Retail

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Sainsbury’s opens its first ‘click and collect’ grocery stores

UK retailer Sainsbury’s is rolling out a new service allowing customers the option of picking up the shopping they’ve ordered online from a nearby store.

UK retailer Sainsbury’s has this month started rolling out its new ‘click and collect’ service allowing customers to pick up the shopping they’ve ordered online from a store.

More than 20 Sainsbury’s stores will be offering the service by the end of the month and 100 stores are in the pipeline to join them by the end of the year.

The service means customers shopping online – in addition to still being able to book the usual home delivery slots – could choose a participating store and time to pick up their shopping from a refrigerated van which parked in the store’s car park.

Sainsbury’s Online Director, Robbie Feather, said: « This is yet another step for Sainsbury’s increasingly popular online service, and a demonstration of our commitment to giving our customers more convenient ways to shop with us, wherever and whenever they want. » Sainsbury’s online business is 18 years old and a £1 billion business (5% of sales).

The free collection slots will be available at eligible stores from Monday to Saturday from 8am to 1pm and then 2pm until 8pm in the evening. The service will also be available during store opening times on a Sunday. Collections are subject to a minimum £20 spend, with no collection charge. Orders may be placed up to 20 days in advance and as late as 11pm for next day collection.

 

 

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Poland: expanding retailer seeks produce suppliers

RETAIL poland POLO - Edited

POLOmarket, one of the most popular retailers based entirely on Polish capital, was set up 15 years ago. It sells its products mainly in small and medium-sized towns. Very popular among Polish clients, this network is looking for new locations and expanding its fresh produce range and promotions.

“We’re still increasing the number of our shops in all parts of our country, so we need more and more new suppliers of fresh produce. Presently, we’ve got 439 outlets in Poland where over 14 million customers buy our food products every month. Last year, POLOmarket acquired 18 new store locations, meaning an increase of about 30% in our possessions compared to last year,” said POLOmarket marketing manager Katarzyna Ciszewska-Masianis.

10% sales rise in 2014

Last year was quite good for POLOmarket, with fresh produce sales increasing, despite the Russian embargo, by 10% on 2013. For instance, the volume of apples sold increased 10,000 tons, about 25% up on the previous year. The managers of this network predict 2015 will be about 5 to 8 % better in terms of total fruit and vegetable sales.

“Sales of citrus fruit in 2014 also increased in all categories (tangerines and oranges +1.8%). Banana sales have also improved (+2.5%) and other exotic fruits (+1.9%). The second half of last year also showed a rise in sales of citrus fruit.

“Since 2012, we have continued to improve our performance because we have decidedly less produce of lower quality at our points of sales than in the previous year. We thoroughly check each incoming delivery to our warehouses,” Ciszewska-Masianis said.

Last autumn, POLOmarket joined the general campaign promoting local products ‘I eat Polish products’. “This activity focussing on our fruit and vegetables, and all our fresh produce promotions like ‘Frutessa’ and ‘Vertus’, has attracted many new customers who until now bought fresh produce in other retailers’ networks,” she said. „

TK

This article appeared on page 32 of edition 135 of Eurofresh Distribution magazine. Read it for free here.

 

 

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Netherlands: Sustainability and transparency are paying off

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With a 34% market share in the Netherlands today, Albert Heijn continues to improve its market position

The leading Dutch supermarket chain continues to improve its market position mainly due to an increase in the number of stores and the development of e-commerce. The market share of Albert Heijn shops in the Netherlands has risen by nearly 10% over the last 10 years from 25.3% in 2004 to 34% in 2014.

A new stage of sustainability

“To be able to market these specific ready-made salads with specific types and varieties of lettuce, long-term planning with our suppliers is even more necessary,” said Leon Mol, sourcing manager for vegetables. These suppliers are located in North-Western Europe and Southern Europe, though unexpected weather conditions in Southern Europe have made it very challenging to meet our requirements in volume and quality. Sustainability has been at a high level for a long time and has now entered a new stage of development. After mainstreaming basic requirements across the whole fruit & vegetable category, there is renewed attention for specific crops in specific regions of production. These projects can really make a difference for such an area.

