All articles by Adam Leyland – Page 50
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Comment & OpinionEditor's Comment: The Tories want to rein in the FSA - but it may get larger
Happy birthday to the Food Standards Agency, 10 years old today.
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Comment & Opinion
Editor's Comment: PepsiCo’s first health report suggests they think the recession is over
How was it for you, Darling? The Budget, I mean. To me the Chancellor managed to be both punitive and non-committal, like he was dodging a bullet while a brigade of tanks is parked just round the post-election corner.
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News
Product Chain buy kicks off Esom brand venture
Steven Esom, the former Waitrose and M&S exec, has acquired a majority stake in Product Chain, one of the UK's best-known sales agencies, to help deliver his vision of a "seed to harvest" solution for startups and fast-growth fmcg companies.
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NewsHot Topic: Retro, modern and timeless all at once, Coke is a class act in branding
Let's raise a glass of something fizzy to Coca-Cola. Once again crowned Britain's Biggest Brand this week, in 2009, Coca-Cola became the first-ever grocery brand to record retail sales of more than £1bn, we reveal.
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Comment & Opinion
Editor's Comment: Is it in indies' best interests that Today’s and Landmark are such bitter enemies?
Whether the percentages now flatter wholesalers or not, the 80/20 rule in grocery retail is still useful. It helps to instruct us not only on the balance of the market but how we should approach it: focusing on the main chance while stuff at the...
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NewsCurry sees red
Sir Don Curry is the first to admit he’s taken on a complex task as head of the Better Regulation Executive. Not least because of a strange reluctance by industry to name the most costly and damaging red tape. Will he reveal his own targets? Adam Leyland reports
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Comment & Opinion
Editor's Comment: We need cuts and Sir Don Curry can do it
What's with The Guardian at the moment? It's been running a series of 'scoops' about supermarkets and their price promotion tactics. They obviously don't read The Grocer.
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News
Editor's Comment: Success of independents and Morrisons has changed Bond's mind on smaller stores
The demise of Thresher and Woolies was no surprise. Recession hunts out the weak and infirm. But who would have predicted, a year ago, that Aldi a discounter, with a strong price message would go through more bosses than Portsmouth FC?
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News
Editor's Comment: Warburtons entry into bagged snacks is bizarre - and I like it
Warburtons? Making crisps? Now that's what you call a brand extension and a half. Yet you can see why. Exactly a year since Walkers launched Red Sky, sales of the premium potato chips have come from nowhere to challenge established players...
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News
Editor's Comment: Only half the global supermarket share prices are back at pre-Lehman levels
Tim Mason, the Fresh & Easy chief, has cashed in quite a few chips these past weeks. Others are dealing, too: Sir Terry Leahy, Richard Brasher, Colin Holmes. And who can blame them?
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NewsWill Kraft be able to stop the brain drain at Cadbury?
Can Kraft win the hearts and keep the brains of Cadbury’s best people? Perhaps, if Irene Rosenfeld respects the Cadbury culture, says Adam Leyland
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News
Editor's Comment: When Sir Terry goes, contrast the succession planning with Morrisons
What is it about Morrisons that, like the national football team, it can’t seem to find an English manager? To be fair, after Marc ‘Sven Goran’ Bolland, the Irish Dalton Philips is more of a Martin O’Neill than a Fabio Capello.
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News
Editor's Comment: I'm not angry with Cadbury, hedge funds or even Kraft. I'm angry with dozy City analysts
If I'm feeling a little sad at the sale of Cadbury, it isn't because I think Kraft is an evil, low-growth corporate raider. As our recent Top Products survey confirmed, Kraft won the top launch in two categories, with Kenco and Mikado, and Mikado...
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News
Editor's Comment: Reducing Mars' satfat content will be worth five-year wait
As well as fresh snow, this week brought bucketloads of policy-related proposals for consumer and public affairs experts to ponder, with the imminence of a general election providing plenty of impetus.
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Comment & Opinion
Editor's Comment: VAT hike gives January sale claims an added élan
It’s the January sales and, once again, Britain’s supermarkets are offering some spiffing deals…
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Comment & Opinion
Editor's Comment: Grocery not only weathered the recession, but delivered a host of surprises
If some of the more memorable themes of this year's Top Products Survey seem familiar own-label losing share to brands; promotions reaching record levels; food price inflation; supplier consolidation; and the revival of several big...
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NewsMe, myself & Irene: Cadbury chief Todd Stitzer talks
In the 14 weeks since Kraft went hostile, Takeover Panel rules have limited Todd Stitzer and the Cadbury senior management team to now-tired rhetoric around Kraft's "derisory offer". On Monday day 32 in the rigidly timetabled takeover...
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Comment & Opinion
Editor's Comment: Industry senses something really bad is still to come
Surreal is one way to describe Cadbury's Christmas party for the media on Tuesday. Agonising is another. Along with assorted senior communications execs, CEO Todd Stitzer and chairman Roger Carr took time out of their busy preparations to defend...
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News
Editor's Comment: Obesity is caused by people eating and drinking too much
After this issue goes to press, I am due to meet the Food Standards Agency for lunch. So what will I be talking about as I pick, nervously, over my strangely discoloured food?
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Comment & Opinion
Editor's Comment: Choosing the 35 top women in the industry was a political nightmare
Like a prick at the proverbial lesbian commitment ceremony, I feel uncomfortable writing about women in grocery, the subject of this week's cover story in The Grocer.