Can a land value tax save the high street?dl.magazinedl.com/magazinedl/The Grocer/2020/The... · “Can a land value tax save the high street?” Adam Leyland, Editor “The only

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PASTRIES Greggs move into Asda is next route to market 10 ASDA Is property key to unlocking Asda value? 14HIGH STREET London’s ‘cool’ food courts killing grassroots grocery 23PROPERTY What’s the deal with Tesco’s restrictive covenants? 26 CONFECTIONERY Mars blames factory breakdown for shortages 34FRUIT JUICE Innocent launches shots as juices fight back 35, 41PORK As exports to China stall, UK production under threat 38PEOPLE Food & Drink Sector Council future in doubt 50

PROPERTY SPECIAL

Can a land value tax save the high

street?

CORONAVIRUS Stockpiling, panic buying, supply issues: how is grocery coping? 4, 5PRICES Tesco launches new Price Match campaign… against Aldi 6FUEL Red diesel ban ‘madness’ 7

leader

Get the full story at thegrocer.co.uk 7 March 2020 | The Grocer | 3

No, is the short answer . At least not soon enough for JLP, which looks set to close more department stores (p10), or shopping centre chain Intu, whose shares are eff ectively worthless, or the countless others

whose ever-upward rates are in inverse proportion to footfall. So it’s no surprise Chancellor Rishi Sunak is rumoured to be

looking at LVT in next week’s Budget. Unlike the invidious business rates system, with LVT, retailers (and manufacturers ) would not be punished for investing in their property. Trouble is, quite apart from the time it would take to review, LVT would be a near-impossible tax to collect (p12).

So what are the alternatives? An online sales tax, as Tesco CEO Dave Lewis proposes, would address another invidious aspect of business rates: the minimal contribution of certain online players. But as bricks-and-mortar stores move online, a 2% tax on online sales seems counterproductive, and wouldn’t address wider iniquities around business rates themselves, like the valuation lag, or transitional relief, and puts a continued focus on land in a digital and virtual age.

Nor will a digital sales tax help: not if we want to strike trade deals with the US, or avoid more Trump tariff s.

So attention continues on how to fi x business rates – with calls not only to sort transitional relief but introduce more regular valuations, or off er greater transparency on rent, or relief on investment. Trouble is, you can’t solve the business rates conundrum within business rates: it needs a diff erent tax. And we already have a solution in place: VAT. It just needs bumping up a bit. We would need to iron out all the peculiarities (fruit salad vs fruit smoothie, what is a Jaff a Cake?, the tax on tampons?) but it’s time to give VAT a fresh look.

Of course, aft er fi ve years the OECD needs to make some progress with international tax agreements. But VAT is an elegant solution: easy to collect, and a fairer refl ection of the modern economy. But there’s a catch. The Conservatives’ manifesto promised VAT would not increase. As the Institute of Fiscal Studies put it: “That’s a constraint the Chancellor may come to regret.” It’s one retailers may come to as well.

“Can a land value tax save the high street?”Adam Leyland, Editor

“The only certainty of coronavirus now is that it will get worse”Harry Holmes, international trade reporter

With the threat of an Australian style no-deal hanging over EU negotiations, it is a powerful statement that coronavirus now polls as a greater threat to the food industry in 2020 (p24).

In little over a month, COVID-19 has transformed itself from a minor inconvenience into the most fundamental threat facing the sector in years. The only certainty is it will get worse.

Goods from China, Italy and Japan are already hit, with the eff ects reaching sectors from packaging to cold storage. We are more reliant than ever on complex supply chains and yet it is impossible to know where will be next to feel the heat, or

how to stop panic buying, as retailer and supplier systems are resilient (ironically boosted by no-deal Brexit planning).

And yet, quite rightly, the greatest concern remains a serious outbreak in the UK. For all the contingency planning in place, supply chains rely on people. If the UK’s workforce is severely aff ected then who will drive the lorries? Who will complete the paperwork? Who will fi ll the shelves? And it makes calls for calm among the public diffi cult when retailers and suppliers cancel meetings and ban travel.

More on pages 4, 5, 11, 16, 38

for more opinion see pages 22–25To comment on an article, or read what others say, go to thegrocer.co.uk

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quote of the week

“There is certainly going to be a logistics problem if the virus spreads” p4

news

4 | The Grocer | 7 March 2020 Get the full story at thegrocer.co.uk

Coronavirus sees importers face Italy sourcing problemsImporters are facing dif-ficulties sourcing food from northern Italy as hauliers cut transport from the region.

Italy has reported more than 3,000 cases of coro-navirus, concentrated in the regions of Lombardy and Veneto.

It has pushed the gov-ernment to restrict trans-port within the regions “with the exception of…essential and perishable goods,” said Pierpaolo Greco, a legislative officer at Confetra, the Italian logistics association.

Lombardy is one of Italy’s agricultural pow-erhouses, producing foods such as risotto rice, flour and wine. As non-perishables, these goods could all face difficulties.

“Businesses are start-ing to see problems

getting goods shipped from northern Italy,” said Walter Anzer, director general of the British Importers and Distributors Association. “It’s very hard to get con-sistent road transport from those regions.”

Heather Wallace, inter-national group man-ager at the Road Haulage Association, said hauli-ers could start to reject journeys into the region.

“Or if they are going,” she said, “they’ll be whacking a great big sup-plement on it. Because obviously when their drivers come back from that region, technically they’d have to go into two-week self-isolation.”

Retailers remained relatively unconcerned by the outbreak, said Pauline Bastidon, head of global and European

policy at the Freight Transport Association. “They are much more worried about the impact of more cases in the UK.”

The EU is reluctant to close borders, arguing it would be “ineffective” in controlling the virus. But some believe disruptions could escalate as hauli-ers become reluctant to travel to affected regions. “There is certainly going to be a logistics problem if the virus spreads,” said Anzer.

Amid rumours import-ers are beginning to stop Italian trucks from enter-ing warehouses, Ivano Vacondio, the president of Italian food associa-tion Federalimentare, said this week that false information was part of the “psychological terror-ism taking place on our products”.

Harry Holmes

Coronavirus fears have led to a huge surge in demand

Hand sanitiser manu-facturers in the UK are cranking up production to meet demand after shelves were cleared of stock in supermar-kets, convenience stores and pharmacies across the UK and as prices on online platforms such as eBay soared.

PZ Cussons, which owns the popular Carex brand, has “significantly increased production” of hand gel and hand wash products, and was “working at full capac-ity”, said a spokesman.

Delphis Eco, another UK manufacturer, had tripled production to meet demand and ensure emergency supplies are available to fulfil orders across wash-rooms in the restaurant and hotel sec-tor. And Banbury-based DCS Group said it was doubling volumes by pro-ducing the gel 24/7.

CEO Michael Lorimer said DCS was now at full capacity to try and meet demand from its discounter, wholesaler and c-store customers, though its efforts had been hampered by its

Hand sanitiser manufacturers in race to keep up with demand

struggle to source enough plastic bottles for the gel it produces as these are typically brought in from China, where the corona-virus crisis first emerged two months ago.

“We don’t have a huge supply – our manufac-tures in China are now in lockdown – but we have enough,” said Lorimer.

Lorimer added that the unit price of ethanol had increased and this was being passed onto customers but they were “not boosting price any further than that”.

Sheffield-based whole-saler Pricecheck has seen demand for hand sani-tiser increase tenfold. It has been unable to meet demand for hand gel as manufacturers struggle to source raw materials.

“As soon as we get our hands on stock it is out the door,” said Pricecheck senior buyer Faye Tomes.

The shortages were “frustrating”, added the MD of one major con-venience retailer. “We’ve dealt with the same sup-plier for years and they told us they had sold the majority of their stock to other customers.”

The Grocer also under-stands several non-food wholesalers have had deliveries of stock in recent days but demand was so high they sold out immediately. One whole-saler said he was not now expecting to receive more stock until the end of the month.

Transport has been restricted, with the exception of ‘essential and perishable goods’

Lyndsey Cambridge & Ronan Hegarty

HYGIENE DRIVEAs soon as we get our hands on [hand sanitiser] stock, it is out the door – Faye Tomes, senior buyer, Pricecheck


At 86%, women are slightly more worried about a major

coronavirus outbreak than men (83%)

How shoppers are changing their behaviour in response to the coronavirus threat

Ronan Hegarty

23%will increase their

use of online grocery shopping due to

coronavirus concerns. Ocado

reported ‘exceptional demand’ and

‘particularly large’ orders last weekend

12%Some good news for white goods sellers.

With 42% of shoppers intending

to stock their freezers up more,

that’s the number of shoppers who say they plan to buy a

bigger freezer

The growing possi-bility of a coronavi-rus epidemic in the UK is fuelling panic buy-ing – with 34% of shop-pers already stockpiling items and 88% set to do so in the event of a major outbreak.

Retailers and suppli-ers have been keen not to raise fear levels, but that has not stopped shoppers clearing shelves of items such as dried pasta, tinned tomatoes, hand sanitisers and toilet roll.

Exclusive research, compiled for The Grocer by Him, shows shoppers have stockpiled from 2.8 categories in case of supply disruption with frozen foods, toiletries, medicines, water and petfood also popular.

The poll of 1,000 shop-pers found 84% were

67%Over two-thirds of

shoppers are concerned that stores will run out of grocery items in the event of a

major coronavirus outbreak in the UK, amid widespread reports already of

shelves being stripped of loo rolls, tinned cans

and pasta

concerned over the pros-pect of a major UK out-break, with 67% worried shops will run out of groceries.

Experts claimed UK food and drink supply was robust enough to prevent major shortages.

Bernstein senior ana-lyst Bruno Monteyne said it was important not to scaremonger. “The industry has plans to

deal with this. Yes, it will be chaotic – and expect pictures of empty shelves – but the industry will reduce complexity to keep the country fed.”

And Andrew Opie, BRC director of food & sus-tainability, said retail-ers were working with suppliers to minimise disruption and “availa-bility of products remains good”.

WHAT WILL SHOPPERS STOCKPILE?STARTED TO STOCKPILE

MAY STOCKPILE

None 66% 12%Tinned foods 17% 59%Dried goods (ie pasta, rice, noodles, cereals) 14% 50%Frozen foods 14% 52%Toiletries 14% 35%Household goods (ie loo paper) 13% 47%Medicines 13% 37%Wipes and hand gels 12% 35%Water 11% 29%Petfood 10% 26%Source: Him, 4 March 2020

84%

Retailers struggling to stop stockpiling over coronavirus

FDF CEO Ian Wright also confirmed there was “no evidence of signifi-cant disruption to food supplies. UK food and drink manufacturers have robust procedures in place.”

However, our research demonstrates these mes-sages are not resonating with consumers, with 12% expecting to buy a new, bigger freezer in order to stock up.

The virus is also changing the way they shop. Almost a quar-ter (23%) said they had switched to online gro-cery shopping to cut down on what they might see as risky trips to the supermarket.

Online sales were already surging last weekend.

On Monday, Ocado warned it was facing

“exceptionally high demand” and, in an email to customers, advised them to place orders early.

The retailer said: “More people than usual seem to be placing par-ticularly large orders,” and suggested custom-ers place their order two to three days in advance as “delivery slots are selling out quicker than expected.”

Meanwhile, Waitrose has provided online shopping guidance for customers affected by coronavirus. It has pub-lished information on its mobile app to say it is “still happy to deliver” to customers self-isolating due to coronavirus, but they must contact cus-tomer services to let them know, after their order is placed.

news


A plastics tax is planned for the chancellor’s budget

Industry leaders are call-ing on Chancellor Rishi Sunak to rethink plans for a tax on plastic pack-aging with less than 30% recycled content, just days ahead of his crucial first budget next week.

In a letter to the Chancellor, the FDF warned the tax was a “blunt approach” which punished all manufac-turers rather than act-ing as an incentive for laggards in the war on plastic.

The federation also

Industry calls on chancellor to rethink plans for plastic tax

claimed the govern-ment’s proposals ignored the impact of “food safety related barriers” which prevent the use of recycled content in most plastic polymers used for food grade packaging.

The proposed legislation, scheduled to come into force in April 2022, requires that plastic materials only contain recycled content derived from an authorised recycling process.

However, to date only certain processes for PET and HDPE applica-tions have been assessed under the legislation, the FDF pointed out. This meant huge numbers of manufacturers, using rigid and film plastic pol-ymers and polyethene films, would find the tax “unavoidable”, it warned.

Asda this week launched concessions selling ori-ental street food, after a tie-up with the company behind Yo Sushi.

The first trials of 20 Panku concessions started at Asda Trafford Park and Asda Aintree, in the latest of its so-called “test and learn” partnerships.

The exclusive deal will see Panku, owned by Taiko Foods, which comes under the Yo Sushi Group, sell products such as katsu curry, vegan tofu Thai curry and sushi burritos.

Asda opens Panku food concessions

The Grocer revealed in January that Asda planned to roll out at least 35 new food-to-go formats at its stores by the end of the first quar-ter, and 150 by the end of the year, as it replaces its traditional counters.

Panku was founded by Neil Nugent and Andy Upton and aims to bring together favour-ite flavours of pan-Asian food from Japan, Korea and Thailand, with many of the products plant-based.

Ian QuinnTesco is to start price matching against Aldi across hundreds of prod-ucts, in a major escala-tion of its price war with the discounter.

The Aldi Price Match campaign, launched this week, will see key own-label and branded prod-ucts matched to Aldi on shelf and online, with Tesco promising to check prices at its rival twice a week.

The retailer named Tesco ripe bananas, Tesco whole cucum-bers and Warburtons Toastie sliced white bread as examples of products in the price match, with a full list of around 300 products available at Tesco.com/aldipricematch.

Products included will have a red Aldi Price Match bubble at the shelf edge and will also be flagged up online.

Asked what criteria it used to establish a match around pack size, weight, and own-label tiering, a Tesco spokeswoman said: “We have matched the products included by ensuring they have the same intended need or purpose for our customers.”

The move is the lat-est in a series of initia-tives over the past 18 months to challenge Aldi on price. Bruno Monteyne, senior analyst at Bernstein (and a Tesco former supply chain director) said Tesco had “upped the ante again” but “this move [was] a

Tesco escalates Aldi price war with new price match scheme

step further as it is much more explicit.”

“First it was Farm Stores, then it was Exclusively at Tesco, then it was Clubcard Plus. With Tesco having suc-cessfully completed its recovery early (at the interim results), this is another sign that Tesco is back to being the aggres-sor in the market.”

In the past decade Tesco has launched two money-back schemes. Brand Guarantee, an instant cash-back version of the scheme launched by CEO Dave Lewis in 2015 – which was central to Tesco’s turnaround – was scrapped in July 2018 as Tesco chose to focus investment on everyday lower prices.

Unlike Brand Guarantee, however, Tesco’s new scheme will see prices change on shelf.

In response, Aldi has vowed once again that it will never be beaten on price. A spokesman said: “Our promise to our cus-tomers is they will always pay the lowest prices on

every product we sell. It’s why millions of shoppers continue to switch to Aldi from our more expensive competitors, including Tesco.”

This raises the pros-pect of a brutal new phase in the 18-month battle. In September last year, Tesco’s claim to be “cheaper than Aldi” across a selection of products led to it being slammed by the UK’s advertising watchdog for misleading consumers.

The Advertising Standards Authority ruled Tesco breached advertising rules, not because claims its own-label products were cheaper than Aldi’s were false, but because the products were “not widely available through-out Tesco stores”.

However, Tesco said it believed its new cam-paign would take the Exclusively at Tesco brands strategy to a new level, alongside the recent launch of its new loyalty subscription ser-vice, Clubcard Plus, in which customers could save over £400 a year including 10% off two big shops each month.

“Our customers tell us they want the most competitive prices on the things they buy regularly,” said Tesco chief customer officer Alessandra Bellini.

“This campaign will help time-poor and budget-savvy customers get Tesco products at Aldi prices on products that matter to them.”

Tesco’s new scheme will see prices change on shelf

Analysis p14

UPPING THE ANTEThis is another sign that Tesco is back to being the aggressor in the market – Bernstein senior analyst Bruno Monteyne


Hauliers slam plans to hike tax on red diesel

Red diesel is used in the cold chain on refrigerated trucks

George NottGovernment plans to ban haulage businesses from using red diesel could have a “devastat-ing impact” on the food supply chain, industry groups have warned.

The retail and agricul-tural sectors have also criticised Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s intention to cut subsidies for the fuel, and heavily restrict its use, as reported in The Times last week.

Red diesel – which has red dye added to prevent it being used by regular vehicles – accounts for 15% of total UK diesel. Bringing the duty on red diesel in line with regu-lar diesel would save gov-ernment £2.4bn a year, according to its figures.

The fuel is used in the

cold chain to run refrig-eration systems on more than 50,000 vehicles. Switching to regular die-sel could cost the refrig-erated haulage industry £150m a year, the Cold Chain Federation said.

“Consumers rely on a safe and secure food chain,” said its CEO Shane Brennan. “By

removing red diesel from refrigerated vehicles the Chancellor would be imposing devastating, unavoidable, costs on to hard-pressed hauliers.”

Brennan said any “sudden shock to operat-ing costs” would make it harder for businesses to afford cleaner vehicles, “keeping older, dirtier

equipment on the road for longer”. The federa-tion’s call was backed by the British Frozen Food Federation and the FWD.

The Freight Transport Association said increases in the cost of red diesel would be “costly and pointless environmentally”.

The BRC said the fuel hike would mean the major supermarkets alone would have to pay an extra £20m in tax.

“While it may seem attractive to hike taxes on diesel, the problem is that alternative, newer engines are not necessar-ily more fuel efficient. So the same amount of emis-sions will be produced, just at an increased cost,” said BRC policy advisor Dominic Curran.

Sainsbury’s is trail-ing dedicated washing-up liquid and laundry detergent refill points in partnership with eco-cleaning brand Ecover.

Customers in Sainsbury’s Harringay superstore in London will be able to refill selected Ecover cleaning products using bottles that can be used up to 50 times.

The retailer said the move had the potential to save more than a million tonnes of plastic a year.

The refill trial will be rolled out in a further 19 stores later this year, depending on customer feedback.

“Refillable packag-ing is just one initia-tive we plan to trial this year and goes to show how a small change can make a big differ-ence,” said a Sainsbury’s spokeswoman.

Sainsbury’s links with Ecover for refills trial

Leftover boules are also being repurposed by M&S

M&S is turning lefto-ver baguettes into gar-lic bread and crostini to reduce waste.

At the end of each day, staff slice the unsold baguettes, fill them with garlic butter and freeze them for an extra 30 days’ shelf life. Unsold boules are being repur-posed in the same way.

The scheme is under-way in M&S’s four flag-ship new-format Food Halls, in Hempstead Valley, Clapham Junction, Hedge End and Belfast’s Abbey Centre. “Clear signage” tells

M&S using leftover baguettes for garlic bread to reduce waste

customers the source is surplus bread, said M&S.

It follows the intro-duction of a similar ini-tiative turning leftover baguettes into packets of crostini in 580 M&S in-store bakeries across the UK and Ireland. After

being sliced in a bakery machine, brushed with olive oil and toasted, the bread gains an extra seven days’ shelf life.

Last summer Tesco also began a 24-store trial of making crostini and bread pudding from unsold baguettes and batons.

M&S said the baguettes were baked daily and, while most sold on the same day, the company was always looking for ways to cut waste. The measures were part of its work to halve food waste by 2025.

Poundland is to roll out its trial of chilled and fro-zen ‘shops in shops’ to 60 stores from next week.

The frozen and chilled ranges were launched as a pilot in five stores in October. The roll-out comes amid a wider movement of variety retailers into frozen and chilled grocery, with Home Bargains and B&M also increasing their focus on the mar-ket, and The Range intro-ducing more Iceland concessions.

Poundland’s frozen and chilled offering had

Poundland to extend ‘shops in shops’ trial

already been extended to a further two. It’s now set to roll out gradu-ally to five more stores a week, taking it to 20 new locations by the end of March. The other 40 are due to be added by June.