Organics, ahead in transparency and traceability

“The organic sector is ahead of the conventional sector when it comes to traceability and transparency,” Mol said. The professionalisation of the organics sector is ongoing and very much needed for further growth in the organics market. Although full transparency of the supply chain is a basic requirement, more attention is still needed. “The identity of a product is more and more a part of the market proposal,” Mol said. The sales of organics represent about 3% of Albert Heijn stores’ sales and this is due to rise significantly, since the number of items has grown.

PE

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This is a short version of an article which appeared on page 30 of edition 135 of Eurofresh Distribution magazine. Read it for free here.

 

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ASDA braces for hard year

supercentre

UK supermarket chain cuts prices and also aims to cut waste with promotion of ‘wonky’ fruit

At the start of what it says will be the “toughest year yet” in UK retailing, Asda announced its biggest ever investment in price cuts and a campaign to reduce waste of ‘wonky’ fruit. The Walmart–owned UK supermarket chain is spending more than £300m (€391.6m) to lower 2,500 prices for fruit, vegetables and other basket essentials.

Among the changes: 750g of Russet apples cut £0.25 to £1, cucumber halves down £0.05p to £0.30, £0.77 off banana 10-packs to £1.35, and bell peppers cut from £0.77 to £0.57 each.

Asda said the price ‘rollback’ is part of its five-year strategy to invest £1bn in lowering prices and £250m in quality to cement its role in “redefining value retailing.”

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‘Beautiful On The Inside’ promotion of ‘ugly’ fruit

Also in January, Asda launched a campaign in five of its stores to sell ‘wonky’ fruit and vegetables at a discounted price.It said this would help reduce food waste, support farmers and offer better value for money.

Crooked carrots, knobbly pears and wonky spuds will be labelled ‘Beautiful On The Inside’, bagged separately and sold at a reduced rate.

Asda produce technical director Ian Harrison said the campaign is the latest in a series of initiatives to show Asda’s commitment to helping reduce waste throughout its supply chain.

How Asda locked in low prices for seedless table grapes

Another example of supply chain improvements is Asda’s achievement last year of a 52-weeks a year seedless table grape supply.

Alberto Goldbacher from ASDA buyer International Procurement and Logistics Ltd (IPL), said this means much more than grapes on ASDA shelves year-round. Based in West Yorkshire, IPL’s grapes and stone fruit category manager said it had allowed the retailer to lock in low prices, too.

While other retail chains at times offer heavily discounted grapes, Asda is committed to stable, affordable prices through most of the year, “and that is what the consumer prefers.” Customers essentially want “simple prices” – low prices that are fixed, he said.

Consistent low prices spur sales growth

At the time of his presentation at ‘Grape Attraction’ last October in Madrid, Goldbacher said Asda had been selling 500g of seedless table grapes for £1.50 (€1.90) for 17 months. This followed 4-5 years when the price was around £2.

Other retailers would like to follow, but in terms of supply chain optimisation “we’re 16 months ahead of them.” They can offer grapes at that price for 1–2 weeks, but not consistently, he said.

 

This is an abbreviation of an article which appeared on page 34 of edition 135 of Eurofresh Distribution magazine. Read it for free here.

 

 

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LIDL explains how to recognise quality in fruit and veg

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Global discounter LIDL has launched a quality campaign in its German home base teaching how to recognize good quality.

The campaign includes a TV ad now on air in Germany which asks « How can you tell what really is good? »

The initiative focuses on six product groups: fruits and vegetables, fresh baked goods, fresh meat products, wine, coffee and chocolate.

