min read

COVID in Numbers - part I

To cope with COVID, my brain has filed it away as a bad movie. But when you look at the data, it wasn’t fiction. It was a structural break. As I’ve built long-term models of the grocery market, the shift is unmistakable. We all lived through it. The models show how it unfolded. Part I focuses on the supply chain and food inflation. Part II will examine the demand side and grocery units. We’ll start with CPI Food at Home (CPI FAH). The first chart looks like a heart monitor

Eric Karlson

Feb 173 min read