It will see one in 10 Poundlands offering 400 “everyday items, from frozen fish to luxury yoghurts”, in partnership with Yorkshire-based retailer Fultons Foods.

The move focuses on “convenient every-day meals” in the frozen range and food-to-go or “eat soon” in chilled.

news wholesale & convenience


Unitas has launched a new data service combin-ing ex-Landmark and ex-Today’s members sales figures for the first time.

The Unitas Data Service (UDS) is under-stood to be one of the biggest investments the group has made since its formation in November 2018.

UDS currently brings together wholesale shipment data for 19 ex-Landmark and ex-Today’s members into one reporting solution. Unitas said this would enable suppliers to use the data to develop joint business plans with its wholesalers.

The initial phase applies to cash & carry members while a sec-ond phase planned to roll out later this year will include Unitas’ foodser-vice specialists.

Unitas opens service for Landmark & Today’s data

Thieves using gas to target c-store ATMs

East of England Co-op’s Clacton-on-Sea store was targeted

Ronan HegartyTwo leading conveni-ence retail chains have fallen victim to criminals attempting to steal cash from ATMs using gas canisters to blow them away from the walls of their stores.

Two stores owned by James Convenience Retail in Yorkshire have been attacked in the past few weeks, caus-ing thousands of pounds worth of damage to the fixtures and fittings and stock within the store. Meanwhile, East of England Co-op said its store in Clacton-on-Sea in Essex had also been attacked in the same way in January.

The thieves pour gas through the slot where the cash is dispensed,

which then fills the void between the computer element of the ATM and the secure cash safe below. They then ignite the gas, which creates a build-up of pressure to blow the safe away from the wall.

Lee Hammond, head of Co-op secure response at East of England, said the

tactic had been around for a few years most com-monly in the Midlands and south coast, but that such an attack was rare in East Anglia. Likewise, JCR owner Jonathan James told The Grocer it was not something he had experienced before.

Hammond said there had been significant

damage caused to a fridge as the blast sent the safe flying across the store, along with fur-ther damage. It lost half a day’s trade while the store was cleaned up.

James said the most recent attack at the end of February caused £1,000 of damage to stock and significant damage to the store. However, his team managed to get it trading again within half a day.

The latest attacks come against a background of rising retail crime. This week the BRC revealed that the cost of crime and crime prevention to the industry has spiralled to more than £2bn, while incidents of violence and abuse against retail workers rose 9% to 424 incidents per day.

The full list of winners is at chefschoiceawards.co.uk

Brakes has put in its best-ever performance at the Chefs’ Choice Awards, taking home nine cate-gory wins and six awards for highly rated prod-ucts as well as the overall award for best product.

Judges praised the foodservice wholesaler’s La Boulangerie Small Dark Chocolate Tart for being a “premium prod-uct with a luxurious feel that really delivered”.

Rival wholesaler Booker put in a strong performance too, with four winning products and five highly rated.

Brakes takes home nine wins in Chefs’ Choice Awards 2020 haul

Created by The Grocer’s parent company William Reed Business Media, the annual Chefs’ Choice Awards are designed to highlight the quality credentials of mid-mar-ket foodservice prod-ucts and bring together

professionals from the hospitality, wholesale and food manufacturing industries.

This year’s awards received a record amount of entries, with nearly 100 products shortlisted across 19 categories.

While the UK’s big three foodservice com-panies – Brakes, Booker and Bidfood – were well-represented, the awards also showcased a diverse selection of smaller suppliers including Love Taste Co, Whitby Seafoods, Delifrance and Major International.

Nisa has launched a mul-tibuy deal to ramp up frozen sales this month, with five staple items from the freezer on offer for £5.

The deal includes four Birds Eye products (two-packs of southern fried chicken fillets, four-packs of chicken burg-ers, 23-packs of mini potato waffles and mixed vegetables), as well as a 480ml tub of Cadbury Double Decker ice cream.

Nisa said the deal amounted to a saving of £5.80 on the rsp.

The promotion at

Nisa pushes frozen with multibuy deal

retailers will run in stores from 4 to 24 March and will be supported by dedicated PoS material, as well as being adver-tised on Nisa’s consumer-facing website, social media channels and leaflets.

“Frozen foods offer shoppers a quick and convenient meal solu-tion and this promo-tion is designed to help them stock up on all their favourites for less than half the rrp,” said David Lunn, wholesale cate-gory controller for frozen at Nisa.

news finance


Waitrose ‘not for sale’ in new review of JLP

Sharon White said JLP would look to ‘right-size’ its estate

Edward DevlinJohn Lewis Partnership chairman Sharon White has insisted a sale of Waitrose is not on the table as the group revealed a wide-scale strategic review.

Three Waitrose stores – in Helensburgh, Four Oaks and Waterlooville – will close later this year, the retail chain said as it announced its annual financial results.

JLP will also look at “right-sizing” its store estate through “a com-bination of new formats and new locations; repur-posing and space reduc-tions of existing stores; and closures, where nec-essary”. The group is also exploring opportunities for more stores to operate John Lewis and Waitrose

in the same footprint. “What is not up for

debate, however, is our employee owner-ship model or the sale of either of our two brands,” White, who took over as JLP chairman in February, added.

The strategic review will be completed by the autumn, with a

further update set to be announced at the group’s half-year results. White said the changes could take three to five years to yield results. “We are stepping into a vital new phase for the partner-ship and I have no doubt we will come through it stronger.”

White refused to be

drawn on how much of the Future Partnership restructure conducted by former chairman Charlie Mayfield would be altered in the review.

Underlying pre-tax profits plunged 23% to £123m at JLP in the year ended 25 January 2019 as the group wrote down the value of its John Lewis store estate by more than £100m. A “solid perfor-mance” from Waitrose buoyed the group figures, with operating profits before exceptional items up by £10m to £213m. However, after excluding property profits of £16m, the figure was down £6m on the previous year.

JLP awarded a staff bonus of 2%, down from 3% a year ago and the lowest since 1953.

Mackie’s of Scotland has hailed record turnover, hitting £16.7m for the financial year ending May 2019.

With the Aberdeen snacking brand’s revenue up 20% on the previous 12 months, a key driver was sales of its chocolate, which grew 63% follow-ing reformulation.

It experienced a 60% spike in operating profit to £2.1m, while revenue from exports increased by 72%, with the US and Far East markets “devel-oping at pace”.

Mackie’s of Scotland has hailed record turnover

Mackie’s choc sales lead to record year

Charlie Bigham’s is defying a wider ready meals slump

Upmarket ready meals supplier Charlie Bigham’s has rebounded back into the black, driven by stel-lar sales growth that con-tinues to defy the wider slump in the ready meals market.

The gourmet meals manufacturer grew sales by a further 18.1% in the year to 31 August 2019 to reach almost £71m in annual turnover.

That helped propel pre-tax profits back to £1.3m after it fell to a £1.8m pre-tax loss in the 2017/18 financial year, as invest-ment in growing capacity

Charlie Bigham’s propelled back into the black with sales boost

and the opening of a sec-ond manufacturer site hit margins.

The company said operational improve-ment in its new Somerset Kitchen helped its bottom line recover.

CEO Patrick Cairns

said the company “still has some way to go still” in its efforts to grow mar-gins as it remains short of the pre-tax profits of £4m recorded two years ago.

“We’re continuing to make progress in terms of overall sales, through improved distribution and rates of sale within existing distribution,” he said.

“The overall ready meals market is in slight decline and we’re buck-ing that trend by being relentless in terms of delivering top quality products.”

Gosh produces vegan fake meats including sausages

Plant-based food pro-ducer Gosh has posted another year of stel-lar growth, with sales jumping 34% to £18.6m as it continues to tap demand for meat alternatives.

The brand, which hired

Gosh posts stellar growth in alt meats

corporate finance firm Houlihan Lokey to “con-sider strategic options” including the possibil-ity of a sale in 2018, grew sales from £13.9m to £18.6m in the year to 31 May as it continued to win listings in the major supermarkets.

Pre-tax profits rose 15.3% to £4.1m from £3.5m as it continued to invest in growth.

Gosh produces vegan chilled produce includ-ing burgers, sausages and bakes, and is listed in Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsbury’s.

NO DEBATEWhat is not up for debate, however, is our employee ownership model or the sale of either of our two brands – John Lewis Partnership chairman Sharon White


Heavy share price falls across global stock mar-kets have created a buying opportunity for under-valued UK supermarket stocks, according to broker Bernstein.

The FTSE 100 lost more than 10% of its value in the week following the markets opening on 24 February amid mounting concern about corona-virus. Consumer stocks have been among those worst hit, including the UK supermarket sector.

Industry leader Tesco lost 10.6% over the sub-sequent torrid week. Morrisons had lost 7.9% by close on 28 February and Sainsbury’s was 7.1% down during the same period.

Bernstein analyst Bruno Monteyne called the food retail industry “the most unloved part of an already-unloved sector”. He said valuations had been suppressed by grocery’s reputation as “a ter-rible sector with bad headlines”, Brexit weighing on UK consumer stocks and a few months of zero grocery growth.

“That’s bad enough, but for those UK names to also sell off more than the average market and their European peers on the back of the COVID-19 fears is a step too far, and provides a buying opportunity,” he said. “What happened to the fact food retail is a necessity? People will keep eating.”

The cost to the industry’s operating profits of a major coronavirus outbreak in the UK could be around £1.2bn, which would represent a 3.4% drop in equity value. However, the listed gro-cers were all trading significantly lower than that implied value drop over the weekend.

“It is difficult to catch a falling knife, but valua-tions are low enough for the sector to be a buy.”

Investors seemed to take heed of Bernstein’s advice, with the sector’s shares outstripping the minor market-wide recovery this week.

Morrisons – which narrowly survived ejec-tion from the FTSE 100 this week – has jumped back up 7.8% this week by Thursday lunchtime to 184.6p to trade higher than its pre-coronavirus slump. Similarly, Sainsbury’s is back up 7.5% to 210.4p, while Tesco is back up 4.1% this week to 237.9p.

city news

Track the latest share price movement and performance of 200 UK and international grocery and fmcg stocks via the new Grocer Finance channel at thegrocer.co.uk

Edward DevlinGreggs is eyeing up excess space in the estates of the big four grocers as a potential avenue to maintain its record-breaking growth.

CEO Roger Whiteside said that if its new trial with Asda was a success, other supermarket rivals may be interested in opening Greggs conces-sions in their stores.

“One of the new ter-ritories we are explor-ing is big supermarkets,” the Greggs boss said as he presented the bakery chain’s annual financial results this week. “There are a lot of people still shopping physically for food in supermarkets away from town centres.

“Do they want food

Greggs keen on more supermarket space following Asda trial

on the go when they are away from home? We don’t know. But we are prepared to find out.”

He said the biggest determining factor of whether a potential cus-tomer tried a Greggs for the first time was conven-ience. “Customers don’t go out of the way look-ing for [Greggs] stores. So, the new shop open-ing programme is really

important to put us in places where custom-ers are.

“We’ve been talking to all the grocers for years. They’ve mostly not been interested, but suddenly our brand is more attrac-tive and they have more space. Asda is the first to have a go. If that works, no doubt others will want to talk to us, too.”

Pre-tax profits at Greggs soared 27.2% to £114.2m in the 52 weeks to 28 December 2019 as the transformational changes of the past six years continued to bring new customers to the brand. Total sales in the year rose 13.5% to £1.2bn, with like-for-like growth of 9.2%, compared with just 2.9% in 2018.

Greggs has been boosted by its vegan sausage roll

Big Drop is stocked in Tesco, Morrisons & Ocado

Alcohol-free craft brewer Big Drop Brewing Co has kicked off a half-a-million pound fundrais-ing drive to underpin its efforts to take the craft revolution to the growing no-alcohol market.

The non-alcoholic beer brand has taken to Seedrs looking for £500k in exchange for a 6.2% stake in the brand – for a £7.5m pre-money valuation.

It has so far raised over £180k from 193 investors. The goal was to raise up to £1m, founder & CEO Robert Fink said.

Big Drop seeking £500k to push non-alcoholic craft brewing

Big Drop has already secured the backing of several industry experts, raising £1.3m from the founders of Camden Town Brewery, profes-sional private equity investors and various angel investors and high

net worth individuals. The brand will use the

cash from the latest cam-paign to open an experi-ential taproom in London and a mobile bar to use at trade shows and events, as well as for a packaging relaunch and an updated website.

William Reed – the publisher of The Grocer – has launched a trade show exclusively for the low and non-alcoholic drinks sector, called Low2NoBev. For more information visit low2nobev.com

SUPERMARKET SIX MONTH SHARESDates: 5 September 2019 – 5 March 2020

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analysis business rates

Opponents would rather see swift reform of the existing system, reducing the burden for retailers

The business rates sys-tem is broken”. That’s the view of more than 50

major UK retail chiefs including the CEOs of Asda, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, M&S and Greggs, who signed an open letter last month to the Chancellor calling for “fundamental reform”.

Another letter from 11 busi-ness improvement districts, representing 128,000 small businesses, said they were being “hammered by sky-high bills”, demanding an “over-haul” of the system.

The retail sector is struggling and business rates bills don’t help. According to latest figures from the Local Data Company, the overall store vacancy rate continues to rise, on high streets, in retail parks and in shopping centres. At 11.8%, it’s at its highest level since 2014.

Convenience stores have been badly hit, with 78 fewer overall last year. M&S, mean-while, has shuttered 64 stores since 2017, 43 of which remain vacant, while a strategic review

Can a land value tax save the high street?

announced by new chairman Sharon White at John Lewis has warned that department store closures are likely.

Business rates generated £31bn income for the govern-ment in 2018/19, of which the retail sector paid 25.7%.

Big players are hit hard. According to Altus Group anal-ysis, supermarkets will pay a total £1.82bn in business rates, some 6.8% of total rates revenue collected.

“Every year retail faces higher business rates bills, holding back much-needed investment in an industry transforming at a dramatic pace,” says BRC CEO Helen Dickinson, who organ-ised the letter to the Treasury.

Last week, it appeared new Chancellor Rishi Sunak had heard the sector’s cries, with The Times reporting his first Budget would herald a “fun-damental” review of the sys-tem, including consideration of plans to scrap rates in favour of a land value tax.

The concept is a tax levied on the value of land independ-ent of the property upon it. But

George Nott is it the right solution to retail’s woes? And can it come soon enough to save the high street?

A land value tax is not a new concept. It has been backed, or at least considered, by Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. There are different fla-vours – a site value tax, loca-tion value tax or landowner levy – but each moves the tax from property to the underlying land, and the tax base from occupiers to landowners.

Proponents, including the New Economics Foundation and the Institute of Economic Affairs, say it is a fairer and simpler tax system. It would encourage the best use of land and so encourage development, unlike the current system.

“Currently, if a local shop adds a food-to-go counter, a free-to-use ATM or other infrastructure, their rates bill goes up. Why? If a business makes more of its property, it shouldn’t affect their business rates,” argued ACS CEO James Lowman in a recent blog.

Moving the burden

But not everyone believes mov-ing the burden to landlords can reduce the pain for retailers. The Institute of Fiscal Studies’ senior research economist Stuart Adam points out that “if business rates weren’t there, correspondingly higher rents would mean premises were still almost as expensive”.

There are fears the hurdles to making land value tax work in practice are too great.

There is no complete register of interests in land and figur-ing out who is the owner can get very complex very quickly, says

Jerry Schurder, head of business rates at property consultancy Gerald Eve. “Is it the freeholder, who may have granted a 999-year lease 100 years ago and is possibly no longer traceable? Or the head leaseholder who granted a 125-year lease 30 years ago, the sub-leaseholder, or ten-ant who has granted a licence?” Since sales of bare land are few, there would be a “100% appeal rate given the lack of reliable market evidence” he adds.

The time needed to estab-lish the new tax system doesn’t exist, others argue. Many in the sector would rather see swift reforms of the existing system

The top 10 biggest superstore rate bills POSTCODE STORE RATES PAYABLE 20/21

MK1 1QB Asda Milton Keynes Supercentre £2,191,360RG31 7SA Sainsbury’s Calcot Superstore £2,140,160SW19 1DD Sainsbury’s Merton Superstore £1,995,000GU15 8DX Tesco Extra Sandhurst £1,960,960MK10 0BA Tesco Extra, Kingston Centre, Milton Keynes £1,955,840PO9 3QW Asda Havant Supercentre £1,945,600SE26 4PU Sainsbury’s Bell Green, London £1,931,160BS30 8DR Asda Longwell Green Supercentre, Bristol £1,931,160NE3 5NA Tesco Extra, Newcastle upon Tyne £1,904,640GU15 8DX Marks & Spencer Sandhurst £1,899,520

Source: Altus Group

“Immediate action is needed to support struggling high streets”


and a reduction in the overall tax burden for retailers.

“While we welcome reform, any major change would take years to develop,” says Dominic Curran, property policy adviser at the BRC. “Immediate action is needed to support struggling high streets today and the rates burden must come down.”

The business rates multi-plier, used to calculate rates, has risen sharply in England since its inception in 1990. For larger businesses, it’s gone from 0.348p in the pound to 0.504p as of April this year. The increase has been particularly steep in the past decade.

Revaluations are infrequent, meaning “the bills which busi-nesses pay do not reflect current economic conditions” a 2018 Treasury Select Committee on Business Rates review noted. The most recent revaluation came into effect in April 2017,

It is crucial, he says, that rate-payers get an “appeal system that works” and the “deeply unfair” transitional relief is changed. Something also must be done about the “relentless drip upwards” in rates.

Gerald Eve’s Schurder fears next week’s Budget will ulti-mately prove disappointing.

“Whilst at first blush this might sound like the Chancellor planning for a radical alter-native to the much-criticised system of business rates, the intention to consider land value taxes is a less embarrassing way of admitting the government is bereft of fresh ideas,” he says.

“Launching another formal review so soon after its previ-ous one in 2016, and close on the heels of last year’s Treasury inquiry, screams of a govern-ment playing for time, which struggling ratepayers simply do not have.”

based on rateable values from April 2015. While the revalua-tion delay is being addressed – they will take place every three years instead of five – it still leaves retailers paying rates based on old rental values.

To ease the shock of changes, transitional relief limits the speed at which a company’s business rates liability changes in response to a fall or rise in its rateable value.

As a result, areas in which rents are falling, where retail-ers are suffering the most, are subsidising those where rents are rising, argues Dickinson. “Northern high streets effec-tively subsidise London banks, forcing a £600m transfer of wealth to the capital,” she says.

Businesses often appeal changes to rateable value, but the process, administered by an under-resourced Valuation Office Agency, can be drawn out.

“For those properties where the rateable value is challenged, it can take up to 12 months for a check to be concluded, 18 months for the check stage, and then further time to appeal if appropriate,” wrote Sebastian James, MD of Boots UK, in Walgreens Boots Alliance’s sub-mission to the 2018 review. The company was still waiting for appeals from 2010 to be heard, he claimed.

“In the current retail market, by the time a rateable value is likely to be amended to the cor-rect value, decisions about via-bility of stores are very likely to have already concluded,” he added.

According to Altus Group’s head of business rates Robert Hayton, there is “nothing fun-damentally wrong” with busi-ness rates, but improvements have come “too slowly and on a piecemeal basis”.

Store vacancy rates are at their

highest since 2014, according to

the Local Data Company


analysis asda

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be a smash-and-grab raid”

One way or another property is going to be a big part of the Asda play for potential investors, say experts. The question is: how?

When Walmart International CEO Judith McKenna told

1,200 managers at her old stomping ground last May the US giant was seriously consid-ering floating Asda on the stock exchange – a process set to take years – it was widely inter-preted as a bid to flush out pri-vate equity dollars.

