All The Grocer articles in 3 June 2006
Previous issues.
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News
in the can
Tuna fishing in the four main areas continues to be poor, resulting in higher raw material costs. Bangkok touched $1,000 tonne briefly before easing to $950, Indian Ocean fish is $1,050 a tonne with Atlantic and Eastern Tropical...
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Comment & Opinion
If you have to spend 90,000 hours on it, better enjoy it
On how to gain - and retain - a competitive advantage at work. Even working a modest 45 hours a week ('part time', I hear you cry), you'll spend a staggering 90,000 hours in the office during your life, striving to stay...
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News
"Asda's price for a single four-pint carton of milk was up to £1.34. That's a 34% increase on its controversial twofer"
I've been reading stories suggesting 'The End of Cheap Food' since, ooh, April, possibly earlier. Drought, floods, China, India, biofuel, all these and more were cited as reasons why wheat, milk, butter meat and other commodities were set to...
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News
"The 11m emails identified cases of 'unconscionable behaviour'. The supermarkets are not out of the woods yet"
The Association of Convenience Stores was doing its best, this week, to put a brave face on the inquiry. It described the provisional findings as a "curate's egg" (see p26). For ACS and independent convenience stores generally it looks like a...
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News
"At 17% for petrol and 23% for diesel, I think I know the true villain of the inflation piece"
Cost of living indexes are all the rage, don't you know. The Daily Mail's got one, so too the Express. And with a little help from The Grocer, the Daily Mirror launched one earlier this week. Even the supermarkets are at it. At first...
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News
World News - 3rd June 2006
Online retailer Amazon has launched a dedicated grocery section on its US site Amazon.com. The section offers more than 10,000 non-perishable bulk grocery items and includes brands such as Kellogg, Campbell's, Del Monte and...
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News
The Grocer 33: 2006 End of year annual review
Asda has been crowned the cheapest supermarket for the ninth year in a row. The retailer has once again dominated the pricing tables for the past 12 months and claimed The Grocer 33's lowest priced shopping basket for 30 of the past 50...
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News
"What could have happened to bread prices? Did ABF buy up a job lot of wheat in the futures market in 2007 BC?"
We all know the price of commodity-based products has gone up. Bread, pasta, milk, cheese: on telly, in the papers and in this magazine, there has been only one direction to this story: up, up, up. Official figures out this week showed...
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News
"What is staggering is the amount of fat, in 2007, that a company of this size and standing can cut"
It's not hard to see why Unilever is shedding 20,000 jobs (see p4). After years of negligible growth and margin underperformance versus rivals like Procter & Gamble and Reckitt Benckiser, the One Unilever programme initiated in 2005 is starting...
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Comment & Opinion
Editor's Comment: 'London 2012 can boost British food'
What an inspiration the Olympics have been, providing a welcome if temporary lift to our spirits from the lousy weather and the even lousier economy. Actually, I sense the Games will lift the spirits far longer than the recession we now appear to...
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News
"21st century green is about one fundamental issue - building a sustainable business for the future"
You will not have failed to notice that we have put the green back into grocery this week by devoting all our feature and comment pages to environmental and sustainable business issues. Like health, the green agenda is now firmly at the heart of...
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Category Report
"The Big 30 must provide good fresh produce, premium offerings, backed up by constant NPD"
I love the guys down at my local corner shop. We’re on first-name terms. And when I’ve been away for any length of time… -
News
"I scribble furiously. This is gold dust. The Wal-Mart subsidiary is secretive about its numbers. I could win a Pulitzer"
It's 8:30. Darren Blackhurst, the guitar-strumming food trading director at Asda, is making a gung-ho speech at a Christmas conference for Asda's 350 store managers . And up pops a powerpoint slide that is every journalist's wet dream....
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Comment & Opinion
Acas tips on keeping clean sheet for World Cup
The World Cup is inspiring great debates - even before the first ball has been kicked. But it has also inspired us at Acas, ordinarily an impartial adviser, to take the unprecedented step of coming off the sidelines to referee perhaps...
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News
Acid test: Café Kiss; Jacob's Creek Sparkling Rosé
Company: Halewood International. Price: £1.59 per can. Expert's verdict...20/25. Café Kiss really does what it says on the tin, and delivers a frothy coffee experience with a subtle kiss of alcohol. Undoubtedly, it's...
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News
"If Morrisons has failed to act quickly enough, it won't have done itself any favours"
Just how many warnings does a retailer need? Morrisons could now face criminal prosecution for the Scottish E.coli outbreak. On the one hand, it's easy to sympathise. There's been a huge increase in the number of food scares in the past...
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News
Friendly bacteria gives ActiMint healthy start
Consumers looking for a simple way of topping up their healthy bacteria don't need to reach for the fridge for a probiotic yoghurt drink any longer - all they have to do is take a mint. Ecobrands reckons that just two of its...
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News
This business is a real family affair
Business for Lizette Craig, MD of Botterills Convenience Stores, is very much like the old Sly and The Family Stone hit - a real family affair.Granddaughter to the company&'s founder, daughter of its chairman, and wife to its...
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News
Es Sidra targets English after Scottish success
A Spanish cider, which has sparkling and cloudy variants, is heading over to England following its successful debut in Scotland. Es Sidra, a 5% abv cider produced in Champagne-style bottles, is traditionally used for weddings in...
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News
"Once again, Tesco has raised the bar. It is in competition to catch up that the planet will benefit"
My morning ablutions were rudely interrupted, on Monday, by Stuart Rose, announcing on Radio 4 a dramatic new £200m eco-plan. I cut myself shaving as he reeled off some of the 100 exciting initiatives, including plans to go carbon neutral, use...