What's Shaping Grocery in 2026:
Consumer Demand, Transportation, and Gen AI
With 2026 underway, the prevailing mood across business headlines is cautious optimism, yet many of the same forces that defined 2025 are still very much in play.
From consumer pressures and logistics volatility to executional challenges and growing expectations around GenAI, this series brings together timely perspectives on the factors shaping how food & CPG manufacturers will operate in 2026. Each hour-long session is designed to be practical and conversational, with time built in for discussion, questions, and takeaways you can apply directly to this year’s strategies.
No matter where your team is in planning season, these sessions are designed to help you cut through the noise and get smarter, faster, and more effective.
Guest Speakers:
January 28, 12-1 CST
How Consumer Tradeoffs Are Shifting Demand
Lori Stillman | Chief Strategy Officer | Stretch
Lori Stillman from StretchAI shares new research revealing how shoppers are squeezing value out of grocery, dismantling assumptions about loyalty, trip planning, and demand, while showing how their price comparison tools could fundamentally change how consumers plan trips across retailers.
February 4, 12-1 CST
The Real Constraints of GenAI Adoption
Matt Alldian | Founding Partner | Happy Robots
Matt Alldian from Happy Robots explores the trust and operational barriers preventing teams from reliably using GenAI to simplify their lives, and what it takes to build the training, standards, and evaluation infrastructure that make these tools useful in day-to-day work.
February 11, 12-1 CST
The Realities of Retail Execution
Lee Kallman | Chief Commercial Officer | RDSolutions
Lee Kallman from RDSolutions shows how manufacturers can use real-time retail intelligence and on-the-ground support to introduce competitive awareness and executional flexibility that helps them manage pricing changes, product launches, displays, and availability in the store.
February 18, 12-1 CST
Transportation in 2026: Costs, Capacity, What’s Ahead
Matt Muenster | Chief Economist | Breakthrough
Matt Muenster from Breakthrough Fuel shares a forward-looking view of transportation costs and capacity signals shaping 2026, helping manufacturers understand what’s changing and what it could mean for service levels, margins, and network decisions in the year ahead.
Engaging Discussions Enable Confident Decisions®
When you’re busy with the daily demands of your job, it’s easy to overlook the opportunities that will drive long-term growth. When you become a member of a Drive Wheel peer group, you can identify new strategies, reduce risk, and make confident decisions that will grow your business faster and more strategically.
We host two-day in-person meetings twice a year where leaders discuss their new strategies, innovation plans, and business challenges to get feedback from their peers. Members leave the meeting knowing they have thought about their idea from every angle. Between meetings, we conduct benchmarking studies and weekly news roundups to keep our members informed about changes in the industry.