Less than a year later, a num-ber of private equity names are now being linked. The Sunday Times reports talks with US-based private equity firm Lone Star, which specialises in undervalued real estate and has

How will suitors to Asda shake up its vast estate?

now 20 PE funds worth $85bn. Other PE firms in the running are said to include Apollo, TDR Apax Partners and KKR.

And it’s not just private equity that’s reportedly in the run-ning. The Sunday Telegraph reports interest from deal-hun-gry EG Group (previously Euro Garages) founded by Blackburn-based Mohsin and Zuber Issa.

So what’s the appeal to these various parties? What are they likely to do to extract value from a deal? And what does it mean for Asda’s 600 stores and 145,000 employees?

Grabbing a bargainDespite scepticism over Asda’s

Ian Quinn & Edward Devlin growth prospects, given the rise of the discounters, it seems investors are convinced there’s a potential bargain to be had. Certainly no one believes Walmart will get anything like the £7.3bn price tag asso-ciated with last year’s failed Sainsbury’s merger, but on the other hand, it does have 15% of the market. And crucially it owns the freehold on around

70% of its estate (second only to Morrisons).

“You can just see PE com-panies licking their lips at the prospect,” says Stephen Springham, head of retail research at Knight Frank.

Take Lone Star. In the UK it boasts UK residential property company Quintain, owner of one of London’s largest urban regeneration sites at Wembley Park, which has permission to build more than 7,000 houses near to the national football sta-dium – a hint of what is to come at large Asda sites, maybe?

Tom Edson, head of retail cap-ital markets at Colliers, agrees: “My gut feeling is that property

Asda’s ‘got many car parks at the moment where you could take a cab from one

end to another’


Asda’s estate

Asda’s UK estate stands at 639 stores, in a range of formats.

SupercentresThere are about 30 Supercentres, from 80,000 sq ft to the 105,000 sq ft Supercentre in Milton Keynes (Asda’s biggest) the supercentres include a range of concessions from food service to banks and hairdressers to dry cleaners. Three have Decathlon sports concession and last month Asda announced Greggs counters were on the way to selected stores.

SuperstoresFrom 50,000 to 70,000 sq ft, the superstores

make up the bulk of the estate, at about 400 stores. They are still sufficiently vast to typically include a café, pharmacy, optician, George clothing and non-food concessions.

SupermarketsEven the smallest of Asda’s three main store formats is still defined as a ‘supermarket’. They range from roughly 40,000 sq ft down to the smallest, in Meanwood, Leeds, at around 3,000 sq ft. Non-food is limited to ‘essential’ products. They also provide click & collect for online orders. There are c160 of them, mostly ex-Netto

stores from its 2010 acquisition.

Asda LivingAbout 30 stores are dedicated to non-food, including George clothing and general merchandise.

Dark storesAsda has four online-only dark stores, including a fully-automated one in Hounslow, West London. They are comparable in size to the Supercentres.

Petrol stationsAs well as 300-plus petrol stations at its bigger stores, Asda has about 20 standalone ones, where small convenience shops offer food to go.

is going to be a big part of these talks.”

Asda would have the poten-tial to generate upwards of £150m a year just from sale and lease backs of sites in the port-folio, Edson reckons, though he adds this would be just one of many potential options for rais-ing finance.

Long income funds such as Aviva and M&G are likely to be interested too, he says.

Private equity buyers, used to double-digit margins – hardly likely to be realised by Asda’s store trading – could also seek to generate large cash sums from the major banks, experts say.

“The fact they have such high ownership means there’s a myr-iad of ways private equity could sweat those assets.”

Indeed, one property source admits he would be “salivating” at the prospect of buying some of Asda’s prime stores if they came on the market.

“Asda has some cracking sites. There are stores that do amazing business, and espe-cially if they are in an area where there is no big Tesco, they are going to be very attractive to investors,” says one property source.

Smash and grabThe prospect of private equity players getting hold of the property portfolio doesn’t fill all property experts with joy, however.

Springham argues “retailers need to be run by retailers” and blames private equity for many of the retail disasters of late.

“Were it not for private equity would Debenhams be in the state it is now?” he asks. “I’m very dubious about what it could mean for Asda.”

Another property source says: “The question is what hap-pens if these PE guys do strip the assets and things go wrong, and they end up going bust – is Walmart really going to bail them out?”

“My fear is they are more con-cerned at extracting cash than investing in the businesses.”

Yet Walmart has been accused of stripping talent and

programme. “Then you’re just inheriting a liability estate.”

He adds: “Over quite a period of time Asda has looked at ways of optimising their land.

“They’ve got many car parks where you could take a cab from one end to another.

“The obvious, quick solution would be to slap in McDonald’s drive-thrus, coffee drive-thrus.

“They could have gyms, a B&M store, and sell off a long leasehold on that part of it and let someone else do the work for you.”

EG GroupA more flexible approach to the use of its space may also be behind the interest of EG. Its voracious appetite for expansion, including buying 800 Kroger c-stores in the US and 540 Woolworths sites in Australia, has seen it become a global business with about 5,200 sites across Europe, the US and Australia.

Asda would add another 300-plus petrol stations to its 500-strong estate and poten-tially give the owner brothers the opportunity to supply its convenience operations with Asda products.

“EG would see grocery as an adjacent play,” an industry source says. “With a conveni-ence estate of their size, they could take Asda into this market in a big way in a single stroke while leveraging value from Asda’s sizeable forecourt estate in line with their core business.”

On the other hand, Asda’s automated fuel proposition and the low prices it charges at the fuel pumps is vastly different from the EG approach.

Crucially it’s not short of ambition or cash, says a senior convenience industry source. “It tried to buy Costa, and owns the European licence for Starbucks Drive Thru.

“It has some big investors behind it, who are interested in its entrepreneurial approach,” adds the source. “It will be interesting to see if it can do a better job than Asda in driving value through adding comple-mentary services and fran-chisees on those estates.”

cash from these shores and some property experts believe fresh eyes may bring fresh opportunities.

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be a smash-and-grab raid. That money can be ploughed back into the retail proposition,” says Edson.

Rapleys retail partner Richard Curry warns that, while Asda may have lacked investment

from Walmart, private equity could mean “passing from one devil to another”.

“They may think, look how much Walmart has taken out of it – we could do the same.”

But on balance, Curry believes a PE investor will see protecting Asda’s interests as the best way to add value for a subsequent buyer, as opposed to, say, a sale and lease-back

analysis commodity prices


● Seafood: Boston’s annual Seafood Expo has been postponed amid the global coronavirus scare . The event, which typically hosts more than 1,000 exhibitors , was due to take place next weekend. Its organisers said they would look into other locations and dates.

● Antibiotics: Foodborne bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to one of the key antibiotics used for treating infections they ca use, according to both the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the European Food Safety Authority. The prevalence of salmonella’s resistance to high concentrations of cip-rofl oxacin increased from 1.7% in 2016 to 4.6% in 2018.

● Fishmeal: A report by leading research provider Lux suggests 600k tonnes of insect, single-cell and algae proteins could be used in place of fi shmeal by 2024. Lux has forecast 15Mt of new protein will be needed for aquaculture in the next 30 years. Fishmeal produc-tion came under fi re for the “destruction of wild fi sh stocks” in a recent Changing Markets Foundation report.

prices digest

Coronavirus is likely to reduce Chinese demand for US soyabeans

The US-China trade deal may be under threat if coronavirus under-

mines China’s ability to meet its agreed soyabean purchases.

The outbreak is likely to reduce Chinese demand for soy in the fi rst half of the year as logistics delays and factory clo-sures disrupt supply chains.

The trade agreement signed in January committed China to signifi cant increases in agricul-tural purchases over the next two years. And though demand is expected to rebound later in the year, some think Donald Trump could reignite the trade war if the deal intended to help US farmers is at risk .

“A president in election mode needs to clearly show that there is something happening with this trade agreement he has sold as a win,” says Stefan Vogel, head of agricommodity markets at Rabobank.

The risk of China reneg ing on US purchases is exacerbated by this year’s strong harvest in Brazil. Chinese importers are under no obligation to buy

US-China deal faces coronavirus threat

US soy, says Vogel, and lower Brazilian prices could leave US farmers struggling to compete.

“Even once China removed the tariff on US soy then Brazil will still be cheaper,” he says. “For all the private companies [in China] it doesn’t make a lot of sense to pay $10 more [a tonne] to satisfy the trade deal.”

If this occurs, European buy-ers could benefi t from cheaper soy as US farmers are forced to lower their price. “We’ve seen in the past that when China wants

to exclusively buy from Brazil, prices will rise to the point where it is more attractive for every other country in the world to buy from the US,” says Vogel.

Until now, the US has not pro-duced suffi cient volumes of soy to allow Europe to entirely shift away from South America. But US soyabean production is now expected to jump 18% year on year from September, accord-ing to the USDA. “It should help Europeans to get cheaper soya-beans then normal,” Vogel says.

Harry Holmes

CURRENCY PRICE CHANGE CHANGE

WINNERS & LOSERS price per tonne m-o-m % y-o-y %

Key climbersArabica (ICE) (NY) US cent 113.7 3.8 7.1Steel (N Europe) EUR 560 1.8 –6.3Cocoa beans (Ldn ICE) GBP 1,955 –1.0 18.8Rye (DE) EUR 161.4 0.9 –21Apple conc (R’dam) EUR 1.3 0.0 5.7

Key fallersGas (UK) GBP 22.9 –11.9 –49.2Tea (KE) USD 2.8 –9.6 2.5Cotton (ICE) (NY) US cent 63.7 –7.6 –13.9White rice (TH) USD 436 –2.2 11.5LDPE (UK) GBP 1,053 –1.3 –8.1

Source: Mintec. Note: All prices are indicative only and are representative within the country quoted

Concerns about the potential impact of coronavirus appear to have weighed on buying sentiments towards cocoa beans.

NBP gas prices have continued to decline off the back of historically high levels of supply for liquid natural gas. UK supply rose to 77 million cubic metres on average throughout February, having been in the region of 49 million cubic metres a year earlier. Reduced gas demand from Asia has made the UK a more viable

destination for Qatari liquid natural gas shipments.

Strong competition from both Vietnam and India is pressuring Thai rice prices. Supply is expected to be limited this year owing to extreme drought conditions . According to the USDA, Thai rice exports are forecast to fall 1% to a total of 7.5 million tonnes in 2020.

Commodity and Wholesale prices data supplied by Mintec. Mintec is the principal

independent source of information for

commodities and raw materials. Mintec

monitors the key factors that are vital for efficient

procurement and provides sophisticated tools for analysing

and interpreting market information. www.mintecglobal.com

commodity prices: cocoa prices hit by coronavirus concerns

analysis retail & wholesale prices


CURRENCY PRICE CHANGE CHANGEPRICES £/tonne m-o-m % y-o-y %

IngredientsDesicc coconut (PH) USD 2,168 0.0 25.5Peanuts (NL) USD 1565.8 0.3 15.1Honey (ES) EUR 2,300 0.0 9.5Hazelnuts (UK) USD 7,550 –2.6 9.4Almonds (EU) USD 6,944 –5.1 –5.6Dried apricot (UK) USD 2,975 –0.8 –9.8Cashew nuts (VN) USD 6,900 –1.3 –10.6Black pepper (VN) USD 1,592 –6.7 –15.0Raisins (UK) USD 2,080 –3.3 –15.1Sultanas (EU) GBP 1,488 –2.9 –19.4

Source: Mintec

Info: All prices are indicative only and are representative within the country quoted

Peanut prices have soared in the past couple of months due to c oncerns over the quality of the US crop. USDA estimates US peanut production will be unchanged on last year at 2. 5 million tonnes. However, the volume of peanuts available for edible markets is currently tight due to problems with afl atoxin contamination.

The price for hazelnuts has fallen slightly in the past month. It comes despite recent high prices brought about by increased procurement by the

Turkish grain board and large global buyers.

Almond prices have continued to dip both month on month and year on year. The almond bloom in California has been progressing well .

Low demand from China has seen pepper prices tumble. The coronavirus outbreak has seen China’s activity fall away in some spice markets.

Early estimates indicate that South African raisin production will increase in 2020 to around 75,000-80,000 tonnes .

wholesale prices: quality concerns drive up price of peanuts

Flurry of promotions push coff ee prices down in mults

Shoppers are saving on supermarket coff ee fol-lowing another dive in

commodity prices.Global coff ee prices fell

in February for the second month running, according to the International Coff ee Organization. Averaging at $1.02 (80p) per lb, coff ee on the global market cost 4.6% less than in January.

At the same time, the aver-age shelf price of coff ee across instant, ground and pods has fallen 2% year on year follow-ing a slew of promotions across Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.

Asda has seen the greatest average price reduction of 4%. This is largely down to its cur-rent raft of deals, which include several own label lines. Its 227g French Blend Roast & Ground Coff ee is on off er at £1.24, from £1.34 a year ago, while its 100g Gold Roast Decaff einated Instant Coff ee is down from £1.59 to £1.40.

In brands, Asda has tempo-rarily dropped the shelf prices

discretion of the retailer and are also subject to each retail-er’s own promotional strate-gies,” says a JDE spokeswoman. “While we do not comment on specifi cs of our pricing, we remain committed to off ering value for money. ”

Elsewhere in the mults’ coff ee segments, Taylors of Harrogate’s average shelf prices are down 2%, Nescafé’s has dipped 1%, and Lavazza has seen no change over the past 52 weeks. Lavazza sister brand Carte Noire is down 8% – albeit across just four SKUs.

It comes as Nestlé’s Nespresso brand faces accusations, along-side Starbucks, of sourcing cof-fee from farms that use child labour. An investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches uncov-ered farms in Guatemala that supplied the businesses with coff ee picked by children as young as 10.

Both businesses have launched investigations into the claims, while Nespresso ambas-sador George Clooney said he was “surprised and saddened” .

of 16-packs of Costa Coff ee Mocha Italia Signature Blend Americano pods (from £4 to £3.50) and Tassimo Kenco Americano Grande pods (from £3.99 to £3).

Across the supermarkets, Tassimo, maker of the UK’s big-gest-selling ground coff ee, has seen a 5% decrease in average shelf price year on year, from £5.05 to £4.80, mainly due to deals in Asda on pods.

Meanwhile, Tassimo’s Jacobs Douwe Egberts sister brands

L’Or and Kenco are also down in the fi ve mults – by 4% and 1% respectively. Both are being extensively promoted.

A 100g pack of L’Or Intense instant coff ee, for instance, is currently on off er at £2.50 in Sainsbury’s, from £4 a year ago. The same SKU in Tesco is on a £2.49 deal from £4.99.

For Kenco, its 150g Decaff Eco Refi ll is £3 in Waitrose and Asda – from £4.45 and £4.75 a year ago respectively.

“Retail prices are at the sole

Coffee on the global market in February cost 4.6% less than in January

Daniel Selwood

PLATINUM MEMBERS GET MORE!Track annual grocery infl ation since 2008 by retailer, by category, and by retailer AND category, at thegrocer.co.uk/GPI

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analysis the grocer 33


mystery shopper

Tesco has recorded a resounding win as another week of poor

availability made for low scores across its rival supermarkets.

Its Poole store was the only one to score points for availa-bility this week, with our shop-per finding 31 of the 33 lines. She also found the trip to be “enjoyable” with staff “helpful, well-presented and efficient”. However, lots of restocking on this busy Saturday afternoon left parts of the shop messy.

The “seriously big” Asda in Bournemouth impressed for its well-trained staff, who knew where to find products, and for cleanliness. Marks were lost for the empty fish counter and a broken-down cheese chiller, as well as four products out of stock and another not stocked.

Waitrose in Croydon was missing 13 items, with 10 not stocked by the small store, which our mystery shopper felt was more suited to the Little Waitrose convenience format because of its limited footprint. The size also left aisles cramped as staff attempted to restock shelves, while the checkout queue ran the length of the store, further blocking aisles.

Congestion and empty shelves also proved an issue at Sainsbury’s in East Grinstead, with four products out of stock. Long queues at the tills kept our shopper waiting and staff inter-actions were disappointing.

Staff at Morrisons in Northampton were hard to find, which made for a stressful expe-rience as our shopper searched for missing products, with a whopping nine out of stock and four more not stocked. One shop-floor worker told our shop-per it was her own fault for leav-ing it so late in the day.

Edward Devlin

Have customers been stockpil-ing due to the coronavirus out-break? We haven’t seen any stockpiling or food shortages. There’s been a shortage of anti-bac gel but we’re working to get that back. It’s a case of catching up with the spike in demand.What information have you been receiving to help you cope? Obviously we are keeping

a close eye on what’s happen-ing and there have been regular updates from the company. How much attention do you pay to price competitiveness with your local rivals? I keep a close eye on my competitors. Tesco is very competitive. Our own label brands are very competitive against the discounters.How fierce is that competition? Poole is just saturated. I’ve got two Asdas within a couple of miles, two other Tescos, includ-ing a massive Extra, Waitrose, Lidl and Aldi and then a retail estate with a new Iceland Food Warehouse, Home Bargains and B&M. Price is very important but I think the difference is on our level of service and that’s what we have concentrated on. How has your bakery been affected by the latest cuts? We will be changing to have slightly less scratch bakery products. We have definitely

seen less people buying tra-ditional loaves and this is responding to what customers want. We very much hope all those impacted will be able to find other jobs in the store. Tesco has just opened a cash-less store. How important is cash still? We are definitely con-tinuing to see a trend towards card payments, but there are still a significant number of customers who prefer cash.Our shopper was helped by a member of staff with an availa-bility app. How useful are they? Being able to check availabil-ity and stock date is really use-ful. The older generation of staff were a bit worried when they first came out but the younger generation took to it naturally and now everyone is using the app. I use it all day, every day.

Tesco wins as rivals flounder

Simon Beale was talking to Ian Quinn

Winner: Tesco Poole Store manager: Simon BealeSize: 60,000 sq ft Opened: 1989 Market share: 9%Nearest rivals: Asda – 1.6 miles Iceland – 2.2 milesWaitrose – 2.4 milesCo-op – 2.4 milesSainsbury’s – 2.9 milesStore data source: Analysis by CACI. Call the market planning group on 020 7602 6000

store of the week

GOLD MEMBERS GET MORE!Read itemised service score breakdowns and full mystery shopper comments from each store visit at thegrocer.co.uk/grocer-33

WEEK 36: SATURDAY 29 FEBRUARY 2020, 1PM-3PM WINNER

SERVICE & AVAILABILITY Asda Morrisons Sainsbury’s Tesco Waitrose

Bournemouth, Dorset

Northampton, Northants

East Grinstead, W Sussex

Poole, Dorset

Croydon, South London

Car park score (out of 10) 9 10 9 9 9Store standards score (20) 12 12 14 12 13Store layout (10) 6 6 7 9 2Shop floor service (20) 15 6 7 15 13Checkout score (20) 15 11 11 14 12Availability score (20) 0 0 0 13 0TOTAL (100) 57 45 48 72 49Out of stock/not stocked 4/1 9/4 4/0 1/1 3/10Availability 87.5% 69.0% 87.9% 96.9% 87.0%


analysis the grocer 33

Edward Devlin

Morrisons wins aft er promotions battle with Tesco

Morrisons has squeezed out Tesco this week to take its second pric-

ing win in three weeks – and its third in this Grocer 33 year.

The Bradford-headquartered supermarket beat Tesco by just 8p with its total basket of £84.40.

The pair each off ered the lowest price on 14 items, with Morrisons exclusively cheap-est on just two and Tesco only three. However, the two retail-ers off ered the most promo-tions this week. Morrisons ran deals on 10 products, with seven on price and three multi-buys. Tesco had 11 promotions, including two half-price prod-ucts and three multibuy deals.

Both chains registered big savings on the Martell VS Cognac, with Morrisons off ering £5 off and Tesco £6.

