One of the recent success stories from the health food boom is located in the chiller and is, of course, fruit juices and smoothies. However, it is not a huge category, containing only about 60 lines. But underneath the average there is a broad range between stores of various sizes.
A high proportion of the products was on offer when Storecheck visited, with Sainsbury having the largest amount on promotion at 28%.
Looking back, during the past few months grocery retailers have settled into a pattern and out of stocks have been standing at between 11%, where a much-improved Sainsbury sits, and Somerfield's 15%, which is not bad considering its smaller units give it slightly different issues to the rest of our sample.
However, in the chilled fruit juices and smoothies category the picture is not so rosy. While Morrisons has a low of about 4%, Tesco comes in with a poor 25% out of stock on non-promoted lines.
For once, the poor performers and good performers were the same in both promoted and non-promoted SKUs.
It is surprising that Tesco is the category under-performer. The 25% out-of-stock figure for its standard range is more than double its average to date. A similar pattern on promoted products gives Tesco just less than 30% compared to an expected out-of-stock figure of 15%, based on previous performance.
Somerfield is not that far behind when it comes to promoted stock, with 29% out of stock in this category. Its normal lines are second worst in our table, at nearly 20%. On the other hand, Morrisons' managers have clearly taken to the health-giving fruit juice and are ensuring shoppers do not have to miss out - and that they do not miss a sale.
Impressively, Morrisons had no out of stocks on promoted items and only 4% on its standard range. This bodes well for the company for, as Sainsbury has found, making sure your customers can buy what they want is a very good start in delivering for your shareholders, as well as your customers.




Group At Risk average to dateAsda 19 24Sainsbury 15 19Somerfield 29 19Tesco 30 15Morrisons 0 19Category average 19 19
Group total Skus on promotionAsda 53 20%Sainsbury 54 28%Somerfield 62 25%Tesco 63 21%Morrisons 62 16%Average SKUs 59 22%
Group At Risk average to dateAsda 7 13Sainsbury 8 11Somerfield 20 15Tesco 25 12Morrisons 4 12Category average 13 13

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