An accompanying web site says how fresh, crisp and juicy they are is a guide to quality in fruit and vegetables “and not the fact someone made a colourful pyramid out of them.” Good vegetables are usually plump, crisp and firm. For many types – such as tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers – a strong and uniform skin colour is an indication of ripeness, it says.

Lidl has included a fruit and vegetables ‘horoscope’ to guide consumers as to the ‘stars of the season’. It provides an overview of Lidl’s changing range according to the time of year. Being in season is another factor in good quality fruit and vegetables. “We only offer a product when it has reached the ideal level of maturity and thus tastes really good,” it says.

See the web site (in German)

 

 

 

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The largest retailers in Belarus

RETAIL Bielorusia ROTNAIA

 

Successful strategy of directly sourcing and offering many quality products at affordable prices.

 

“Founded in the 1990s, our company began its activity as a small wholesaler,” explains Alexey Titov, head of Evrotorg’s fruit and vegetables department. “We imported products from Europe and distributed them in Minsk and other regions of Belarus. In the 2000s, the company opened its first retail stores under the brand name Euroopt, and it has now become the largest retailer in Belarus with over 270 stores with different formats, from mini-stores to hypermarkets.”

Fruit and vegetables take up a significant part of the sales. Most of the products are local: apples, cherries, cranberries and other fruits in summer; vegetables grown in open fields and in hot houses, etc.

However, imported products are also on the shelves in season (stone fruit) and all year round, too: cauliflowers, Chinese cabbage, broccoli, Iceberg lettuce, citrus, bananas, persimmon, grapes, etc.

 

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Large assortment and direct imports at Evrotorg

The recently opened hypermarket in Pinsk is very nice and modern. Its fruit zone is Euroopt’s point of reference. The space for the fruit zone is very large and the customers can comfortably choose the fruit they like. In the same zone, there is a bar with freshly squeezed juices.

The department responsible for fruit and vegetable purchases is large and divided into 3 groups. The largest one deals with imports of banana and citrus fruit, the second largest with vegetables, and the third is responsible for all other fruit purchases.

As for the sources of the imported products, the largest volumes are brought from Poland and Turkey. Other exporters are Holland, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Greece.

 

Rodnaya Storona, one of the most dynamic retailers in Belarus

The first store belonging to a Belarusian retailer under the brand of Rodnaya Storona was opened in 2007 in Gomel. Expanding fast, the company became one of three largest retailers in the country, with 90 stores all over Belarus and with over 4,000 employees.

“We are a dynamic company,” says Alesia Borisova, fruit and vegetable purchasing department specialist. “We intently follow market trends, consumers’ requirements, general trends and react at once.” Fresh products are very important for the brand, and the company’s specialists pay close attention to partnerships with fruit and vegetable suppliers who can offer good quality products.

“Belarus is a producer of essential fruit and vegetables: potatoes, carrots, cabbages, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, apples, etc.”, Borisova said.“But of course, a lot of fruit and vegetables in the assortment have to be imported.”

NB

 

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Evrotorg buyers

 

This is an abbreviated version of an article on page 28 of the retail section of edition 135 of Eurofresh Distribution magazine.

 

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Tesco returns to growth as British shoppers spend more on groceries

Fraser

 

The British grocery market is growing at 1.1%, the fastest rate since June 2014, according to Kantar Worldpanel.

Its grocery share figures for the 12 weeks to February 1 also show:

  • Tesco, Britain’s largest retailer, returned to growth for the first time since January 2014, increasing sales 0.3% on the same time last year, but its overall market share fell to 29%, down 0.2 percentage points on last year.

  • Asda reclaimed the title of second largest retailer this period with 16.9% of the market, overtaking Sainsbury’s, which traditionally performs more strongly at Christmas than the rest of the year. But both grocers saw sales fall compared with a year ago – Asda by 1.7% and Sainsbury’s by 1.0%.

  • Morrisons’ sales fell 0.4%, the best performance from the Bradford-based retailer since December 2013.