Morrisons was also exclu-sively cheapest on own-label free-range eggs and Lizi’s granola, while Tesco had the exclusively lowest price

Average price Eggs, own-label, free-range, large, six-pack

Tesco Eggs, own-label, free-range, large, six-pack

Morrisons Eggs, own-label, free-range, large, six-pack

Waitrose Eggs, own-label, free-range, large, six-pack

Sainsbury’s Eggs, own-label, free-range, large, six-pack

Asda Eggs, own-label, free-range, large, six-pack

PRICE£1.19CHANGE YOY–£0.07CHANGE YOY–5.3%

Average: £0.90YoY: –£0.09 (–0.1%)Weeks on off er: 48





£1.23

£1.13

for Billington’s sugar and Billington’s Barista sugar, as well as the cognac.

Asda came in third despite having 22 of the cheapest prod-ucts and 11 lines with the exclu-sively lowest price. Nine of the exclusively cheapest items were own-label, with diff erences between its rivals being as low as 1p and no more than 60p . Rollbacks on the Amoy sauce and Warburtons bagels also meant Asda was cheapest on these lines . The Leeds-based retailer, which was £2.67 more expensive than Morrisons, has now failed to register a Grocer 33 win for six weeks.

Sainsbury’s was £7.89 off the pace as it managed just nine cheapest products – none exclu-sively so – and only ran six price promotions.

Waitrose ran the fewest pro-motions – just four and only one price deal – and managed just three cheapest products, with none exclusively lowest. It was £13.01 more expensive than Morrisons.

A deep discount on the Martell cognac helped Morrisons to the victory

Price & Promo History

£0.90

£1.35

£1.89

£1.51

SEE PRICE HISTORY FOR ALL 33 ITEMSGold members can view current and historic price and promo details for all 33 products, plus meta-analysis of promo mechanics, cashback and cheapest products at thegrocer.co.uk/stores/the-grocer-33/prices

52 W/E 29 FEBRUARY 2020






The Grocer 33 was conducted in association with Edge by Ascential. Trusted

by major FMCG manufacturers and retailers, Edge by Ascential (formerly

Brand View) is the UK’s largest provider of real-time price and promotion

tracking and analysis. Learn more and sign up for a 14-day free evaluation at

www.ascentialedge.com. Tel: 0844 357 9970 Email: [email protected]

£0.95£1.00

£1.00

£1.15

£1.00


WANT TO KNOW THE DEAL IN DETAIL?View precise promotion mechanic details by scrolling over the red dot on our enhanced online version of the Grocer 33 at thegrocer.co.uk/stores/the-grocer-33. You can also view full price and promo history, as per the example left, for all 33 items, as well as other analytics, using the widget

1.10 0 8

2.25 ∙ 0 -2

WEEK 36 WINNER

SHOPPING BASKET Asda Morrisons Sainsbury’s Tesco Waitrose AveragePRICE P MoM YoY PRICE P MoM YoY PRICE P MoM YoY PRICE P MoM YoY PRICE P MoM YoY PRICE MoM YoY

After Eight Mint Chocolate Thins 300g

2.00 0 -1 2.00 -84 -1 3.00 6 2 3.00 ∙ 29 -5 3.00 0 -21 2.60 -10 -5

Allinson’s flour Strong, white, 1.5kg

2.00 ∙ 87 5 1.00 ∙ -26 33 2.00 0 16 1.00 ∙ -100 8 2.00 0 20 1.60 -8 16

Alpro oat UHT Original, one-litre

1.40 ∙ 0 1 1.50 0 9 1.00 ∙ -16 4 1.00 ∙ -40 -4 1.45 ∙ 0 9 1.27 -11 4

Alpro soya yoghurt Plain with Coconut, 500g

1.60 ∙ 50 9 1.00 ∙ -28 3 1.75 51 4 1.00 ∙ -29 1 1.60 ∙ 55 8 1.39 20 5

Amoy stir fry sauce Chow Mein, 120g

0.75 ∙ 2 -7 1.00 ∙ 0 0 1.00 32 8 1.00 ∙ 0 4 1.05 21 2 0.96 11 1

Apples Own-label, Golden Delicious, six-pack (five to seven-pack)

1.00 0 -10 1.60 0 -2 1.65 0 5 1.92 ∙ 0 -6 1.71 0 0 1.58 0 -3

Bahlsen Leibniz Biscuits Milk Chocolate, 125g

1.50 6 -11 1.00 ∙ -75 14 1.60 ∙ 17 2 1.00 ∙ -32 0 1.55 ∙ 7 -9 1.33 -15 -1

Benecol Buttery Spread 500g

3.00 ∙ -75 -3 3.00 ∙ -9 16 3.00 ∙ -81 4 3.75 0 -4 3.75 ∙ 17 -7 3.30 -30 1

Billington’s Barista sugar 400g

2.06 72 2.00 10 -10 2.00 0 1.00 ∙ -100 1 2.00 0 1.81 -4 -5

Billington’s sugar Demerara, 1kg

2.41 0 11 2.25 3 1 2.25 0 9 1.50 ∙ -75 2.29 0 1 2.14 -14 6

Bisto Best gravy Chicken, 250g

2.00 ∙ -78 2.00 ∙ -65 2.90 0 2.90 ∙ 13 2.39 5 2.44 -25

Buckwud maple syrup 250g

4.50 ∙ -70 -10 6.00 ∙ 90 -13 5.00 ∙ -94 -14 6.00 ∙ 29 19 4.50 ∙ -124 -14 5.20 -34 -6

Cheestrings Original, 4x20g

1.50 0 4 1.00 ∙ -3 -7 1.00 ∙ -16 -4 1.00 ∙ -26 -4 1.50 0 0 1.20 -9 -2

Colgate toothpaste Advanced White, 125ml

3.50 ∙ 62 5 3.50 ∙ 150 -13 3.50 ∙ 53 -6 3.80 198 12 3.60 ∙ 0 38 3.58 93 7

Dr Oetker Ristorante Pizza Pollo, 355g

2.50 ∙ 19 -6 2.50 94 9 2.50 6 1 2.50 ∙ 32 14 2.60 ∙ 20 -5 2.52 34 3

Dried fruit Own-label, mixed, 1kg

2.50 0 -30 2.90 0 -2 2.80 0 6 2.80 0 12 2.99 0 0 2.80 0 -3

Eggs Own-label, free-range, large, six-pack

0.95 0 -2 0.90 ∙ 0 -9 1.20 3 -7 1.00 0 -12 1.89 0 -3 1.19 1 -7

Genius white bread 535g

2.50 0 0 2.60 0 -11 2.90 28 -2 2.50 0 -5 2.55 0 -5 2.61 6 -5

Green beans Own-label, fine, 190g (160g-220g)

0.95 0 -2 1.34 ∙ 0 9 0.95 0 0 0.95 7 2 1.28 0 0 1.09 1 2

Indian tonic water Own-label, sugar-free, one-litre

0.35 ∙ -1 2 0.45 0 0 0.60 0 4 0.50 ∙ 0 2 0.57 0 4 0.49 0 2

Lettuce Own-label, Little Gem, two-pack

0.65 0 3 0.85 0 8 0.85 0 0 0.85 16 0 0.95 ∙ 5 3 0.83 4 3

Lizi’s granola High protein, 350g

3.68 0 20 3.00 ∙ -117 -16 3.70 0 4 3.70 50 -16 3.80 80 -3 3.58 3 -2

Mars ice cream 204g

2.10 ∙ 0 -6 2.00 ∙ 0 2 2.00 ∙ 16 -8 2.00 ∙ 0 0 2.00 0 -25 2.02 3 -7

Martell VS Fine Cognac 700ml

30.00 77 178 25.00 ∙ -500 211 29.00 0 536 24.00 ∙ -523 237 29.50 71 172 27.50 -175 267

Mixed vegetables Own-label, chunky, 1kg

0.99 0 2 1.00 ∙ 0 -48 1.40 0 19 1.40 0 -7 1.47 0 -12 1.25 0 -9

Olive oil Own-label, blended, 500ml

2.34 0 3 2.35 0 2.35 0 -1 2.35 0 0 2.55 0 0 2.39 0 1

Onions Own-label, brown, 1kg

0.60 ∙ 1.00 0 16 0.85 0 10 0.85 0 6 0.95 0 16 0.85 0 12

Prosciutto Own-label, 80g (70g-100g)

1.20 0 0 1.90 -10 1 1.54 ∙ -17 4 1.62 ∙ 19 -2 2.69 0 4 1.79 -2 1

Quorn Pieces Chicken-style, 300g

2.00 0 -2 2.36 0 36 2.00 0 4 2.00 0 0 2.00 0 8 2.07 0 9

Strawberries Own-label, 400g (301g-400g)

2.00 ∙ -89 -1 2.00 -100 39 2.75 -2 -1 2.00 -100 -7 3.00 -16 2.35 -73 3

Sweetcorn Own-label, frozen, 1kg (750g-1kg)

0.99 0 4 1.35 0 2 1.50 0 -1 1.50 0 -1 2.13 0 -41 1.49 0 -7

Warburtons bagels Thin, plain, six-pack

1.00 ∙ -40 2 1.50 0 6 1.20 ∙ -27 -11 1.50 34 7 1.50 4 -3 1.34 -6 0

Wholemeal bread Own-label, bedium, 800g

0.55 0 0 0.55 0 0 0.55 0 0 0.59 0 3 0.60 0 0 0.57 0 1

TOTAL (£) 87.07 84.40 92.29 84.48 97.41 89.13 Inflation/deflation on total (pence) 22 158 -670 283 -41 587 -598 255 161 121 -225 281

Inflation/deflation on total (%) 0.3 1.9 -7.4 3.3 -0.4 7.1 -6.6 3.0 1.7 1.3 -2 3

Price-only promotions 7 7 6 8 1 6Multibuy promotions 2 3 0 3 3 2Key: On promo (details online) Off promo (details online) ■ Out-of-stock ■ Not stocked


comment & opinion

Providing accurate product data

the saturday essay

Traceability and product safety has long been at the heart of everything

I’ve done throughout my career in the food industry. I have worked across the procurement, manufacturing and supply chain sectors and, as a result, have had to manage hundreds of recalls and crises, from BSE to foot and mouth, melamine to horsemeat.

Dealing with these incidents involved reassuring custom-ers and working hard to ensure that their trust had not been compromised.

Today’s consumer is more dis-cerning than ever and expects to be able to access a wealth of information about what they con-sume and where it comes from. This isn’t just a passing fad – peo-ple are more conscientious about how the food they eat has been grown, what it contains, and the

impact it is likely to have on their health and the environment.

So as supply chains become more complex, suppliers and retailers must ensure their prod-uct data is entirely accurate.

In fact, with the Food Standards Agency reporting a 36% increase in allergy alerts in the year to April 2019 – and legal experts RPC reporting sub-stantial increases in the number of potentially unsafe products – reliable product data and full traceability is no longer just nice to have. It is a fundamental legal requirement that, in the most extreme cases, could be the dif-ference between life and death.

According to research we com-missioned from YouGov on how product recalls can impact long-term relationships between brands, retailers and their cus-tomers, there has been a big shift in what customers expect from the industry, and how their future choices are based in that trust.

Consumer expectation for greater information at the point of sale is only likely to intensify, so it is important that manufac-turers and retailers are doing all they can to deliver on this need.

Developments in technology will see different methods of data capture used, but they will still need to be underpinned by

a common set of standards that separate parts of the supply chain can adhere to in unison.

We all know GS1 standards are most commonly associated with barcodes, but they underpin all traceability systems including QR codes and blockchain, and it is the latter that has boundless potential.

In addition to the integral part they play in accurate product data, standards and traceability will also have a significant role in the ongoing commitment to recy-cling and sustainability.

GS1 UK is already work-ing closely with Zero Waste Scotland to support the introduc-tion of a deposit return scheme, an initiative designed to drive increased recycling rates in the not-too-distant future. Product identifiers – such as barcodes – are vital to the smooth run-ning of such schemes, as they will prevent the fraudulent reimbursement of ineligible containers.

Universal standards will play a key part in ensuring the grocery sector adapts to meet consumer needs. GS1 UK is dedicated to act-ing as a positive agent for change in a sector that employs 440,000 people and brings £85bn into the UK economy each year.

Chris Tyas is chair of GS1 UK

“Reliable product data and full traceability is a legal requirement”

Chris Tyas

Plastic sachet ban is a no-brainer

third party

Giles Gibbons is founder and CEO of Good Business

convenience of sachets – are afraid of losing business if they ditch single-use packaging. They’re wrong. The majority of consumers know they need to change, but find it hard to do so.

A ban on sachets is the only real solution. Public opinion on plastic has reached a tipping point, meaning radical action will be welcomed by most.

And in this case regulation won’t stifle creativity. On the con-trary, a ban on sachets will put a rocket behind both innovation and behaviour change.

On the innovation side, it will incentivise businesses to har-ness the great ideas already

out there, and take them main-stream. We’ve already seen Just Eat teaming up with Unilever to trial Hellmann’s sauces pack-aged in Notpla’s biodegrada-ble seaweed sachets. A ban will accelerate and amplify these and other pioneering partnerships.

More simply, we’ll also see a turn back towards traditional solutions like reusable con-diment dispensers. Fast food chains such as McDonald’s are recognising that dispensers paired with paper pots are less messy and easier to dip than indi-vidual sachets, with the added bonus that people can choose how much sauce they want. For

both brand reputation and waste reduction, it’s a no-brainer.

A ban will also accelerate con-sumer behaviour change. We can take our portion from a larger dispenser, give back unwanted packs rather than bin them, or even lose the sauce altogether.

The urgency of the plastic problem, the force of consumer opinion and the willingness of businesses to change leaves lit-tle room for doubt. It’s time for the government to step up and deliver the transformative action we are all demanding.

Last week, A Plastic Planet revealed that 855 billion plastic sachets are used

globally each year: enough to cover the entire surface of the Earth. But despite this shock-ing statistic, sachets have been almost entirely exempted from EU and UK plastics regulation.

This is too big and too urgent to leave to gradual, voluntary evolution. As we know from plastic bags, gentle nudges can only go so far. Food retailers – believing consumers prefer the

Giles Gibbons


higgins

Daniel Selwood

You’re so poor you’re forced to work for pennies an hour

picking and lugging sacksful of coffee beans. And you’re not yet a teenager. For children in Guatemala, this is too often reality, found Dispatches (Channel 4, 2 March, 8pm).

In ‘Starbucks & Nespresso: The Truth About Your Coffee’, journo Antony Barnett travelled to Guatemala, to investigate claims that farms supplying the titular coffee giants used child labourers. Seven farms were found to be doing so. “Everything goes to Nespresso” said an adult labourer at the first location.

Barnett had to film secretly there. He’d been told not to record the kids working on slopes, up which they hauled back-breaking loads of beans. One 12-year-old boy carried a 50lb sack to earn less than £2 during a nine-hour work day.

How was this allowed to happen? Labour lawyer Lesbia Amézquita explained that 60% of Guatemala’s population was in poverty, and some parents couldn’t afford to feed their families even after working 15 or 16 hours a day.

Coffee farms got away with exploitation because Starbucks and Nespresso didn’t properly scrutinise them, she suggested. Plus, Guatemala’s suppliers routinely lied to customers about their operations.

Naturally, Starbucks and Nespresso expressed disgust and promised to thoroughly investigate Dispatches’ claims.

But the episode’s scrutiny of coffee supply chains’ inequities was half-decent at best. And its conclusion was lame. “Let’s hope the coffee giants keep their promises” was all Barnett could muster.

CRITICAL EYE

Defend grassroots grocerysecond opinion

Joanna Blythman is a journalist and author of Swallow This

I just signed the petition to save Nour Cash & Carry in Brixton’s Market Row,

an exceptional food emporium that has served its local commu-nity for over 20 years.

Hondo Enterprises, which is run by Texan socialite and DJ Taylor McWilliams, bought this bustling, lovably scruffy indoor market in 2018. At that time it said: “We look forward to begin-ning a conversation with trad-ers, the local community and Lambeth Council in the coming weeks and months as we develop our plans to protect and enhance the market.”

Less than two years on, that conversation has soured. Hondo has served Nour with a notice to quit, and as yet it has not offered alternative premises in the mar-ket that Nour considers to be equivalent and viable.

The sadness here is layered. Nour is one of the most affordable and best-stocked international grocers in the UK. It employs a small army of workers of varied nationalities, many of whom are women. No matter however little they have to spend, all customers are welcome.

There’s anger, too. Nour is the

keystone that supports other businesses in this steadfastly diverse, genuinely independent market. Without Nour, the path would be clear for its embour-geoisement, mirroring the ongo-ing social cleansing of Brixton.

In Tottenham, the Latin Village is another covered marketplace under threat from ‘improving’

pressures. How irritating such thriving, grassroots business ventures must be to property developers itching to cash in on our much-vaunted millennial ‘food revolution’.

An explosion of ‘cool’ food courts and walled-off markets has hit London. This wave of monetised fakery fans outwards, with overpriced street food as its vanguard, and repurposed ship-ping containers bringing up its rear. Ventures of this ilk serve up sanitised multiculturalism, which is never to be mistaken for the real thing.

“I would emphasise that we have been and continue to actively pursue options to retain them [Nour] within the market,” Hondo’s senior assets manager, Jamie Giffard-Taylor, tells me. Try harder, is all I can say. If you force Nour out, Brixton will never for-give you.

“An explosion of ‘cool’ food courts and markets has hit London”

Joanna Blythman


comment & opinion

What is the biggest threat to the food industry this year?

NEXT WEEK: What do you think about Tesco price

matching Aldi?

Vote now at twitter.com/thegrocer

● Bold strategy

● Aldi will go lower

● Good for shoppers

42% Coronavirus

18% Weather

40% Brexit negotiations

polling station

the Food & Grocery Councils of Australia and New Zealand. We know paper fl yers can be eff ec-tive, but it was no surprise that the council members also agreed they needed to go beyond mass -broadcast, printed media to know who their customers are, so they can do something about it.

This is why it is important to highlight the early-adopter win-ners who are maximising returns

through increased sales and cus-tomer engagement by collaborat-ing on measurable TTL digital campaigns. The drinks sector is leading the way . Bacardí’s recent collaboration with Slug & Lettuce bars is just one example. Its ‘Sun’s Out Rum’s Out’ cam-paign shows how retailers can reap a direct benefi t from the bil-lions of dollars that brands cur-rently invest in traditional ATL promotional marketing. Tim Mason is CEO of Eagle Eye

Time for through-the-line

Winning retailers are forg-ing data-informed digital customer connections,

where advertising has led the way. In fact, online display just overtook TV in US ad spend last year, according to a Warc report.

Historically, marketing exe-cution has focused ‘above and below the line’ (ATL and BTL). But, in the face of digital’s rapid growth, I contend we should move towards ‘through the line’ (TTL) communication.

Doing TTL marcomms well is as much of a creative challenge as it is one of analytics-based insight. But I feel marketing cre-atives have, as yet, failed to seize the opportunity.

It’s not enough to treat mobile as a cut-down version of an old medium, rather than a new and exciting one in its own right. Just look at the ‘Uber eff ect’ of digital-isation everywhere else.

It is interesting to see how this scenario translates and resonates worldwide, as I found out when I recently addressed members of

talking shop

Through-the-line promotions should provide attribution via any retail point of sale and use the data consumers share about themselves to ensure greater rel-evance for higher redemption rates. TTL executions can also deliver greater insight on who the customers redeeming the off ers are, and what motivates them.

Retailers and brands can col-laborate more closely TTL to get an end-to-end view of the cus-tomer’s experiences through their shopping journeys. This, to me, is also the next stage in work-ing towards more consistent and seamless experiences, online and in store. As McKinsey said, these are the trends shaping the future of personalisation.

Although the share of global retail sales moving through this sort of “open loop” ecosystem is still less than 10%, it predicts this will grow to nearly 30% by 2025, outpacing even the rate of digi-tal change. This isn’t unrealis-tic. Mobile advertising went from zero to 33% of ad spend from 2010 to 2018. I’m sure other marketing will follow at pace.

