All The Grocer articles in Blogs – Page 14
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Comment and OpinionSize isn't everything
“We are the largest convenience retailer with a store in every postcode so we are well placed to handle the competition,” The Co-operative Group’s CEO Peter Marks declared as the society unveiled its full-year results this morning.
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Comment and OpinionOsborne raises the spirits
George Osborne is the toast of beer drinkers up and down the land today, after announcing he was scrapping the beer duty escalator and cutting 1p from the price of a pint in today’s Budget…
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Comment and OpinionAn idea with a catch
With fish firmly on shoppers’ radars, following the recent airing of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight…
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Comment and OpinionSmelling of (Wait)roses
Gardening is proving more than a hobby for the supermarkets.Tesco has plans to open a store combining a supermarket with a Dobbies; Morrisons opened 129 temporary in-store garden centres last year; and now Waitrose is embarking on a major expansion of its gardening business.The move into gardening makes a lot ...
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Comment and OpinionLet’s rethink drink
In an emergency debate in the Commons today, Home Office minister Jeremy Browne said there was a “compelling case” for ditching government plans for minimum pricing on booze…
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Comment and Opinion
No giraffing matter
Like most of us here at Grocer Towers, I am not prone to reacting in horror every time Tesco spreads its wings (if we did, we’d never get any work done).
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Comment and Opinion
Cheap supermarket pop
With the news today that Asda is in talks to stop HMV’s iconic and cherished brand disappearing from the high street, questions of feasibility are not the only thoughts to spring to mind…
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Comment and Opinion
Waitrose plays it smart
Waitrose has done it again. The supermarket has reported full-year sales and profits growth that its bigger rivals would kill for.
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Comment and Opinion
Feeling sorry for Coca-Cola
I’ve been feeling a little bit sorry for Coca-Cola of late.
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Comment and Opinion
Never mind horsemeat, we need to talk about GM
Is it time for the UK and others to embrace GM technology and save the world from a food security crisis?
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Comment and Opinion
Booze blues
I rarely get on my high horse about an issue. Even as a student in the 80s, I’d sit with my mates in the pub as they got passionate about the miners’ strike or yuppies or something, while I’d be more concerned about whether my Snakebite was better with or without the Black…
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Comment and Opinion
Another year
A year ago this week the government’s flagship approach to saving the high street was in full flow. It consisted of a competition on YouTube for town’s to come up with ideas to impress the self-styled Queen of Shops, Mary Portas.
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Comment and Opinion
Keeping their cool
Tomorrow retailers will be bracing themselves for the latest supermarket share figures, with many worried for all sorts of reasons, not least of all the impact of the horsemeat scandal - and the numbers are not likely to be pretty, according to Kantar Worldpanel’s Ed Garner.Speaking at the British Frozen ...
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Comment and Opinion
Not horsing around
Asda released its Q4 and full-year sales figures today, announcing a 0.1% increase in Q4 like-for-like sales and an uplift of 1% over the full year…
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Comment and Opinion
For he's a jolly Goodfella
There’s nothing this industry likes more at times than a good sneer. And when Ranjit Singh Boparan took control of Goodfella’s Pizza in 2011 as part of his swoop on Northern Foods, certain quarters seemed to sneer in unison…
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Comment and Opinion
Does anyone know the way to Blockbuster?
Amid all the continued shenanigans with horse meat and the industry taking another beating from doctors over obesity, Morrisons managed to deliver some much-needed cheer yesterday with the acquisition of 49 former Blockbuster Video stores…
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Comment and Opinion
It's all about trust
Last week we welcomed Sainsbury’s group commercial director Mike Coupe as The Grocer’s latest guest editor.
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Comment and Opinion
Crisis management
The horse meat scandal has been billed as a lesson in the inadequacies of our modern food supply chain. But it’s also a live case study – on a mega scale – of the varying approaches to crisis management PR.
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Comment and Opinion
Horse meat: the blame game
The horsemeat scandal erupted into bitter recriminations and a torrent of legal threats over the weekend, as brands vowed to sue suppliers who vowed to sue sub-suppliers, and different EU governments engaged in vigorous finger-pointing.As I write this, the Romanian government has just hit back at suggestions by the French ...
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Comment and Opinion
Still in the red
After years of heavy losses, Ocado is tantalisingly close to making a profit…