Rachel Eyre on building ‘a better version’ of Asda

Asdaness’ is a phrase you’ll hear affectionately used by anyone with a connection to the supermarket. But nearly 12 months into her role as Asda’s chief customer and digital officer, Rachel Eyre admits she still struggles to define it.

“It’s something you can only experience,” she tells The Grocer. “There’s a friendliness, a Yorkshire wit and grit. The charm, down-to-earth nature and community spirit of Asda that is unlike anywhere else.”

However it is defined, one thing is clear: for many customers that Asdaness has proved increasingly elusive in recent years. Readers of The Grocer will need little reminding of the Leeds-based supermarket’s travails since the heavily debt-backed £6.8bn acquisition by TDR and the Issa brothers in 2021.

Since then, Asda’s market share has plummeted by more than three percentage points, from almost 15% to 11.5%. Its protracted IT decoupling from Walmart stripped investment from store standards, hit availability on the shelves and played havoc with online deliveries. It all culminated in losses surging to nearly £1bn last year.

Given that decline, reconjuring the ‘Asda spirit’ in the eyes of customers is arguably one of the toughest jobs in UK grocery. But for Eyre, who was born and bred in Leeds, the scale of that challenge was one of the reasons she jumped down the A647 from fellow Yorkshire grocer Morrisons in August 2025.

“I’ve absolutely loved it on a personal level. I signed up for a job knowing it was to help lead a business through turnaround and make sure the customer was bang at the centre of that,” she says.

Unsurprisingly, it’s been a busy year. Her first few months were spent talking to customers to diagnose what they considered Asda’s strengths to be – and where it had lost its way. “It told us that we didn’t need to be something different,” she says. “We didn’t need to reinvent Asda. We just needed to be a better version of Asda.”

Work was already underway on two of those core strengths before she arrived. Executive chairman Allan Leighton has reintroduced Rollback, Asda Price and its multibuy mechanic in early 2025 to improve Asda’s price position, while chief commercial officer Darren Blackhurst’s “bay by bay” range refresh aimed to strip out up to 6,000 lines and improve choice in core categories like fresh and frozen.

“We are more competitive than we were a year ago,” Eyre claims. Yet, Asda’s continued loss of market share since the return of Rollback – including being the only supermarket to see sales decline over Christmas – shows that its struggles stretch far beyond price and range.

Improving quality perceptions of its store, online experience and produce has therefore been a priority. June brought the most significant attempt to change those perceptions, in the form of a long-term strategic partnership with Ocado.

Beginning in 2027, Asda will adopt Ocado’s Smart Platform technology across its e-commerce operations and run on a new website platform, while the tech will also be used to power in-store picking and last-mile delivery of Asda’s 700,000 weekly online orders. Eyre says the partnership has the potential to “transform” Asda’s online offer, giving it a much smoother experience and, ultimately, improving service at the doorstep.

“We know we haven’t been consistent enough in certain parts of the online shop,” she concedes – reflected in the number of shoppers doing their online shop with Asda, which fell by four percentage points to 13% last year, according to NIQ’s Homescan April Survey 2025.

Asda has also partnered with Amazon to overhaul its online retail media offer, serving customers more “relevant” adverts while browsing its website or app.

In store improvements

But it’s in store where customers should notice the more immediate changes. May saw the launch of Asda’s Take a Fresh Look campaign – coinciding with one of its “biggest range refreshes” in recent years, aimed at improvements that are visible as soon as shoppers are through the door.

Fresh and frozen aisles have been revamped with better layouts and clearer PoS. Dedicated greengrocer colleagues were redeployed to improve availability, alongside a new ‘fresh promise’ guaranteeing 100% satisfaction on fruit & veg or customers’ money back.

“Take a Fresh Look was not a strategy or initiative – it was an invitation,” Eyre says. “It was our opportunity to show we’ve listened to our customers, we understand what matters and we’ve made improvements where it matters most,” she says.

If Asda can entice shoppers back into stores, rewarding their loyalty will be critical to keeping them for good – which is why enhancing the Asda Rewards loyalty scheme is next on Eyre’s list.

Despite still having roughly six million active users, Rewards is generally seen as being much less competitive than the likes of Clubcard and Nectar. Customers have criticised it too, with some labelling the scheme “all but dead” as the generosity as rewards have thinned amid Asda’s wider push for lower prices.

In January, Eyre appointed Chris Chalmers as Asda’s new vice president of data and loyalty to breathe new life into the scheme. The first half of the year was spent “quietly testing, learning, listening, iterating and optimising” ahead of a swathe of features due in the second half.

Asda has already since launched “hyper-personalised” missions – tailored rewards bonuses or money-off coupons on the shoppers’ most-bought products – and signed brand partnerships with the likes of Live Nation for free member tickets.

Then in July, Asda integrated Rewards with its petrol fuel courts for the first time, giving shoppers 5p per litre off at the pump for every £40 spent in store. Owning its forecourts, opticians and the George brand gives Asda a strategic advantage over rivals like Morrisons and the discounters, particularly on loyalty, Eyre says.

“Asda is more than just a supermarket,” she says. “Using the Reward scheme as a way of showcasing to our customers the breadth that Asda has to offer, as well as rewarding them for their loyalty across the breadth of that offer, is a strategic opportunity for us and an excellent way for us to give them value back,” Eyre says.

More launches are imminent. But Eyre is adamant one core philosophy will define Asda’s approach to loyalty. “Asda remains first and foremost a price retailer,” she says, ruling out loyalty pricing. “It’s very important to us that there’s no faff, no card, no catch. And that all of our customers can access the right price, irrespective of whether they’ve chosen to sign up to a loyalty scheme or not.”

At its core, her strategy is simple: “To be a better Asda.”

Looking forward, she’s optimistic that if Asda lands all of its plans, that elusive Asdaness can make a return – and will feed through to sales. But it will take time: “We’ve said it will take three to five years.”

There are early signs of success, though. Asda is currently enjoying its best ever customer satisfaction scores for online, and some of its highest satisfaction scores across other parts of the shop since 2022. In July, sales rose for the first time in more than two years, up 1%, according to unpublished Worldpanel data. “If we’re getting it right for our customers, our sales performance and market performance will follow,” says Eyre.

It’s a modest turnaround against losses of nearly £1bn and three years of shrinking market share, but there are green shoots. The challenge now is to sustain them.