“Marketing creatives have, as yet, failed to seize the opportunity”

Tim Mason

to contact us...e-mail: [email protected] tel: 01293 610 +(3 Digit Extension)letters: [email protected]

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Volume: 242 Issue Number: 8444


GOOD TO THE COREIt is no longer enough for food and drink businesses to simply generate profit – Jane Marren, MD, Company Shop Group

thegrocer.co.uk 29 February 2020 | £4.50

HEALTH Advertisers must ‘be brave’

and switch to healthier products 4

ANTI-SLAVERY Tony’s Chocolonely

£30m cash boost. Aldi’s human rights

award. Plus G’s warns of slavery threat

from new immigration rules 10, 14, 64

PALM OIL How signifi cant is

Kellogg’s new sourcing plan? 12

SUSTAINABILITY Supermarkets

need to go beyond net zero 22

TESCO Barilla hit with delists 61

D bbie&Andrew’sbrand axed W

TheGoodness

IssueHow goodness has evolved

in grocery. The rise of

B Corp. Can carbon footprint

labelling fi nally fi nd its feet?

And heroic acts

Sir, The Grocer’s recent Goodness Issue (29 February) showcased the very best of our industry, from championing ethical retail to collaborative efforts to combat carbon footprints, plastic packaging and food waste.

It rightly shone on a spotlight on the transformative work being delivered by businesses to generate positive environmental and social impact. As a sector that touches so many aspects of people’s lives, it is no longer enough for food and drink businesses to simply generate profit. Societal and environmental good can

no longer be an afterthought but must be integrated into a business’ core operation.

To achieve real and lasting impact, these laudable initiatives must aim to change mindsets, encourage a fresh look at age-old challenges and disrupt the status quo. For example, Company Shop

Environmental and societal good is key to business

More goodness please

● Sir, It was inspiring and uplifting to read your ‘Goodness Issue’ (29 February): thank you.

In the face of climate, nature and obesity crises, ‘doing a bit less badly’ won’t wash. Food companies can – and should – be doing good and striving for positive impacts on people, ani-mals and the planet. Please can we have more goodness in every issue – and in every farm, fac-tory, canteen, restaurant, store, home and beyond!Dan Crossley, executive director, Food Ethics Council

Churn management

● Sir, Your ‘Goodness Issue’ contained many interesting sto-ries about the way top retailers are adapting to meet the ethical zeitgeist – such as Asda’s ‘you buy one, we give one’, and the B Corp movement.

Despite all this, I suggest such issues need to be bal-anced within the wider objec-tive of delivering value to the customer. It is the total value package that attracts and keeps customers – yet we know churn management is still not working sufficiently well.

Group’s approach has always been to question whether it is inevitable that stock written off as waste must go to waste, or if it could be redistributed.

Similarly, a key theme that emerged from our recent parliamentary panel event on sustainability, attended by many industry leaders, was the importance of collaboration. This must be between industry peers, across supply chains, and from field to fork.

It is beholden on all of us to work together if we are to meet our ambitious food waste targets, and indeed various other sustainability challenges, and this collaboration will ensure that benefits are enjoyed across the industry and society more broadly.Jane Marren, MD, Company Shop Group

your tweets

Inspiring tales showcasing the ‘good’ in grocery

I've read @TheGrocer today & what a reward. Thank you for bringing purpose to the fore. FMCG can’t fool con-sumers with tokenism. @annakharris

Plastic campaigners call for action on ‘valueless’ sachets

Absolutely crazy! So glad businesses and consumers are waking up to the scale of our consumption and impact on the environment@RachelKelly_3

Call to scrap ‘confusing’ food assurance schemes

Too many different schemes driven mostly by supermar-kets wanting to be one better than a competitor and vari-ous organisations wanting to capitalise on getting sub-scriptions and fees@henryj17

Our research reveals that cus-tomer churn rates (from peo-ple’s ‘principal supermarket’) continue to climb – from 16% in 2017 to over 23% last year.

Loyalty schemes – if intelli-gently deployed and analysed – remain a goldmine of intelli-gence. All commercial sectors are at last beginning to recog-nise the value of truly reward-ing loyal customers, rather than just incentivising new ones.

An ethical offering is essen-tial, but is just one element that will mark out the grocery win-ners of this new decade.Patrick Headley, group CEO, Go Inspire Group

Back charitable causes

● Sir, We read last week’s ‘Goodness Issue’ with interest.

Throughout our history, we have tried to “do business the right way” and donating to charitable causes has always been an important part of our efforts. In 2014, we made it an integral part of who we are by committing 10% of profits to charitable causes.

This year will see us pass £1m in donations since 2014. As a family business, this is a choice we are able to make. My wish is that many other businesses will make the same choice by com-mitting a proportion of profits to good causes.Rob Amar, MD, RH Amar

Brands must deliver on pro-pollinator promises

There are numerous examples of retailers, suppliers and brands touting their pro-bee credentials. That’s lovely stuff. But all involved would be wise to bear in mind the risks of ‘bee-washing’. The term was coined to describe “the use of bees by retailers to mislead consumers”. Daniel Selwood, 4 March

Johnson’s US objectives lack ambition. But maybe that’s for the best

David Henig, director of the UK Trade Policy Project and former trade official, believes the government’s lack of demands for British services is a sign that its ambitions for a US deal are tempering. Downing Street has perhaps come to terms with the notorious difficulty in extracting anything on services from Washington. With services representing 80% of the UK’s economy, without their inclusion a US deal starts to appear remarkably scratchy.Harry Holmes, 3 March

The coronavirus outbreak proves we can’t put all our faith in food imports

There has already been an impact on UK supplies, it seems, with supermarket shelves looking decidedly bare of tinned tomatoes and pasta. A strange time, then, to suggest that the UK should embrace 100% imported food. Surely the chaos unleashed on global supply chains by the coronavirus is a salutary lesson on why ditching domestic production would be absolute madness?Carina Perkins, 2 March

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property special land deals

Locked out: behind the land scandal


Steve Farrell

Restrictive land agreements are a head-ache that apparently won’t go away for Tesco. In 2014, four years aft er they were in eff ect outlawed as anti-compet-itive, an investigation by The Guardian

revealed one it still had, in Diss, Norfolk.Then in 2016, the supermarket was sued by a property

developer over another in Whaley Bridge, Derbyshire, in a dispute that was ultimately settled out of court.

And last month, it was revealed that it had still more, by a now clearly impatient Competition & Markets Authority. It was “unacceptable” that Tesco still had 23 of “these unlawful restrictions in place” said CMA executive director Andrea Gomes da Silva, in a state-ment that also demanded new powers to impose fi nes.

Tesco pointed out it represented 0.4% of its 5,354 land deals. It blamed “administrative errors” (closely echo-ing its explanation to The Guardian in 2014) and agreed to take remedial action in all the cases.

But the CMA’s gloves were off . On the same day, it wrote to the other supermarkets prohibited from hav-ing the agreements under a 2010 competition order: Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Waitrose, M&S and the Co-op. Each has been instructed to demonstrate that they have none, under the threat of enforcement if they fail to comply.

At issue are clauses in land agreements restricting other retailers, usually of food, from opening within a given area of the retailers’ stores. The CMA fi nds them unacceptable because they can also limit the choice available to consumers.

They can apply to land adjacent to stores owned by a supermarket, bought from a developer subject to a restrictive covenant. Binding for the developer and any future owner of the adjoining land, it prevents another supermarket from opening on the same retail park. And they can apply to stores leased on condition that the landlord applies an exclusivity restriction to neighbouring units.

While the tone of the CMA’s announcement may have been one of outrage, few in retail property seem at all shocked that some should still exist.

“It will come as no surprise to anyone who has observed the food retail market over the years, as

restrictive covenants have been a known feature of supermarket strategies for decades,” says Richard Curry, partner in retail and leisure at agents Rapleys.

As The Grocer revealed two weeks ago, there is also an apparent consensus among retail agents that the CMA’s renewed scrutiny will reveal the other supermar-kets to have retained at least a similar number to Tesco.

Why that should be so is a question on which there is less agreement.

“It’s not a dark secret that they’re there,” says Tom Edson, head of retail capital markets at Colliers. “They just won’t physically have the time or resources to ana-lyse every single store.”

Amid vast estates, chock-full of decades-old land deals, Edson argues that they only become the focus of the retailer’s attention when raised by a would-be neighbour. When that happens, there is a good chance that, in any event, the retailer will rescind the restric-tion. “I know of examples where Tesco have had restric-tive covenants and someone who owns nearby land has phoned me and said, what’s your experience of this? [And I’ve said] just pick up the phone, write to them, tell them, see what happens. And they’ve just dropped it.”

Richard Petyt, retail partner at Knight Frank, agrees on both points. For the supermarkets, fl ushing all the off ending clauses out of their estates will not have been made easier by the fact their “record-keeping

Tesco still has a string of ‘ unlawful’ restrictive land agreements , 10 years after they were banned. But other supermarkets have them too. So is it such a crime?

Formerly owned by Sainsbury’s, an empty Homebase could be subject to historic restrictions, say property experts


property special land deals

isn’t that fantastic”. And they are likely to willingly release offending agreements when they are high-lighted because they are “sophisticated enough to know that anti-competitive restrictions aren’t allowed any more”.

However, this argument gets short shrift from the CMA. The authority expects large retailers to have sys-tems in place to achieve full compliance. Their exist-ence alone could be enough to deter another retailer from pursuing a location, it says.

More critical viewNeither is there a shortage of property industry experts who take a more critical view of any breaches. Curry believes arguments that supermarkets cannot keep track of the clauses should also note that “after all, they’re protecting their own trade”. And he is uncon-vinced they would be willingly rescinded “if it wasn’t for the CMA throwing it out into the open”.

Savills director of out of town retail Johnny Rowland has recent experience of the potential complications presented by the clauses to one his clients: Lidl.

“We’re trying to take some space on a terrace next to a Tesco,” he says. “There is more than likely going to be a food restriction in favour of Tesco across this cur-rent non-food terrace. Lidl’s view is they don’t want to

risk an enforcement action by Tesco, because they’re not prepared to risk £Xm of shop fit to be told it’s legally binding and they suddenly can’t trade.

“But they are also now confident enough in the leg-islation that those agreements are no longer legal,” he adds. “And that provided the landlord accepts they are no longer legal, and challenges Tesco to confirm it, Tesco wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.”

The discounter’s confidence stems from a similar recent case, in which with “benefit of legal input”, Lidl successfully challenged a restriction at another site, according to Rowland. But it hasn’t always ended so. Rowland says he also knows of a case, post-2010, in which a challenger paid one of the big four to release a restriction. The sum was proportionate to revenue likely to be lost as a result of the new food store’s arrival.

Clarity for challengers will not be enhanced by exceptions to the 2010 ban. They include short-term exclusivity restrictions lasting up to five years, which are allowed. Given the amount of capital invested, “I can see why they’d be permitted to do that and I don’t think it’s unreasonable really,” argues Curry.

But perhaps the less understood complexity is that the 2010 order, drawn up by the Competition Commission, a predecessor to the CMA, only banned the supermarkets from agreeing new restrictions from

Why not Aldi and Lidl?

The CMA is pursuing supermarkets over restrictive land agreements using powers created by its predecessor, the Competition Commission.

They were set out in the Groceries Market Investigation (Controlled Land) Order 2010. While Lidl and Aldi’s estates were already sizeable by 2010, they were less so in 2006, when the two-year grocery market investigation that led to that order was launched.

As such, Lidl and Aldi were not included in the investigation, while Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Waitrose, M&S and the Co-op were. These seven, along with any companies that are “agents of” or “controlled by” them, are the only designated “large grocery retailers” in the order.

The order in effect created a law applicable

only to them, according to the CMA. The authority argues it cannot unilaterally broaden its scope to include anyone else without carrying out a further market investigation, a project it is not currently planning to undertake. The

limitation applies to both the ban on the restrictive clauses since 2010 and the remedies for dealing with historic ones.

Colliers head of retail capital markets Tom Edson argues that, apart from being “nowhere near” the others’ square

footage at the time of the investigation, Lidl and Aldi are less inclined to use such restrictions.

“These restrictions have frequently come up when the supermarkets are part of a wider retail park or a piece of neighbouring land that a

developer has also been involved with,” he says. “[Whereas] when Lidl or Aldi are developing a new, standalone, 30,000 sq ft supermarket, they’re generally buying it themselves or it’s a deal with one developer with that interest only.”

Nevertheless, the discounters could employ the restrictions without coming within the scope of the CMA’s current approach to enforcement.

Other retailers are not only able to use the restrictions but do so, according to Savills director of out of town retail Johnny Rowland.

“Boots have many restrictions against other chemists and pharmaceutical retailers coming on to sites they are on,” he says. “Superdrug would get on to masses of the same parks as Boots if they could.”

“Supermarkets are sophisticated enough to know that anti-competitive restrictions aren’t allowed any more”

Aldi and Lidl were not included in the Competition Commission’s investigation of 2010


then on. The thinking was that, having identified the problem during the two-year grocery market investiga-tion that led to the order, and dealt with by pre-existing clauses along the way, it didn’t want the problem to re-establish itself.

The Grocery Market Investigation (Controlled Land) Order included a mechanism for examining pre-2010 agreements. It sets out a test the CMA can apply in deciding whether or not one should be allowed. That test also contains exceptions. If there are already three or more rival food stores over 3,000 sq ft within a 10-minute drive, then consumer choice is not at risk, and a restriction is permissible.

This is done on a case-by-case basis, and three or four pre-2010 agreements are raised with the watch-dog each year. It is when one comes along that is both anti-competitive under the order and post-2010, that the CMA’s question becomes: why are we seeing this at all?

That’s what happened in 2018, when a single post-2010 Tesco restrictive clause was brought to the CMA’s attention. It was the event that prompted the CMA to ask Tesco to go through the rest of its estate, leading to the recent revelation of another 22, and as a consequence of those, to write to the other supermarkets.

While the CMA has not disclosed details of that single 2018 case, Rowland takes the view that it “almost defi-nitely” would have been raised by Lidl or Aldi, since it is the discounters that have frequently had to grapple with the clauses as their estates grow.

All of Tesco’s 23 offending clauses were post-2010, agreed between then and 2015, according to the CMA. The action the authority has taken now, in writing to the others, also obliges them only to show they have no offending restrictions agreed since 2010.

It suggests the three or four historic ones the CMA examines each year could continue at an undimin-ished rate – or even grow in frequency, according to Rowland. Although many were addressed during the markets investigation, those that were not will “just carry on in perpetuity. Unless there was a time limit in the first place they will still exist.”

The collapse of one or more key retailers with stores near the supermarkets could lead to a glut of vacancies of units to which the historic restrictions apply.

“Say B&Q went pop. You’d have 200 sites, and I sus-pect 10 or 20 have food restrictions,” says Rowland. “A couple of years ago, I was getting rid of some rump-end leases for B&Q and there were occasions where we came across food restrictive covenants and had to negotiate with landlords.” The same could be true of Homebases, formerly owned by Sainsbury’s, he adds.

Whatever is exposed by the CMA’s current scrutiny, it won’t be the last we’ll hear of restrictive land deals.

“Many cases will just carry on in perpetuity. Unless there was a time limit in the first place they will still exist”

The offending Tesco deals

Of the 23 offending Tesco agreements identified by the CMA, three were restrictive covenants that could prevent other tenants from opening competing stores nearby, breaching article five of the order. The restriction can apply to a piece of land where there is no longer a Tesco. The other 20, all of which related to Tesco Express stores, were agreements that allow the supermarket exclusive rights to sell groceries in certain areas for longer than five years, breaching article eight. All 23 were agreed from 2010 to 2015, according to the CMA.The three restrictive covenants:

→ Croft Retail Park, Bromborough. Tesco Homeplus closed in 2015.

→ Victoria Street, Hednesford. A superstore that opened in 2012 as the first retailer in Victoria Shopping Centre, part of an 18-month, £56m project to transform the town centre.

→ West Durrington Centre, Worthing. The 140,000 sq ft, 24-hour Tesco Extra opened in 2010, replacing an existing adjacent branch.

The 20 exclusive rights for longer than the permitted five years, all Tesco Express stores:

→ Saxmundham Road, Aldeburgh. Opened in 2013

→ Horton Retail Centre, Epsom

→ Stainland Road, Halifax → Pencoed, Mid-Glamorgan

→ Wellingborough Road, Northampton

→ Chester Road, Northwich

→ Wolseley Road, Plymouth. Closed since 2016 following a fire

→ Oxford Road, Reading → Goodmayes Road, Rowallan

→ Brentwood Road, Romford

→ Askew Road,

Shepherd’s Bush, London

→ College Road, Harrow, London

→ Fore Street, Edmonton, London

→ Great Suffolk Street, London. Opened in 2011

→ High Road, Kilburn, London

→ High Street, Penge, London

→ Ladbroke Grove, London

→ Mile End Road, London → New Cavendish Street, London

→ Rushey Green, London


property special warehousing

George Nott

In an unassuming warehouse, between a sofa outlet and a car garage on a small business park in Chiswick, is the epicen-tre of a “whole new channel” of grocery. It is from this 10,000 sq ft building that

Ocado runs its Zoom rapid grocery service.“A jiffy” is the stated time it takes for a customer’s

choice of more than 10,000 products on the website to arrive at their front door, Ocado says. It is available to anyone within a five-kilometre radius of the Acton site, covering Acton, Ealing, Chiswick, Shepherd’s Bush and Kew. The “immediacy service”, as head of Ocado Zoom George Dean calls it, is more than “just a way of selling a few more items”. It should be considered an emerging channel, he told the IGD Live conference late last year.

“Our customers want things right now. But we don’t want our shoppers to have to compromise just because they want things really quickly. We want them to get what they want, when they want it,” Dean explains.

The modest unit is packed with the same automation technology as other Ocado facilities, making it “really efficient, low cost to serve and allows us to have a really dense product range in a small space”.

But it is completely unlike them in scale. Zoom Acton is dwarfed by Ocado’s vast 36-acre Erith DC. It’s

The depot next doorDemand for fast delivery is bringing online distribution centres into smaller, urban spaces. What’s the best way to integrate them? And what are the pitfalls of ‘micro-fulfilment’?


in areas across zones one and two. Waitrose started offering a two-hour rapid delivery service from select London postcodes in 2018 and has since extended the offering to new areas. The Co-op followed last year in launching its own two-hour service from London stores, and this year extended its 30-minute grocery delivery partnership with Deliveroo to 400 stores.

Unlike next-day, large-order grocery deliveries that are sent from vast, out-of-town DCs, such services lev-erage their existing store networks. And unlike Zoom, competing services use nearest store employees to pick items from the same shelves as customers. On the face of it this makes sense. These chains already have a store network that penetrates highly populated urban areas.

“In-store picking has the logistical benefits of being closer to the customer, resulting in lower transportation costs. The downside is that order pickers compete with customers, creating congestion and leaving items out of stock more frequently,” explains Rueben Scriven, lead e-commerce analyst at Interact.

In the US – where the likes of Kroger and Aldi out-source in-store picking to companies like Instacart – a study found that three quarters of shoppers had noticed the increase of manual pickers and close to a third said it negatively affected their in-store experience.

considerably smaller than the so-called “mini CFC” currently being built in Bristol within a 150,000 sq ft warehouse.

More mini than a mini customer fulfilment centre, but still packing a punch, Zoom’s site is best described as a micro-fulfilment centre (MFC) – a concept quickly finding favour with major grocers around the world.

In the UK, Interact Analysis predicts there will be 80 MFCs in the UK by 2023. Some will be dedicated ware-houses like Zoom’s. Others will be built within larger stores. Tesco is rolling out 25 in-store MFCs over the next three years, the first of which opens in coming weeks in West Bromwich. Given Walmart’s significant invest-ment in MFCs in the US, “it’s plausible Asda could bring this technology to the UK” too, Interact says.

But the technology that allows micro-fulfilment sites to serve customers so quickly is complex and expen-sive. A small but growing number of vendors are clam-ouring for contracts. And there are other risks. Among them, a playground of complaining children.

