Princes · Food
How Princes Drove +12% Category Growth by Rebuilding the Ambient Tomato Fixture
Type-led out. Brand-led in. Cross-shop up.
28 May 2026
Objective
Princes wanted to redesign the ambient tomato fixture around how shoppers actually buy, not how the category had historically been ranged. The work needed to answer:
- Is a brand-led fixture better than a type-led one?
- Will it lift branded participation against private label?
- Will it grow total category sales?
What We Did
- Removed merchandising units from the fixture
- Improved brand blocking across 3-bay and 4-bay layouts
- Added new products across multiple brands
- Switched chopped, plum and passata from type-led to brand-led, while keeping puree separate
- Iterated with the buyer across several review sessions until the fixture was right
Results
- +12% category sales across 3- and 4-bay plans
- +10% category sales across all plans
- +5% increase in branded cross-shop
- Multi-segment brand purchasing across the three largest tomato brands grew from 26% to 31%
The Impact
A brand-led fixture lifted branded participation in both value and volume while growing total category sales. The new layout actively encourages shoppers to buy multiple tomato sub-segments from the same brand. Organising shelves around shopper behaviour beat organising them around historical convention.