 

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based on data for 12 weeks to February 1, 2015

 

Kantar Worldpanel head of retail and consumer insight Fraser McKevitt said Tesco is bouncing back from a tough year, with efforts to overhaul the supermarket attracting an additional 236,000 shoppers into its stores in the last 12 weeks.

“Early results suggest that discounters Aldi and Lidl will find their accelerated growth levels hard to match in 2015. Aldi’s growth of 21.2% is still impressive but a relative slowing from its 36% peak in May 2014. Likewise, Lidl’s maximum growth of 24% in the same period is now down to 14.2%. Despite this slowdown, both retailers are still taking share from the other retailers – rising 0.8 percentage points and 0.4 percentage points respectively to 4.9% and 3.5%,” he said.

At the premium end of the market, Waitrose has supported growth with a greater focus on price and promotion, delivering a 7.2% sales rise taking its overall share to 5.2%.


British grocery market accelerating

McKevitt said British shoppers are taking advantage of lower fuel prices and the ongoing supermarket price war to slightly increase their grocery spending. “This has pushed the market into 1.1% growth, low by historical standards but a considerable improvement compared to November 2014, when the market contracted.”

“All of the major grocers have continued to compete fiercely on price leading to like-for-like grocery prices falling by 1.2%. This is another record low, saving Britain’s shoppers £327 million over the past 12 weeks,” he said.


Tool for seeing latest rankings

Kantar Worldpanel now provides an online visualisation tool for its grocery market share data (including historical figures) here:

http://www.kantarworldpanel.com/en/grocery-market-share/great-britain.

source: http://www.kantarworldpanel.com/en/Press-Releases/Market-accerlerates-and-Tesco-returns-to-growth

 

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Mercadona now holds 22.1% groceries margin in Spain

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Mercadona was by far the the leader but Carrefour Hiper, Dia, Eroski Supers and Lidl came next in holding the biggest share of Spain’s fast-moving consumer goods market last year, according to a report by Kantar Worldpanel.

Mercadona’s market share was triple that of its nearest competition, Carrefour Hiper, and it also dominated with its 17.5% share of perishables, climbing 6% on 2013.

But it was Lidl that grew the most in the perishables category, with its share rising 23.5% on 2013 to 2.1% last year.

The ten retail chains together accounted for 52.9% of total FMCG sales in Spain last year. All except Alcampo either improved or maintained their market share relative to 2013.

Perishables sales set to slump further

According to Kantar Worldpanel consumer insights director César Valencoso, last year was one of the worst for Spain’s FMCG sector, which lost 2.9% in sales value and 1.8% in volume overall – and he said the fresh produce category was largely to blame.

Indeed, the perishables category saw relative declines of 4.8% and 3.1% and the sales volume this year is poised to drop again, specifically by 1.1% on 2014, while most other categories are poised to improve, he said.

Market shares in Spain for sales of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG)*

Retail chain

2014 ranking

2013 share in %

2014 share in %

change in percentage points

change in %

Mercadona

1

21.5

22.1

0.6

2.8%

Carrefour Hiper

2

7.5

7.7

0.2

2.6%

Dia

3

7.4

7.6

0.2

2.7%

Eroski Supers

4

3.1

3.3

0.2

6.4%

Lidl

5

2.7

3.1

0.4

14.8%

Alcampo

6

2.9

2.8

-0.1

-3.4%

Consum

7

1.7

1.9

0.2

11.7%

Eroski Hyper

8

1.5

1.6

0.1

6.6%

AhorraMás

9

1.5

1.5

0

0%

Caprabo

10

1.3

1.3

0

0%

 

* including food; baby, cleaning and personal care products; and pet food

source: Kantar Worldpanel based on sample of 12,000 households which reported daily to it on what they bought and where.