Rapid groceryZoom is not the first rapid grocery service. Sainsbury’s launched Chop Chop in 2016, through which orders of up to 25 items are delivered within an hour, to customers

“We don’t want our shoppers to have to compromise just because they want things really quickly”


property special warehousing

So-called ‘hired shoppers’, the majority of shop-pers said, clogged up the aisles, caused longer queues and heightened the stress of shopping, the survey by micro-fulfilment system vendor Fabric found. It’s not optimal for the retailer, either. “Store layouts are designed for customers – not pickers – resulting in lower order picking efficiencies,” Scriven added.

So why not create separate spaces for in-store pick-ing? After all, MFCs aren’t only for standalone ‘dark’ sites like Zoom’s. A growing number of technology com-panies say their automated systems can swiftly pick orders and will fit into spaces – of as little as 5,000 sq ft – at the back of stores.

Typically, the systems feature rows of tightly packed shelves full of plastic boxes called totes. An order comes in, and robots bring totes containing the ordered items to a station where a human picker moves items from the tote to bag or box, which will go to the customer. The totes can be filled with fresh food if there is space to have separate refrigerated racks of shelves.

There are other advantages. “It eliminates much of the labour cost to pick the orders by a factor of 10. You significantly improve the productivity,” explains PJ Stafford, marketing chief at MFC provider Alert Innovations. With MFCs the retailer also knows “exactly what is in the system in real time”, meaning those ordering online can pick their own substitutions rather than be left disappointed.

Zoom uses parent Ocado’s version of this system, hoping to prove its effectiveness at small scale. Tesco revealed its partnership with Takeoff Technologies last year. Amazon is reportedly working with Dematic. Walmart has adopted Alert’s MFC system. Other play-ers include AutoStore and Fabric. All compete on met-rics like speed of build, items fulfilled per minute and minimum space requirements.

“Using micro-fulfilment is a wise decision. The big-gest risk to grocery retailers implementing micro-ful-filment is selecting the wrong technology,” says supply chain consultant Brittain Ladd. “I can’t stress this point enough – retailers must choose wisely or they’ll pay the price later.”

Tesco’s plan to establish three ‘Urban Fulfilment Centres’ by summer – and 22 more by 2022 – was laid out by departing CEO Dave Lewis last year. To increase the chain’s ability to provide rapid delivery and to extend its online coverage, MFCs will be built in the back of stores in urban areas.

“We’ll need to convert some of those stores, but we have the space… 10,000 to 15,000 sq ft is needed, and they’re very, very efficient in terms of pick,” Lewis said. Tesco says picking efficiency can be improved by a fac-tor of two or three.

It’s worth noting, however, that Tesco quietly canned its one-hour delivery service – Tesco Now, which offered customers in central London 60-minute delivery on orders of up to 20 items – last year after 20 months.

MFCs were, Lewis added, the best way to increase reach and make rapid fulfilment economically viable “versus any other model”. That sentiment is echoed by US investment bank Jefferies, which says “micro-fulfil-ment is superior to all fulfilment models”.

In the US, other variations of the model are being rolled out. Last month, planning documents for Amazon’s new grocery superstore in California revealed a highly automated MFC built into what has been described as a “hidden perimeter” of the store.

Other possible configurations include one sug-gested by MFC tech vendor AutoStore, in which the system is placed in the middle of a store, with a view-ing platform for customers. Another concept, from Alert Innovations, puts the MFC on the second floor of a

supermarket. While customers pick their fresh fruit & veg downstairs, the rest of their online order is pre-pared for collection at the end of their shop upstairs.

“I like installing MFCs inside stores as the stores have already been built and inventory is already being replenished to the stores,” Ladd says. “Installing an MFC requires additional inventory being shipped to the store but that is eas-ily managed. What I like best is that there is no need to have pickers roaming aisles and fulfilling online grocery orders. Attaching an MFC to a store or placing an MFC in a back room will also work.”

In Tesco’s case the in-store MFCs will be replenished by the same lorries that currently deliver to the stores. In Zoom’s case, one delivery a day is made to Acton from Ocado’s CFC in Hatfield.

“We take what we want once a day and bring it down overnight. Sounds inefficient because you’re touching it twice, but it’s actually

“The biggest risk to grocery retailers implementing micro-fulfilment is selecting the wrong technology”

Micro-fulfilment centres

come in different

configurations. Tesco is

placing MFCs in the back of

large stores, while Alert’s

Nova Store concept sees

the picking system placed

upstairs while shoppers

select fresh produce on the

floor below


The campaign giving Ocado a headache

With a strong presence in their local community and in the media, the Nocado campaign group is proving a headache for Ocado and its MFC expansion plans. Slick videos parodying Ocado and retail partner Marks & Spencer ads on social media are gaining significant traction. A boycott of the online grocer could cost Ocado millions, campaigners say. The group are concerned pollution and noise from delivery vehicles at a planned depot in Islington will affect the children at the adjacent Yerbury Primary School, and that Zoom’s presence will hurt local businesses.

“What our campaign is exposing is that there is a clash between Ocado’s sustainability commitments and the reality of

the way they do business,” says Natasha Cox, one of the campaign’s founders.

“Many Ocado customers would not choose them if they realised that beneath this greenwash, there is a harsher truth: they will put a polluting hub next to a large primary school regardless of the impact on children’s health and wellbeing,” Cox adds.

The company says it will eventually replace diesel vehicles with electric ones, and is considering a “living wall…to improve the air quality”. Last month Ocado CEO Tim Steiner said: “We were very transparent about what we were doing on that site and anyone who suggests otherwise is being mischievous.”

Big reach from a small site: DC and store sizes compared (sq ft) OCADO

Erith 563,000Dordon 350,000Bristol 150,000Zoom Acton 10,000 TESCO

Dagenham DC 460,000Tesco Extra, Walkden 168,000Urban fulfilment centre 10,000 – 15,000Average Express store 2,300Average One Stop 1,500

great for two reasons,” says Dean. “First, we only have to deal with one supplier coming into us, which means potentially we can open these Zoom sites in really tight urban locations because we only have to deal with one delivery a day, and second we can bring down exactly the right quantity. We don’t need to bring down a whole case of something. If we only have two of an item and we sell one today, we bring down one tonight and it can be in full stock for the next morning.”

Opposition

Technology considerations aside, MFCs face opposi-tion. Ocado’s plan to construct such a facility, which includes a refuelling point for delivery vans, in Islington has been met with protests by parents and children at a school bordering the site, and the wider community.

“We are battling against a big corporation,” says Yerbury Primary School headteacher Cassie Moss. “That’s going to have a massive impact on the envi-ronment, on children’s health and local businesses.”

A ‘Nocado’ protest group (see right) – made up of parents, local businesses and residents – has vowed to boycott Ocado and its partner M&S.

On a call with media in February, Ocado CEO Tim Steiner acknowledged that while “some of the local residents aren’t very happy”, for future MFCs in urban areas, “we don’t tend to have an issue”.

But in the long term, according to Interact Analysis, the rise of MFCs in the UK is “not a matter of if, but when”.

“When same-day delivery gains enough momentum, micro-fulfilment will become an attractive investment for UK grocers,” says Scriven. “Wealthy professionals living in urban areas and willing to pay the additional costs will likely be the first demographic to adopt same-day delivery at scale.”

Ladd adds that grocery retailers “must do the math to identify the optimal ecosystem” for MFCs and stores. “The beauty of micro-fulfilment is that it is easy and cost-effective to open multiple off-site MFCs or install MFCs inside stores. The economics work best if they can be placed inside stores. But placing an MFC even in downtown locations is cost-effective, as long as the retailer does a good job marketing online grocery to maximise capacity of the MFC. The big bang, big CFC approach isn’t necessary,” he says.

Micro-fulfilment looks set for a macro impact.

buying & supplying grocery


Mars warns of confectionery shortages after ‘breakdown’

Galaxy Ripple and other SKUs are affected by a ‘breakdown’ at Mars’ Slough factory

Daniel WoolfsonMars has blamed a “mechanical break-down” for shortages of several of its biggest chocolate brands.

The Galaxy and Maltesers owner said this week (3 March) it was “really sorry” that it was not “able to make as many treats as we would like”.

“For the time being, you may not be able to find Maltesers, Revels, and some other Galaxy treats includ-ing Minstrels, Counters, Galaxy Milk and Ripple.”

It stressed no other lines were affected.

One senior indus-try source in the whole-sale sector said Mars’ impulse service levels were “very, very poor

at the moment”. “They are communicating well on shortages but that doesn’t help us – custom-ers are frustrated,” they said.

At the time of writ-ing, Tesco’s website was listing numerous

Mars SKUs, including multipacks of Galaxy and Galaxy Ripple as well as 118g packs of Minstrels, 189g packs of Maltesers and 93g packs of Maltesers Buttons, as unavailable. Meanwhile on Morrisons’ website,

the likes of block bars of Galaxy Smooth Milk, Counters and Galaxy Instant Hot Chocolate were out of stock.

Mars would not share further details of the mechanical break-down with The Grocer.

However, a spokes-woman insisted the brand was “doing every-thing we can to maximise our production volume and to mitigate the impact on our customers as much as possible.”

“We understand the situation is frustrat-ing but our priority has always been to be trans-parent about our recov-ery progress and we will continue to keep our cus-tomers regularly updated so that they can plan accordingly.”

It is understood Mars does not expect Easter availability to be affected.

Last December Mars apologised after whole-salers complained about supply of its Christmas confectionery ranges.

Naked’s juices & smoothies will relaunch in new bottles

Naked is to relaunch its entire range of juices and smoothies in 100% recy-cled plastic bottles.

New bottles will roll out across the PepsiCo-owned brand from 29 March, replacing the vir-gin plastic bottles the

Naked range to use only recycled plastic

brand currently uses.“We believe we’re the

first juice and smoothie brand that can confirm it uses 100% recycled plas-tic across its range,” said Steven Hind, marketing director for brand owner PepsiCo.

PepsiCo did not reveal the exact amount of virgin plastic that would be removed from its sup-ply chain as a result of the move.

Hind also hinted at “news regarding sustain-ability efforts” on fellow PepsiCo brand Tropicana to come in future.

A uniform reporting system will be introduced

The FSA is planning to further bolster its food hypersensitivity strat-egy by creating a nation-wide reporting system for foodborne allergic reactions.

Speaking at the FSA’s first annual allergy sym-posium in London this week, chair Heather Hancock said it was working on a uniform reporting system that would make it easier for people living with food allergies to report reac-tions and near-misses.

Currently, allergic reactions to food are

FSA reveals plans for reporting system on allergic reactions

under-reported, partly because there is no uni-form method of reporting incidents or sharing data, delegates heard.

The FSA also wants to increase the amount of quality field-based data it receives regarding

allergic reactions to food. Hancock said phase

one of the discovery had confirmed that exist-ing reporting methods were insufficient. Phase two involved developing ideas for how a reporting solution could meet user needs and provide the FSA with information. The discovery phase is due to finish next month.

The FSA wanted to cre-ate a system that would be “robust and rigorous” and would help frontline professionals tackle aller-gen incidents quickly, she added.

Galaxy Chocolate via Twitter

CHOCOLATE MELTDOWNThey are communicating well on shortages but that doesn’t help us – customers are frustrated – industry source


Reusable gin flask: Cantium has launched what it claims is the world’s first gin in a reusable flask. The 50cl vessels had “a life

cycle that continues long after the gin has gone”, said the brand, and could be used to keep drinks hot or cold for hours (rsp: £38/70cl).

Boundless in Sainsbury’s: Snacking brand Boundless has scored a major deal with Sainsbury’s which will see it roll out into 1,000 of the retailer’s stores. The Sainsbury’s deal comes after the brand put in a standout performance in its Taste of the Future bays last summer, being one of only three brands to be taken on board after trial.

Squeezy vegan mayo: Hellmann’s has poured its vegan mayo into 430ml squeezy bottles. Owner Unilever said the new format was

“answering the demand for quality vegan options that deliver on taste and texture – and with this latest launch, convenience too” (rsp: £2.99).

Fridge Raiders on the go: Fridge Raiders has given its Cheese & Nut combo snacks a shake-up, moving the entire range into sin-

gle serve 40g formats, which it said would tap the trend for on-the-go snacking. New packs roll into Morrisons from 9 March, followed by Asda and Sainsbury’s in the summer (rsp: £1.29).

Brothers Marshmallow: Brothers is adding a Marshmallow variant to its range of “curious” flavoured ciders. The 4% abv drink is “a

delicious unique blend of marshmallows and sweet vanilla flavours”, according to the Somerset brand. It will launch into Londis, Budgens, B&M and James Hall Spar on 1 April.

Salted caramel Carb Killa: Grenade has added a chocolate chip salted caramel bar to its Carb Killa range of protein bars. Each

bar contains 20g of whey protein, 1.4g of sugar and 226 calories (rsp: £2.49/60g).

Vegan Easter eggs: Love Cocoa has launched a duo of chocolate eggs for Easter: a vegan Sea Salt Dark Chocolate Egg made with

Maldon sea salt and fair-trade 70% cacao dark chocolate from Ecuador, and a Salted Caramel Milk Chocolate Egg.

Vegan spreads: Mindful Bites is looking to challenge Nutella with a duo of vegan chocolate and hazelnut spreads. They come in

recyclable glass jars with aluminium lids (rsp: £4.99/185g).

grocery digest

Abbie DawsonInnocent is taking its first step into the juice shots category with the launch of a three-strong lineup.

Called Innocent Shots, the range comprises three juices – Power Sour, Ginger Kick and Blazing Greens – each “packed with fruit & vegetables”.

Innocent said the juices offered a “boost of nutrients to keep the body healthy” and were “an easy way to get a daily dose of the good stuff”.

The addition of “excit-ing” ingredients like jalapeños and ginger delivered “a punch of taste” and an “exciting new experience for on-the-go drinkers” it added.

Innocent enters juice shots category with ‘intense’ trio of drinks

Innocent claims a dif-ferent health benefit for each of the three shots, with Power Sour billed as providing energy, Ginger Kick as boosting immu-nity and Blazing Greens focused on the mind.

They were the brand’s “most intense juices yet and we can’t wait for peo-ple to give them a shot,” said Innocent brand manager Karine Loutfi,

adding the shots were “packed with exciting new tastes”.

They provided “tai-lored health benefits to power the body and mind” and were “perfect for on-the-go,” she said.

The range will launch in recyclable packag-ing, which Innocent said would address “a common problem in the category”.

They will roll out in individual bottles (rsp: £1.99/100ml) and in multipacks (rsp: £4.99/3x100ml) at Waitrose from 11 March, followed by Boots on 30 March and a major mult on 11 May.

Focus on Juices & Smoothies p41

Innocent’s three juice shots offer ‘a boost of nutrients’

Fever-Tree has expanded its range of posh mixers with a quartet of flavoured soda. The new drinks had been designed as a “low-calorie spritz”, said the brand. They come in Raspberry & Rose, Mexican Lime, Italian Blood Orange and White Grape & Apricot flavours (rsp: £1.80/500ml).

Fever-Tree adds ‘low-cal spritz’ range

Kellogg’s has launched a new range of All-Bran Prebiotic cereal, as demand for grocery products focusing on gut health continues to rise.

All-Bran Prebiotic Oaty Clusters is available in two flavours – Original and Almond & Pumpkin Seeds – and includes natural prebiotic chicory root fibre and wheat bran fibre, which the cereal maker said fed good bac-teria in the gut.

The range is part of Kellogg’s commitment to help families add more fibre into their diets.

Kellogg’s adds gut health cereal range

buying & supplying drinks


acid test

Asda Plant Based Dirty FriesWho: AsdaWhat: Plant Based Dirty FriesWhere: ChilledHow much: £2.50/400g

Why: Dirty Fries launched as part of Asda’s Plant Based range which rolled out in January (or Veganuary). The 48-strong range is approved by The Vegan Society and spans chilled, frozen and food-to-go categories. These Dirty Fries are smothered in a tangy, non-dairy creamy sauce topped with cheddar alternative and Roquito chilli peppers.

Consumer verdict: Shoppers gave mixed reviews on the levels of spice, with it proving too much for some who declared the dish “far too spicy to enjoy” and “way too spicy for me”. The texture of the fries also received criticism, with reviewers saying it was “too mushy” and “the chips were too soft ”. Just 11% of reviewers gave the product fi ve stars, with feedback including “great size por-tion” and “great spicy fl avour”. Twenty-four per cent gave Dirty Fries one star, with one disap-pointed reviewer saying, “awful presentation, a depressing meal, if I could give zero I would”.

Pre-trial purchase: 44%

Post-trial purchase: 20%

Better than what’s out there: 35%

Exciting new idea: 70%

30/50Overall score:

Acid Test is conducted by Cambridge Market Research

using its Fast Foodfax methodology, which has developed

consumer assessments of new products for more than 30

years. Fast Foodfax compares results against a database of more than 25,000 products

across 130-plus categories of food and drink. Objective, impartial and totally independent,

contact 01223 492050 or visit www.cambridgemr.com for more information

All own-label lines reviewed for Acid Test can apply for accreditation in The

Grocer Own Label Accreditation Scheme. For more information visit thegrocerownlabel.co.uk

Daniel WoolfsonLost & Grounded has become the latest brewer to defy a ruling by the Portman Group.

The Bristol-based craft brewer’s Running with Sceptres ale, which is stocked in Waitrose, was ruled as having a risk of appealing to under-18s by the watchdog’s independent complaints panel thanks to the “prominence of cartoon animals” on its cans .

But the brand has refused to change the brew’s branding, with co-founder Annie Clements this week arging it was “no diff erent to the mul-titude of other brands on the market that utilise an artistic style”.

“This product is

Lost & Grounded and Portman Group battle over can design ruling

integral to our brand story, and a change to its branding would be costly, and to do this based on a single com-plaint is simply not practical and has the potential to cause signifi -cant fi nancial damage to our small, independent business,” she added.

The Portman Group has now issued a retailer alert bulletin, requesting

retailers who stock the beer to stop selling it.

But both the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) and Lost & Grounded’s local MP, Kerry McCarthy, have come out in support of the brewery.

SIBA CEO James Calder said it “would like to see the Portman Group move to a system where, like other regulators, numerous complaints are needed to trigger an investigation”.

“This ruling will cause signifi cant damage to a brewery with good ethics and business at its core.”

It comes just months aft er Welsh craft brewer Tiny Rebel fought the watchdog over cans of its Cwtch ale brand.

Its ale was ruled against for its cartoon animal design

Beefeater will launch ‘dry’ and pink RTD canned gins

Pernod Ricard is set to challenge Gordon’s in the RTD fi xture with a duo of canned Beefeater drinks.

The spirits giant plans to roll out ‘dry’ and pink gin & tonic RTDs, said Louise Ryan, MD of its Gin Hub division.

Pernod Ricard to add Beefeater Gin RTDs

It was also working “on something in the back-ground we think will be perfectly complemented by soda”, she added.

It comes as supermar-ket sales of Beefeater have surged , thanks in particular to its Pink Gin, which grew sales by £10.3m to £14.5m last year ( up 244.2% ) [Nielsen 52 w/e 7 September 2019].

Pernod Ricard UK MD David Haworth added that while the gin boom was not necessarily end-ing, “the battle for sur-vival for a lot of brands is going to take place”.

Kingsland Drinks has created a new canned wine brand , Vin Crowd.

It has debuted with a trio of fl avours – Botanical Spritz, White Spritz and Pink Spritz – with 139, 94 and 91 calories per 250ml can respectively (rsp: £2.25).

They have rolled into Co-op stores and were “aimed at drink-ers who do not engage or are becoming increas-ingly disengaged with the wine category”, said Kingsland head of mar-keting & insight Andy McIvor.

Kingsland adds canned Vin Crowd

buying & supplying fresh


Poultry processors face extra recruitment and staff retention costs of at least £15m a year as a result of the govern-ment’s proposed clamp-down on so-called low-skilled labour.

