"British stores are already the best in the world, so why did you bother coming here?" That was how one senior German retail executive cheerily welcomed The Grocer to ECR Europe's second official' conference in the Netherlands last week. Those of us who last year were so inspired by the launch of Efficient Consumer Response in Geneva might have been pondering the same question. Not because a 1,700-delegate event bringing together some of the best grocery brains in Europe is of no consequence. But it is increasingly hard to see what the rest of Europe can teach UK retailers about supply chain or category management. That is not necessarily a maverick view. Another senior delegate ­ this time from a major multinational household products supplier ­ said, as our paths crossed in the Amsterdam Rai conference centre: "I'm telling my UK boys to stay at home now. These events are becoming dominated by supply chain people, and the trade is staying away. Apart from Graham Booth (the supply chain development director at Tesco) and Mike Winch, (Safeway's IT director), the retailers want to keep it all to themselves now as part of their whole category management effort." Maybe in Britain, then, it is already becoming what Birds Eye Wall's sales director Tony Pearce is fond of calling "just the way we do things round here". That's okay for the multiples and the multinationals. But when do smaller stores and their suppliers get a look-in? Some in the ECR movement are fearful the EU competition commissioner might start asking questions. So efforts were made in Amsterdam to show how the application of cheap, accessible Internet technology could give small suppliers access to the multiple market. ECR is not, they insisted, just a game for the grocery Goliaths. But the only name we saw in Amsterdam that had any connection with the average corner store was Spar ­ which, in terms of store numbers, claims to be the biggest grocery retailer in the world! The goal of ECR For Everyone is noble, but we'll take some convincing it's achievable.{{NEWS}}