 

Read more: http://www.kantarworldpanel.com/es/Noticias/Buenas-perspectivas-Gran-Consumo-2015

 

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Asda says its “no tears” sweet red onion is a UK first

Asda onion

 

Asda has just started selling what it calls the UK’s first sweet red onion.

The UK retailer said in a press release that a total of about 40 tons of Sweet Reds are now on sale at selected Asda stores.

It claims the onion’s lower pungency levels means less tears while chopping and an odour that doesn’t linger on the breath as long as that from a regular onion. The new bulb is also said to boast a milder, juicier and crunchier flavour.

Asda said the sweet red is the result of work spanning more than 20 years by Bedfordshire Growers farmer Alastair Findlay, who evaluated 400-500 bulbs per season in order to cultivate the new onion.

Asda’s vegetables buyer Andy Wareham said the company is proud to have supported Findlay on the project. “Introducing the UK’s very first sweet red onion is a fantastic achievement. » Wareham said that like in the USA, people in the UK tend to have a sweeter palate « so will appreciate the same tangy flavour, without the strong acidity of some onions. »

“It’s funny to think that prior to the 1990s, there were no red onions grown within the UK. However due to the popularity and versatility of the variety, they now account for 20% of the total onions sold within the UK,” Wareham said.

Findlay is already working on an improved version of the onion to launch next year. “There are so many interesting flavours just waiting to be discovered,” he said.

Read more about Asda on p34 of our latest edition, number 135.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What’s happening with retail in Caucasus

There’s been significant growth in the retail sector in Belorussia

 

There are some 4,000 stores of different formats in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. Modern retail is not more than 30% of total trade. The share of supermarkets does not exceed 5% of the market, and the growth of their share is not expected in the near future.

The situation is similar in Armenia though in Azerbaijan the supermarket share is greater – 10%. One of the youngest retailers of Azerbaijan is resco; it is an affordable brand with high quality products for demanding consumers. Fresco is part of the Azeri Retail company which appeared on the market in 2010.

In January–November 2014, Azerbaijan imported 12,800 t of fruit at a value of $9 million, down 31% on 2013.

But fresh vegetable imports grew 26% (22,600 tons at $2.4 million) and potato imports – which totalled 110,000 t with a value of $8 million – were 2.5 times higher than in 2013, according to the Interfax.az agency.
 

Consolidation of formats by Belarusian retailers

There’s been significant growth in the retail sector in Belorussia – more than 18% in 2013 (on 2012) and 10% in the first half of 2014.

Though lately the growth has been slowing due to a general business decline, analysts are optimistic about the long-term prognosis of retail growth in Belorussia because the procurement of trade space is still quite insufficient – it is 1.5-2 times less than the EU average. Moreover, the shortage of some formats is so great that consumers from small towns have to shop in the country’s capital, Minsk.
The main trends in Belarusian retail sector at the moment are the consolidation of formats and the optimisation of trade processes.


X5 Group’s turnover higher

In the last quarter of 2014, the retailer X5 Group opened two new distribution centres: one of 34,000 m2 in the Rostov region (south of Russia) and another of 44,000 m2 close to Nizhniy Novgorod (Volga region).

Its turnover grew in 2014 thanks to inflation, new outlets and an assortment upgrade, especially in discount formats.

However some stores were also closed: 46 Pyaterochka discounters, 22 Perekrestok supermarkets, 45 Express supermarkets and 2 Karusel hypermarkets.
 

Magnit conquers Siberia

This year, Magnit, the largest Russian retailer, will open a new logistics and distribution centre near Krasnoyarsk. The retailer has bought 50 ha for this purpose. Additionally, new stores, both supermarkets and hypermarkets, will open in the region.
 

O’Key opens a new storehouse

The retailer O’Key is improving its logistics efficiency in Siberia and has rented a storehouse in Novosibirsk.

Until now, its merchandise distribution was done through four centres: in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Krasnoyarsk, Volgograd. Thus, the expansion of all the federal retailers to Russian regions continues.