And these additional costs could ultimately affect the price and avail-ability of supermarket chicken, with British Poultry Council CEO Richard Griffiths warning the new rules “will have an impact on the cost of production”.

Research by the BPC revealed the poultry

Poultry sector faces £15m staff costs under immigration rules

Poultry is reliant on labour from an EU workforce

Lactalis UK & Ireland has renewed a £2.2m spon-sorship by its Président brand of Channel 4 cook-ing show Come Dine with Me for a third year.

The deal will see Président ads play at the start of each epi-sode until the end of March, and in September, November and December. Shorter bumpers will play in commercial breaks and at the end of the show.

They are expected to reach approximately 16 million people.

Ads for Président products will accompany each show

Président renews Come Dine deal

Coronavirus threatens UK pork production

British warehouses are filling up due to lower exports

Harry Holmes Coronavirus is threaten-ing to slow British pork production as cold stores reach capacity amid dwindling exports to China.

Food exports to China collapsed following the outbreak of Covid-19 in December, causing sup-plies to pile up in British warehouses.

Severe disruptions to global shipping have exacerbated the prob-lem, with many busi-nesses struggling to find containers for long-haul transportation.

The effects are now threatening British pork production which relies on exports to China for carcase balance.

“Once the cold stores are full there’s nowhere

to put what you’re pro-cessing,” said Shane Brennan, CEO at the Cold Chain Federation, who believes stores have now reached full capacity.

“This creates a bot-tleneck for production which is not something that’s easily solved.”

Jim Brisby, commercial director at Cranswick,

confirmed there have been difficulties. “There has been disruption and it is continuing, with con-tainers quite hard to get and boats piling up out-side Shanghai,” he said.

Brisby stressed signs of recovery in China meant exports could soon return to normal. “The underlying demand in

China is still very strong, and we understand their stocks are low.”

Zoe Davies, CEO of the National Pig Association, agreed: “There is some sort of a problem but processors have told me that this won’t be an issue for long.”

But many logistics operators believe the chaos is far from over.

Perishable goods rely on refrigerated ‘reefer’ containers for long-haul transportation and dis-ruptions at Chinese ports have created a global shortage.

About one in seven of the world’s reefer con-tainers are stuck in the region unable to unload, according to Yntze Buitenwerf, CEO of Seatrade.

Its ads will appropriate the Meaty March campaign

Plant-based brand The Meatless Farm Co has launched a major ad push designed to “hijack” pro-meat cam-paign #meatymarch.

The brand said the “mischievous move” to appropriate the

Meatless Farm Co ‘hijacks’ meat push

grassroots Meaty March campaign would “draw attention to the meaty taste and texture cre-dentials of plant-based alternatives”.

It consists of PR, expe-riential, outdoor ads and social media activity, with the creative show-ing Meatless Farm’s burger with the cap-tion ‘Meaty burgers lov-ingly made from plants’ and ‘Proud Supporters of #meatymarch’.

The ads include digi-tal billboards across London, Birmingham and Glasgow.

sector lost more than 10,000 staff in 2019, rep-resenting more than a quarter of its workforce of 38,500. As the UK had not yet left the EU, the sector was able to fill those vacancies, Griffiths said. But the cost of

employment had since increased dramatically, with a further 10,000 job shortages expected this year.

“We are doing eve-rything we can to move away from reli-ance on immigration,” he added. “Our busi-nesses are investing in staff retention, produc-tivity, technology and automation.”

However, he stressed the lead time for such changes of between three to five years “can’t keep pace with the labour shortages”.

COLD STORES AT CAPACITYOnce the cold stores are full there’s nowhere to put what you’re processing – Shane Brennan, CEO, Cold Chain Federation


Moloney joins ABP: Irish red meat giant ABP Food Group has appointed ex-Glanbia group MD John Moloney as its chairman designate. The appoint-ment comes amid a revamp of the ABP board, which has seen three retiring directors replaced. The group’s founder, the now 83-year old billion-aire Larry Goodman, will stay on as executive chairman. However, the board revamp suggested there could be more change in the near future, according to Irish media.

Raw milk rules tightened: The FSA has tightened controls around the production of raw drinking milk in England and Wales with new guidance outlining the safety measures producers must fol-low. They are now legally required to devise and implement a safety system to assess factors that could affect product safety. The FSA also expects producers to adopt periodic testing for specified pathogens and indicators of poor hygiene and dis-ease that can be found in milk.

Recycled PET for Cauldron: Plant-based brand Cauldron is to roll out 100% recycled PET plastic trays across its sausage and

falafel ranges by mid-March. This would ensure Cauldron had a circular recycling system, it said. “Our goal is to encourage shoppers to make more sustainable food choices and we recognise that these values should be reflected in our packag-ing,” said brand manager Andrea Harburn.

Chicken study: Up to 49% of faster-growing chicken breeds could die or should be culled due to welfare issues such as lame-

ness, according to a study for the RSPCA. This compared with a lameness figure of 16% for slower-growing birds.

Hypersensitivity labelling guidance: The FDF has published guidance on allergen-free and vegan claims on labels. Supported by the FSA, the guid-ance hopes to differentiate between the labelling attached to free-from and vegan products so peo-ple with food hypersensitivity do not inadvert-ently make the wrong food choices.

Nush at M&S: Vegan dairy alter-native Nush has secured listings in 200 M&S stores for its natural and chive spreadable dairy-free

cheese variants (rsp: £2.50/150g). The spread will also be available from Waitrose in May.

Allen made Berry CEO: Berry Gardens has given acting CEO Nick Allen the job on a perma-nent basis. The Kent-based berry

and stone fruit supplier has been led by Allen since last autumn. It recently unveiled a new head office, packhouse and cold storage facility at its Maidstone base, a project Allen led.

fresh digest

AC Goatham & Son warned of ‘massive disruption’

Top fruit grower AC Goatham & Son has warned the government’s new immigration propos-als will cause “massive disruption” to fresh pro-duce supply chains, cit-ing its own struggles to recruit British workers.

Goatham warns of EU workforce chaos

In an open letter sent to local MPs and gov-ernment ministers last week, the grower’s board expressed “extreme dis-appointment, and quite frankly disbelief” with the new system – which could see up to 70% of the existing EU work-force not meeting skilled worker criteria, accord-ing to the government’s own data.

Despite a big annual push to secure local workers, it only received “a handful of appli-cations from British people”.

Pork giant Tulip has launched a consulta-tion with staff over the proposed closure of its Tipton fresh pork plant in the East Midlands, with up to 642 jobs at risk.

As part of its ongo-ing operational foot-print review and business recovery plan, the processor said the site required “signifi-cant investment and redevelopment”.

The site processes pork for de-boning to the wholesale sector and fresh pork cuts for the mults.

Tulip consults over Tipton plant future

Kevin WhiteArla Foods will take its first steps into the boom-ing plant-based category later this year with the launch of Jörd, a trio of organic oat-based drinks.

The dairy co-op’s move – first reported by The Grocer last summer – will see it unveil a lineup of one-litre cartons in oat, oat & barley and oat & hemp. However, Arla UK MD Ash Amirahmadi didn’t rule out an expan-sion of the brand to other products, if successful.

The fresh drinks are made by Arla in Denmark using only natural ingre-dients. They contain up to 50% more oats than competitor products and less than half the number of ingredients, it claimed.

Arla makes move into plant-based with trio of organic oat drinks

“From our research, what was important from this range to consumers was taste and natural-ness,” said Amirahmadi.

The drinks are due to go on sale in Denmark in late spring, before rolling out to the UK in the autumn, and would be targeted at flexitar-ians, he added. “But that doesn’t mean vegans can’t also enjoy it.”

Arla also hoped to use its own farmer member-ship to source the major-ity of ingredients in the longer term, Amirahmadi said. However, he did not expect Arla dairy farmers to convert from milk pro-duction to plant-based. “We already grow a large amount of oats, seeds, pulses and plants.”

The brand’s name ref-erences Nordic mythol-ogy. Jörd was a goddess and the mother of Thor who was seen as the per-sonification of “mother earth”, said the supplier.

This chimed with Arla’s roots among Nordic farmers and would also play on the UK’s love of all things Scandinavian, suggested Amirahmadi.

Jörd drinks are due to roll out to the UK in the autumn

focus on... juices & smoothies


The bad guyWhile it may not be a poison apple, juice has become a villain thanks to a flurry of negative press. How is it fighting back?

to stop there, it went on to list “other reasons to cut out fruit juice”.

All of which could help explain the down-turn in sales this year. The juices & smoothies market fell 4.5% to £1,267.5m, equating to a near £60m drop [Kantar 52 w/e 4 November 2019]. Even own-label off erings, which typ-ically draw in shoppers with lower prices, failed to remain in the black, with a £28.3m decline. Brands fared even worse, shedding £31.5m.

That’s been driven by lower volumes. “The

Forget the poison apple. If the Wicked Queen had really wanted to do away with Snow White, she should have turned it into juice.

Because juice is fast becoming the bad guy of food and drink, thanks to a fl urry of nega-tive headlines that have even linked it to an early grave.

“Large glass of fruit juice a day increases risk of premature death, research suggests,” shouted The Telegraph last May. Two months later, The Guardian followed that up with the headline: “Sugar in fruit juice may raise risk of cancer, study fi nds”.

This fl urry of negative press shows no signs of abating this year. In January an article from the Daily Express on visceral fat named fruit juice “one of the primary culprits to watch out for” due to its sugar content. Not content

Ash O’Mahony category has lost shoppers, and those who remain are not buying juice as oft en ,” says Kantar analyst Rebecca Watterson.

So, just how much is bad press to blame for juice’s misfortunes? What are the other fac-tors dragging down sales, and where are the potential areas for growth?

The decline in juice isn’t as bad as it may fi rst appear. Aft er all, it is working against some tough year-on-year comparisons. “We’ve gone a little bit backwards, but we are lapping a particularly strong 2018,” explains Steven Hind, marketing director for PepsiCo’s juice brands. Despite its Tropicana losing £5.3m [Nielsen 52 w/e 25 January 2020], Hind insists there are “no huge concerns” with its performance. “We haven’t lost share.”

There’s no denying 2018 was an anomaly in many ways. The combination of a dis-tinctly un-British hot summer and the CO2 crisis – which forced shoppers to consider

“The category has lost shoppers, and those who remain aren’t buying juice as oft en”

42 Category visibilityConversion for shoppers seeing juices and buying them is higher than smoothies – and total grocery

43 Losing shoppersBoth brands and own-label off erings are in decline, according to the latest Kantar research

46 Kicking offInnocent’s shots and Tropicana’s energy-focused NPD feature in our lineup of innovations



“This year has been particularly dire for negative coverage of the category”

alternatives to fi zzy drinks – bolstered juice and smoothie sales. Value edged up 0.7% to £1,326.9m following years of decline [Kantar 52 w/e 4 November 2018].

The category fell back to reality with a bump in 2019, says Ben Parker, at-home com-mercial director at J2O owner Britvic. For him, that was the main culprit behind J2O’s £3m drop. “If you compare this year’s numbers to a more ‘balanced year’ like 2017, the brand is in growth,” he says.

Sugar

Indeed, Tropicana and J2O aren’t the only brands suff ering from tough comparables. Just two of the top 10 brands in juice are in growth, while the remaining eight lost a com-bined total of £34.4m, driven largely by vol-ume losses [Nielsen].

But even taking into account the impact of 2018, there is a more worrying and long-run-ning trend at play. Juices have been stead-ily losing money for years now, thanks in no small part to concerns over sugar content.

Recent headlines will only have made that worse. A Streetbees poll of over 1,100 shop-pers found 30% had read news stories about juice being bad for their health in the past year. Of those shoppers, 44% said they had actively reduced the amount of juices and smoothies they drank as a result . “We know that shopping habits are infl uenced by the press, and this year has been particularly dire for negative coverage of the category,” admits Alex Lai, CEO of functional beverage company Raylex Brands.

Of course, consumers don’t necessarily swallow everything they read. The scientifi c rigour of many of these studies has come under fi re and Lai believes that is coming through in public feeling. “There is grow-ing scepticism around news stories from the public, and the story about juice being con-nected to cancer wasn’t widely accepted to be true,” he says.

However, he believes the widespread media coverage around the sugar content of juice has touched a nerve. “Sugar coverage has defi nitely struck a chord amongst shop-pers, and that’s been hampering sales since 2018,” he says.

It’s not just media hype, either. Public Health England recommends just 150ml of juice a day diluted and consumed with a meal because of its high fructose content.

● On the face of it, the results of Shopper Intelligence’s study are cut and dried. “The key to optimising sales in juice is to get the category seen by shoppers,” says Jeremy Garlick, partner at Insight Traction. But dig a little deeper and the results reveal a lot about shopping behaviours in juices & smoothies.

● The study found shoppers are far more likely than average to pop a juice into their basket on impulse. “There’s a far

higher conversion from seeing juices and buying them than in smoothies or total grocery,” Garlick says.

● That makes space on gondola ends and secondary space in store vastly more impactful for juices than for a typical fmcg category.

● Smoothie purchases are motivated less by visibility and more by incentives,

particularly promotions. ● “For smoothies, the

challenge is to improve the conversion from ‘see’ to ‘buy’,” says Garlick. “Too many shoppers are falling at that fi nal hurdle.”

● Almost half (47%) of shoppers agree promotions would encourage them to buy a smoothie. This is well above the grocery average of 16%.

Seeing is buying: how consumers shop juices & smoothies

% of shoppers who…

Saw the category

Made a purchase aft er seeing the category

Source: Shopper Intelligence shopper impact study of 1,100 people

Grocery average

Grocery average

Chilled juice

Chilled juice

Smoothies

Smoothies

14%

43%

14%

28%

9%

7%

Shopper Intelligence is an annual multi Category, multi Retailer survey of UK shoppers. Enquiries to www.shopperintelligence.com.


● The juices & smoothies category has experienced a 4.5% value decline this year. That performance goes against total grocery, which is in 1.3% growth.

● Both brands and own label are in decline. While penetration losses and smaller baskets dragged down branded sales, volume losses were the biggest factor in own label’s value decline.

● There has been a notable drop in price cuts and volume-driving deals. However, both full price

sales and promotional sales saw an equal decline.

● Not from concentrate, juice drinks and from concentrate juices have driven the loss of value in the category, shedding a combined £65m.

● Still, there are some pockets of growth. Freshly squeezed juice managed to find growth by attracting new shoppers. Smoothies

also continue to grow, attracting new consumers as well as seeing shoppers pick up products more often.

● Within retailers, Aldi, Lidl and Ocado are growing their not from concentrate sales. Tesco’s juices are also growing by 5%, in contrast to the declines seen across the rest of the big four.Rebecca Watterson, Kantar

Losing shoppers: juices & smoothies value sales

Kantar’s Worldpanel FMCG service monitors consumer behaviour across Great Britain. Its primary panel tracks take-home purchases of 30,000 demographically representative households. Data on consumption habits, nutrition and out of home sales is collected through subsidiary panels. Visit kantarworldpanel.com for details.

Brands vs own label

Source: Kantar 52 w/e 4 November 2019 For the full data, visit thegrocer.co.uk

Branded£595.8m

(▼ 5%)

Own label £671.7m

(▼ 4%)

Not from concentrate £493.4m

(▼ 2.5%)

Juice drinks £348.6m

(▼ 8.9%)

From concentrate £290.9m

(▼ 5.9%)

Smoothies £114.8m

(▲ 2.3%)

Freshly squeezed £19.8m (▲ 15.4%)

That means a growing number of shoppers are diluting juice with still or sparkling water, which is hitting volumes. “It’s a way of reduc-ing the sugar content of the drink, and is par-ticularly popular amongst parents,” says Lai. Some would rather avoid it altogether given that the fructose in fruit juice is classified as free sugar – the type that is particularly wor-rying health campaigners.

The extent of these worries is evident in our Streetbees research. While two thirds of juice drinkers believe the sugar content of juice is too high, 43% believe juice should only be consumed occasionally.

These concerns are particularly damaging considering juice is marketed as a healthy option, says Hamish Renton, MD at fmcg con-sultancy HRA Global.

“Historically, juice has been positioned as an everyday drink, which is really problem-atic because of its high fructose content,” he argues. “The category has been complicit in spreading the myth that it was perhaps healthier than it is for a long time, which makes the shock tactics used by the press all the more impactful.”

CommunicationsSo far, juice doesn’t seem to have done much to counteract this narrative. Even the top brand, Innocent, admits its main method of communicating the nutritional benefits of its products come from its customer service team, who field any comments, queries and complaints. “We are looking at how in future we can communicate that to drinkers in the best way across packs and via marketing,” says Graeme Farrington, UK & Ireland MD.

Rather than highlighting the benefits of standard juice, the focus has been on inno-vation that plays better to consumer trends. Farrington says much of Innocent’s success over the past year – the brand is up £16.9m – has come from the relaunch of its Super Juice range under the name Innocent Plus to attract the healthy living crowd. “Our cus-tomers kept telling us that health was their most pressing need, so we made the range more functional by adding more vitamins,” he says. “We also wanted some innovation that really stood out on shelf, so we added exciting colours to the category, including Bolt from the Blue.”

Buoyed by the success of Innocent Plus, the brand has turned its attention to its smoothie range this year. Following a Super Juice-style makeover, the range is set to relaunch this month, with new flavours Blue Spark, Culture Crush and Up & Oat joining the existing four lines. “We know shoppers are looking for natural products that add benefits like vita-mins, so we’ve added extra vitamins into our smoothies as well as great colour on shelf, new packaging and a new brand campaign,” says Farrington.



Spilling sales: top 10 juice brands by value

● Talk about leaking value. Eight of the top 10 juice brands are in the red this year, totalling a sales decline of more than £34m.

● So how did the exceptions manage it? For Innocent, a revamp of its Super Juices (now Innocent Plus) drove its £16.9m sales boost – by far the highest absolute gain in the category.

● For Oasis, the only other juice brand in growth this year, success was driven through larger pack sizes and unique flavours. “Flavour firsts like our Sours range have kept our consumer base engaged, and our take-home 1.5-litre packs have delivered significant growth in our core range,” says Simon Harrison, VP for commercial development at brand owner CCEP GB.

● PepsiCo-owned Naked, which kept sales relatively steady, is turning its attention to

sustainability. It’s set to roll out its entire juice and smoothie range in 100% recycled plastic next month.

● It’s not the only brand focusing on sustainability. “Our range has used 100% recycled plastic since 2007, which a lot of our shoppers don’t realise,” says Charlotte Flook, head of Ribena. The brand plans to up communications around its eco-friendly credentials this year, alongside “continuing to support no-added-sugar and zero-sugar lines”.

● Britvic’s J2O is also pinning its hopes on comms. It will continue investing in its Find Your Moji campaign, which launched in 2018.

Source: Nielsen 52 w/e 25 January 2020 For the full data, visit thegrocer.co.uk

Innocent (▲ 6.6%) £272.6m

Ribena (▼ 20.1%) £80.3m

Oasis (▲ 4.7%) £71.7m

Robinsons (▼ 0.5%) £50.7m

Tropicana (▼ 2.5%) £208.9m

Naked (▼ 0.2%) £73.3m

Capri-Sun (▼ 10.7%) £61.9m

Britvic J20 (▼ 8.0%) £35m

Copella (▼ 19.1%) £29.5m

Vita Coco ( 0%) £22m

“We know shoppers are looking for natural products that add benefits like vitamins”

Nielsen Scantrack monitors weekly data from a national network of EPoS scanners to represent sales in grocery multiples, co-ops, multiple off-licences, independents, forecourts, convenience multiples, symbols and online grocery retailers.

Number two brand Tropicana is similarly bringing out new products to attract health-conscious shoppers. After several years of development, the brand launched its Whole Fruit range in May made using a “new and unique process that helps retain more of the whole fruit”. Each 150ml bottle claims to pro-vide on average over 50% more fibre than a standard fruit juice or smoothie as well as one of consumers’ 5 a day.

