How Fonterra stays ahead of the e-commerce curve

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Covid-19 has changed people's online shopping habits around the world, and Fonterra CEO for Asia Pacific Judith Swales says the co-op has noticed the difference.

Online shopping had skyrocketed as people stayed at home to shop, work and entertain themselves, Swales told The Country Sport Breakfast's Rowena Duncum.

In Australia, where Swales is based, Roy Morgan research released this week showed that around 30 per cent of purchases were made online in the 12 months to September 2020.

"That's more than double from the previous year – and that doesn't even include food and grocery shopping," Swales said.

Fonterra anticipated that the pace of change would increase over the next five years, with e-commerce in the US experiencing 10 years of growth in just three months.

While the changes weren't solely due to the pandemic, Covid had accelerated the degree
to which people made the switch to e-commerce, Swales said.

Listen below:

As a result, Fonterra also had to accelerate how it connected with consumers and customers of the future, through non-traditional channels, Swales said.

"We need to get ahead of the curve and that's why we're improving things like our e-commerce capability and our digital capabilities in order to be able to tap into this rapid growth."

An example of this was when Fonterra participated in Malaysia's annual 9.9 campaign which was run through Shopee - one of the largest e-commerce retailers there.

"It attracts shoppers through deals and offers over a 24-hour period - a bit like what they do in China," Swales said.

"This year saw our biggest sales ever, and we reached new customers, being one of the top performing grocery sector companies."

"We secured the number four spot behind Nestle, Abbott and Unilever - who, quite frankly, are years ahead of using this - so it's good to be in that company."

Also in today's interview: Swales talked about sustainability and the news that Anchor's range of speciality milks are going carbon zero.