“It’s a category first,” says Hind of PepsiCo, who reports the range has accrued £2.2m in sales since launching. “We found that fibre is really well understood particularly with an older demographic, and the shoppers of Whole Fruit were more mature than our core range.”

That older demographic could be a big win. Because according to Harris Interactive research conducted for The Grocer in April, these shoppers are under-represented in juice. A poll of 1,233 shoppers found that more than half of 16 to 24-year-olds drink juice at least once a day, a number that drops to just 28% of the over-45 age group.

Kiti Soininen, category director for UK food & drink research at Mintel, believes Tropicana is thinking along the right lines with Whole Fruit. “The spotlight on sugar has put pressure on the category for several years now, but emerging health trends offer opportunities for these products to promote their health credentials,” she says.

As the category kingpins, Innocent and Tropicana are in a prime position to lead this wave of healthy innovation. But they’re not the only ones on an NPD drive. There’s also a serious amount of effort going on among juice drinks, which have typically suffered from their lack of natural credentials com-pared with pure fruit juice. This year was an

especially tough one for juice drink sales, which fell 8.9% to £348.6m.

Ribena is addressing that by moving out of the juice drinks category. It made its first foray into flavoured water in March with Frusions, a low-calorie range of blackcurrant waters infused with fruit and botanicals. These were supported by a multimedia campaign in May spanning TV, out of home, digital and in store. Since launching, Ribena says the lineup has accumulated £4m.

Sugar concerns were a major motivation behind that launch. As a juice brand with a fairly high sugar content – its standard juice drink contains 11.6g per 100ml – it has borne the brunt of consumer backlash. Ribena took the biggest hit of the top 10 juice brands this year, haemorrhaging more than a fifth of its volume and value sales [Nielsen].

“Sugar awareness is the biggest trend affecting juice and soft drinks overall,” says Charlotte Flook, head of Ribena at par-ent company LRS. “Consumers are looking for alternatives to juice that they perceive to be healthier like plain and flavoured



Classic Prune Juice

Capri-Sun Blackcurrant

Tropicana Energise

When it comes to functional benefi ts, it doesn’t get much more trendy than gut health. Yet not many shoppers under the age of 50 are partial to a glass of prune juice. James White is hoping to change that with its Classic Prune Juice (rsp: £2.75/750ml), which aims to introduce a younger generation to the digestion benefi ts of prunes.

Capri-Sun is targeting Britain’s army of blackcurrant enthusiasts with its latest on-the-go 330ml pouch. The brand says the new addition was inspired by the growing market for on-the-go blackcurrant juice drinks, now valued at £62m. The variant (rsp: £1.09) joins existing Capri-Sun pouches Orange and Cherry.

The latest addition to Tropicana’s functional Essentials range, Energise, will roll out next month in 330ml and 750ml bottles (rsp: £1.99-£2.99). Ingredients include pineapple, ginseng and added magnesium to combat tiredness, which the brand says is one of the most sought-aft er health and wellness benefi ts among shoppers.

Launch date: February 2020Manufacturer: James White

Launch date: March 2020Manufacturer: Coca-Cola European Partners

Launch date: April 2020Manufacturer: PepsiCo

Innocent ShotsLaunch date: March 2020 Manufacturer: Innocent DrinksThe biggest juices & smoothies brand is venturing into juice shots for the fi rst time with three functional 100ml bottles. The range comprises Ginger Kick, which combines ginger with turmeric, apple, carrot and vitamin D; Power Sour, containing sour cherry, acerola, grape and vitamins B2 and B12; and Blazing Green, which mixes jalapeño with matcha, apple, cucumber and vitamins B1 and B3. The shots cost £1.99 each or £4.99 for a multipack of three.

waters,” she says. “That’s driven a higher volume of low and no-sugar drink sales than regular soft drinks for the fi rst time ever last year.”

Low & no-sugarThat is infl uencing what goes on the shelves. “Across retailers, space on shelf is being real-located from pure juice to waters and new low and no-sugar options,” says Simon Harrison, VP of commercial development at brand owner CCEP GB.

He should know. Because that trend has hit CCEP’s juice drink brand Capri-Sun hard. It has seen sales drop £7.4m this year on vol-umes down 12.6% [Nielsen]. For Harrison, that’s down to perceptions among parents. “Our research shows that parents are con-fused at point of purchase and are concerned about the sugar content and artifi cial ingre-dients in kids’ drinks,” he says.

CCEP is hoping to address that issue with the launch of “simple and clear new pack designs” this year to communicate that Capri-Sun contains no artifi cial ingredients, as well as highlighting its low and no added sugar options. This will be backed by a £6m cam-paign for the brand including ATL, social, digital, and in-store activity throughout 2020. Plus, it is broadening its portfolio with a new Blackcurrant 330ml on-the-go pouch (see right).

The rate of innovation is pretty stagger-ing. Yet the biggest players don’t want to stop there. PepsiCo’s Hind says the evolution of the soft drinks category could hold lessons for the future of juice. “Low-sugar options remain an unfulfi lled area for growth in juices,” he says. “In soft drinks, 47% of products are either low or no sugar, compared to just 13% of juices.”

Indeed, PepsiCo has already ventured into this area with the launch of low-sugar smoothies under its Naked brand in June. The three-strong Naked Lean range comprises watermelon & raspberry, kiwi & cucumber and peach & ginger fl avours, each of which claims to contain 40% less sugar than the average smoothie.

According to Hind, the low sugar proposi-tion is proving highly lucrative. Naked Lean has already amassed £4m in sales since launching in Tesco. “Thirty per cent of the shoppers for the range hadn’t bought into the category in the previous 12 months, so it was really incremental value.”

“Parents are oft en confused at point of purchase and are concerned about sugar”



Sugar concerns: shopper perceptions of juices & smoothies

Source: Streetbees survey of 1,146 shoppers, February 2020

“Sugar awareness is the biggest trend aff ecting juice and soft drinks overall”

Consumer research backs up his opti-mism. A Mintel report in August found low and no-sugar credentials were the most important factor in juice and smoothie pur-chases alongside fl avour. And our exclusive Streetbees research found 67% of juice drink-ers would drink it more oft en if there were more low-sugar products available.

Plus, consumer appetite isn’t the only moti-vation to delve into low-sugar options. Fruit juices may be exempt from the soft drinks levy, but they do fall under Public Health England’s Sugar Reduction Programme, which is set to publish a progress report on juice by summer 2021. The body has chal-lenged brands and retailers to reduce the total sugar content of juices and juice-based drinks by 5% by that date. Although the targets are voluntary, juices will be keen to avoid another bout of negative media coverage.

Still, reducing sugar isn’t the only route to growth. Indeed, fructose levels don’t seem to have dampened growth in the small-est sub-section of juices this year: freshly squeezed juices. Its value is up 15.4% to just

shy of £20m, driven by both volume increases and more premium prices. Despite freshly squeezed only accounting for 1.6% of the entire market value, the £2.6m gain is actu-ally the largest actual value increase across juices & smoothies.

Unlike the rest of the market, where growth is coming from innovation that plays to con-sumer trends, the appeal of freshly squeezed derives from sticking to the basics. Growing interest in juices perceived to be more natu-ral and as close to the fruit as possible has resulted in “the sector successfully attract-ing new shoppers for freshly squeezed juice”, says Kantar’s Watterson. Indeed, Streetbees research found the sector was the most

popular among juice shoppers, with 40% stating it was their favourite kind of juice .

Freshly squeezed juice is the only own-label sector in growth this year. Which tells us plenty about the state of retailer off erings. Although freshly squeezed doesn’t require innovation, that back-to-basics approach isn’t working across the rest of the market.

While brands have been busy innovating with new, health-led propositions, own label off erings have largely relied on their lower prices (on average 74p cheaper than branded per litre) to attract customers. That own label sold 12 million fewer packs this year suggests this approach is no longer working.

“A lot of the own label launches have been underwhelming over the past few years, which is failing to keep shoppers interested,” says HRA Global’s Hamish Renton. There could be substantial area for growth across own label if retailers got more imaginative, he believes. “It’s an area where retailers could really push the boat out.”

Aft er all, if juice is to overcome its bad guy image, it can’t aff ord to sit back.

97% drink juice

Attitudes to juices & smoothies Favourite juice

Other2%

Freshly squeezed 40%

From concentrate

31%

Not from concentrate

27%

66% believe the sugar content in juice is

too high

30% have seen news stories about juice being bad for your health in the

past year

70% think

smoothies are healthy

60% think

juice is healthy

vs


news people

Shake-up for Food & Drink Sector Council

Ian Wright (l) and Terry Jones have been made co-chairs

Ian QuinnTwo years after being hailed a “game-changer” for the industry, the Food and Drink Sector Council is facing a shake-up amid doubts over the govern-ment’s commitment to it.

Last month it was announced former Unilever and Tate & Lyle veteran Iain Ferguson was stepping down as inaugural industry co-chair of the body, as it looked to “broaden” industry representation.

However, The Grocer understands there have been wider concerns about the council, which has led to a rethink of its funding and a new strat-egy, amid calls for min-isters at Defra to commit to its future. The FDF and the NFU have agreed to

provide more funds to keep the council going while a rethink of its agenda is carried out.

One source said there were concerns the coun-cil had become “popu-lated by a group of food and agriculture celebri-ties” rather than frontline workers.

The shake-up sees NFU

director general Terry Jones and FDF CEO Ian Wright take the reins as co-chairs. But the source said the council was now looking for a “big beast” from industry to take over as its new leader.

Meanwhile, several members of the coun-cil admitted it had been left “hamstrung” by a

seismic series of political events, including Brexit, the general election and most recently the coro-navirus outbreak, while talks on a much hoped-for sector deal had been sidelined.

There are also con-cerns the council has set an overly fragmented agenda. In October, the council published a report outlining the industry’s ambition to address food chain pro-ductivity issues. But it has also had workgroups in areas including nutri-tion, exports, workforce and skills, innovation, logistics and packaging.

A source said: “There have been too many work streams. In future the focus will be on doing fewer things well.”

St Pierre Groupe is an international market leader in the bakery industry. It is looking to double its marketing investment and team, with opportunities for a brand manager, PR & communications manager, brand activation executive, community co-ordinator and content, social & community manager.

St Pierre Groupe offers attractive packages based in Manchester’s sought-after Didsbury Village.

Interested? See p52.

i want that job

my alternative cv

What was your first job? My first job was a paper round where I had the 6am daily run. After a few weeks I found a role selling gourmet pretzels in a shopping centre. What’s been your worst job interview? The worst job interview I had was equally the funniest. After what had been a strong interview, I asked to use the ladies. Sadly, I had technical difficul-ties with my zip and had to come out holding my skirt together and asked the gentleman interview-ing me if he could help. Highly embarrassing. What was the first music single you bought? Oh,

the nineties, so many great tracks. The first sin-gle I bought was All My Life by K-Ci and JoJo. How do you describe your job to your mates? I work in a petfood startup. What is the most reward-ing part of your job? Meeting and speaking to our customers, whether it’s in person at events or on social media. What is the least reward-ing part? Working all hours and then attempt-ing to eat healthily.What is your motto in life? What’s the worst that could happen? If you were allowed one dream perk, what would

it be? A session with a yoga instructor in the morning. Do you have any pho-bias? Personal phobias? Definitely the dark still. Business-wise, I think fear of failure. If you could change one thing in grocery, what would it be? I think trials in the grocers should be more easily accessible to small suppliers. What luxury would you have on a desert island? My furry family and a source of food for us.What animal reflects your personality? To avoid insulting my cat or dog, I’d have to say an emperor penguin

– tenacious, meticulous and a daredevil.What’s your favour-ite film? Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping – it’s hilarious and reminds me to laugh at myself. What has been the most embarrassing moment in your life? There have been a fair few… but the toilet interview incident is right up there. Which celebrity would you most like to work with? Jameela Jamil. I love her energy, outspo-kenness and authenticity. What would your death row meal be? A classic Mauritian butter bean curry with roti and girau-mon, with a cup of tea.

Aneisha Soobroyen Founder, Scrumbles Pet Food, on gourmet pretzels, emperor penguins and Jameela Jamil

I N A S S O C I AT IO N W I T H


Steve FarrellB&M has announced Alex Russo as its new executive director and chief financial officer.

Russo, a former Asda CFO, is to succeed Paul McDonald, who is due to retire in 2021 after 10 years at the variety discounter.

Russo is currently CFO at Wilko. He was recently given additional respon-sibilities at the home and garden chain in a restruc-ture which would see the chief commercial officer step down.

Russo was Asda CFO and executive director for five years up until 2018. He has also held sen-ior roles at Tesco, Boots, Kingfisher and Boparan Holdings.

B&M names Russo as new exec director and chief financial officer

He is due to join B&M no later than June 2021.

“I am delighted that Alex Russo has agreed to join the board,” said B&M chairman Peter Bamford.

“His previous roles with leading retail busi-nesses in the UK and internationally brings a valuable level of expe-rience to the board as our business continues

to grow at a significant rate.”

McDonald would stay on until the end of a handover period and pursue non-exec roles after his retirement from the business, B&M said.

“Paul McDonald has done an excellent job in that role and we wish him well for the future,” added Bamford.

The restructure at Wilko saw group trans-formation director and MD Jerome Saint-Marc promoted to the newly created role of CEO. Meanwhile Andrew Moore’s departure as chief commercial officer was due to see Russo take on profit protection in addition to his existing duties.

Russo is currently chief financial officer at Wilko

Age: 24Job title: Production planning assistantCompany & location: Biscuiteers head office, Wimbledon, LondonEducation: Business, Turku business school

Why did you decide to go for a career in food? I worked in the fashion industry for a few years and after a while just realised it wasn’t for me. I never actually planned to work with biscuits, but here I am!Explain your job to us in a sentence (or two): Planning the daily production flow and keeping the stock levels healthy.What does a typical day look like for you? I spend a lot of my time at my desk working very closely with my manager (head of commercial planning). I always work one week ahead, which means I need to be communicating constantly with the wider team and ultimately making sure we have enough stock. I meet up with our production team at least once a day to catch up and see how they are doing. We also have some lovely office dogs who always need some cuddles – that’s quite an important part of my role!Tell us about how you went about applying for your job. I was contacted by a recruiter on LinkedIn. I then had a phone interview with HR and after that had a chat with our production director, and then finally a third interview with my now-manager. What’s the best part about working for a food company? The atmosphere is completely different here than in any other company I have worked for. People are very motivated but it’s also a relaxed environment. Also, free biscuits – always a plus!And what’s the biggest misconception people have about working in food & drink? You would never really think about how complicated the journey of a biscuit is! You also need to be very careful as if the planning is not done well, there can be unfortunate wastage! What advice would you give to other young peo-ple looking to get into the food & drink industry? Find a company and brand you really like, and remember that your first job will probably not be the most glamorous – you have to find the right fit and work hard.What’s your ultimate career dream? I want to grow and develop my skills at Biscuiteers, with a company that cares about their employees. I wouldn’t mind being the head of planning one day!

my food & drink job

Ellen Lindvall

“Your first job probably won’t be the most glamorous”

Morrisons will gain access to a wide range of services

Morrisons has become the first supermarket to join the Slave-Free Alliance, a not-for-profit social enterprise launched by the charity Hope for Justice.

It joins other busi-nesses pledging to fight against modern slav-ery including Aviva, Experian, Dixons Carphone, Biffa, Clarks and Arriva.

As a member, Morrisons will get access to a range of ser-vices including site assessments, online resources and technical

Morrisons is first supermarket to join the Slave-Free Alliance

consultations. It will also receive support from staff with backgrounds in high-level policing, social work and supply chain management, as well as trainers and lawyers.

Slave-Free Alliance’s goal is to achieve a world

free from slavery, with all membership prof-its reinvested into Hope for Justice’s global work preventing exploitation, rescuing victims, restor-ing lives and reforming society.

“We’re pleased Morrisons has chosen Slave-Free Alliance as a partner to support their efforts to address the risk of modern slavery in their business and sup-ply chains,” said Slave-Free Alliance director Marc Stanton. “We hope it inspires sector peers to become involved.”

bogof


Good news for anyone excited about Bogof’s story of a few weeks ago, about a nude eaterie in Switzerland.

The Blue Lion pub, in Holborn, last weekend put down towels and cranked up the heating in order to host a naked Sunday roast . And it sold out! So keep your peep-ers open for more events like it, meat-and-two-veg enthusiasts.

Nude news for naked foodies

ad of the week: Gatorade’s GOAT Camp is fun fantasy for sporty types

Welcome to GOAT Camp. No, it’s not a petting zoo , but a gigantic sports compound, apparently run by Gatorade at the behest of Lionel Messi, Serena Williams, Usain Bolt and Michael Jordan.

GOAT, of course, means ‘greatest of all time’. It’s a reductive way to understand sport, but a great way for Gatorade to show off its virtually peerless ambassadors. Anyway, GOAT Camp is

a fun fantasy world for aspiring sporty types: we’re given the tour, during which Bolt signs t-shirts at light speed, Williams serves through a concrete wall and Messi does battle with an army of robot legs. (Jordan was otherwise engaged, presumably.)

Anyway, you can probably guess what keeps everyone hydrated. Inspiring, imaginative stuff .

Cake couture steals show at fashion weekBogof’s insistence on press accreditation at the ’big four’ – by which we mean New York, London, Milan and Paris fashion weeks, not supermarkets – paid off this year .

Moschino’s latest col-lection saw Versailles meet Patisserie Valerie, with models decked in what looked like tiered petits fours, covered in frosted icing. Even fi nger-nails came in sha des of spun sugar.

As Marie-Antoinette famously didn’t say: Let them wear cake!

You know that trick of ‘hiding’ vegetables in other foods so you can get toddlers to eat them?

Well, apparently the trick’s not just for tots. Former White House phy-sician Dr Ronny Jackson last week told the New York Times he used to sneak veggies into President Trump’s diet by “putting caulifl ower into the mashed potatoes”. “We were making the ice

cream less accessible,” he added.

Wonder if it works on British politicians? There must be a way to curb Jacob Rees-Mogg’s insa-tiable crisps habit.

Sad! Donald Trump gets set to go nuclear over dinner

Veggie trick for fast food prez

There’s a distinct mood of contagion in the Whitehall air – but fear not. If you hear the sound of frantic washing of hands it’s only

the Civil Service trying desperately to rid itself of ‘I Feel’ Priti Patel. I’m not sure singing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice or even three times is going to help much on that score, though I did think I caught a snatch of ‘Ding Dong the Witch is Dead’ emanating from the Home Offi ce.

Naturally, as a card-carrying feminist I can only see this as yet another plot to keep the sisterhood down, though it’s not absolutely impossible that Priti’s intellect and personality may be contributory factors. In any case it’s all a rather unwelcome distraction from the latest burden to fall on the shoulders of your Donna, namely how to contain the latest outbreak of that most British of diseases – hoarding.

Certainly Boris de Pfeff el Churchill (that’s the PM, in case you were wondering) has got his way sooner than expected in invoking a wartime spirit, as a quick glance along the empty ambient shelves of any supermarket will tell you . It would take minds more cynical than mine to associate the ongoing epidemic with Brexit, but we at Frexit (really we ought to think about a name change) have acquired a certain familiarity with stockpiling over the past year or two.

Naturally I’m not talking about myself – foie gras simply doesn’t keep, although it’s just possible I may have laid down a little extra vintage Krug. But while rationing is not quite on the cards just yet, as a word to the wise you may want to look up some of granny’s old turnip recipes. Just saying.

DONNA PUMSEYFOOD RETAIL EXPORT IMPORT & TRADE MINISTER

Treat of Versailles: a Moschino model shows

off some cake couture

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Can a land value tax save the high street?dl.magazinedl.com/magazinedl/The Grocer/2020/The... · “Can a land value tax save the high street?” Adam Leyland, Editor “The only