>>journalistic breast-beating over prices is unlikely to abate
it’s time to start talking mergers
from Rodney Hunt, managing director, The Today’s Group
FSA is rubbing salt into the wounds
from Martin Paterson, deputy director general, Food and Drink Federation
It’s been a funny old week. As it started our offices were bombarded with calls from the nationals and broadcast media keen to get our views on the weather. Or, to be more precise, how the weather will affect the retail price of key food and drink products.
This is a silly season story that just refuses to die. Our explanations of what is really happening - and what may happen in the near future - have tended to fall on deaf ears and some pretty daft pieces have been written and broadcast. While that has been really frustrating for us, it has served as a useful reminder that ‘shock,horror’ stories about the food and drink industry are staple fare for the national media. And nothing excites many of our journalistic colleagues more than stories about pricing.
With that in mind, we were not too surprised to find that our week ended as it began.
This time, however, we were fielding calls from journalists eager to run exposés of how retailers are ‘ripping off’ consumers by apparently charging more in their convenience stores than in their bigger stores, or charging less in the north than in the south.
Trying to explain why all this can happen was a useful, if somewhat time-consuming, exercise, as it again served to demonstrate just how dangerous it is for national retailers to run any kind of flexible pricing strategy. In medialand, any story about retail prices is a good story to run. So no matter how valid the arguments, retailers will always come under fire if they are caught selling products at different prices in different stores.
And I have no doubt that we will continue taking calls on this issue long after the media’s obsession with weather-related stories has evaporated.
Recruitment of shop staff is a major headache for all grocery retailers - not helped by retail’s poor image. In next week’s issue we’ll publish the results of an exclusive survey of store managers to see just how big the problem really is. But our survey will also highlight a big retention issue - with staff turnover of 26% a year on average. Improving retail’s image is a tough one to crack. But retention is an issue retailers can do something about. And just think how much time and money would be saved if they did.
Sir; It was interesting to note the results of your wholesaler reader panel on consolidation among wholesale companies, and more specifically, buying groups (The Grocer, September 6, p14).
There can be no doubt that the impending consolidation in the multiple retail sector, as we move towards the final chapter in the Safeway story, will have a substantial effect on the independent sector.
This, together with Tesco’s latest round of price cuts and its avowed intent to exploit the convenience sector further with its programme to convert T&S Stores to Express, will certainly take its toll.
Of course there should be consolidation among buying groups. A merger between Nisa-Today’s and the Landmark Group is long overdue as we have now been saying for some considerable time.
While both groups provide their wholesalers with the means for their independent retailers to compete, to some extent, at an acceptable level of shared margin, there is a very long way to go.
The wholesale sector needs to buy at measurably lower cost prices to enable them to invest for the future as well as providing their customers with the level of cost price and the attendant services they require to effectively operate a c-store - a store that is able to successfully trade against, say, a Tesco Express unit - for the long term.
The comments that some of the contributors to the panel made, such as “personalities”, “jobs at risk” or “vested interests” all pale into insignificance when compared to the potentially dire consequences of doing nothing.
Now, more than ever before “doing nothing” is definitely not an option.
The Nisa-Today’s executive chairman, Dudley Ramsden and I would be more than happy to host a meeting to start fair and frank discussions on the way forward.
Sir; While I’m not normally one to bang on about bangers, you might want to grill the Food Standards Agency on why its recent sausages survey press release did not lead with the good news that the average salt content of meat sausages has reduced by 11% since they were last tested. The average fat content of meat sausages has also reduced by 25%. This information was strangely buried in the meat of the survey.
price is right in medialand
Easing the headache
it’s time to start talking mergers
from Rodney Hunt, managing director, The Today’s Group
FSA is rubbing salt into the wounds
from Martin Paterson, deputy director general, Food and Drink Federation
It’s been a funny old week. As it started our offices were bombarded with calls from the nationals and broadcast media keen to get our views on the weather. Or, to be more precise, how the weather will affect the retail price of key food and drink products.
This is a silly season story that just refuses to die. Our explanations of what is really happening - and what may happen in the near future - have tended to fall on deaf ears and some pretty daft pieces have been written and broadcast. While that has been really frustrating for us, it has served as a useful reminder that ‘shock,horror’ stories about the food and drink industry are staple fare for the national media. And nothing excites many of our journalistic colleagues more than stories about pricing.
With that in mind, we were not too surprised to find that our week ended as it began.
This time, however, we were fielding calls from journalists eager to run exposés of how retailers are ‘ripping off’ consumers by apparently charging more in their convenience stores than in their bigger stores, or charging less in the north than in the south.
Trying to explain why all this can happen was a useful, if somewhat time-consuming, exercise, as it again served to demonstrate just how dangerous it is for national retailers to run any kind of flexible pricing strategy. In medialand, any story about retail prices is a good story to run. So no matter how valid the arguments, retailers will always come under fire if they are caught selling products at different prices in different stores.
And I have no doubt that we will continue taking calls on this issue long after the media’s obsession with weather-related stories has evaporated.
Recruitment of shop staff is a major headache for all grocery retailers - not helped by retail’s poor image. In next week’s issue we’ll publish the results of an exclusive survey of store managers to see just how big the problem really is. But our survey will also highlight a big retention issue - with staff turnover of 26% a year on average. Improving retail’s image is a tough one to crack. But retention is an issue retailers can do something about. And just think how much time and money would be saved if they did.
Sir; It was interesting to note the results of your wholesaler reader panel on consolidation among wholesale companies, and more specifically, buying groups (The Grocer, September 6, p14).
There can be no doubt that the impending consolidation in the multiple retail sector, as we move towards the final chapter in the Safeway story, will have a substantial effect on the independent sector.
This, together with Tesco’s latest round of price cuts and its avowed intent to exploit the convenience sector further with its programme to convert T&S Stores to Express, will certainly take its toll.
Of course there should be consolidation among buying groups. A merger between Nisa-Today’s and the Landmark Group is long overdue as we have now been saying for some considerable time.
While both groups provide their wholesalers with the means for their independent retailers to compete, to some extent, at an acceptable level of shared margin, there is a very long way to go.
The wholesale sector needs to buy at measurably lower cost prices to enable them to invest for the future as well as providing their customers with the level of cost price and the attendant services they require to effectively operate a c-store - a store that is able to successfully trade against, say, a Tesco Express unit - for the long term.
The comments that some of the contributors to the panel made, such as “personalities”, “jobs at risk” or “vested interests” all pale into insignificance when compared to the potentially dire consequences of doing nothing.
Now, more than ever before “doing nothing” is definitely not an option.
The Nisa-Today’s executive chairman, Dudley Ramsden and I would be more than happy to host a meeting to start fair and frank discussions on the way forward.
Sir; While I’m not normally one to bang on about bangers, you might want to grill the Food Standards Agency on why its recent sausages survey press release did not lead with the good news that the average salt content of meat sausages has reduced by 11% since they were last tested. The average fat content of meat sausages has also reduced by 25%. This information was strangely buried in the meat of the survey.
price is right in medialand
Easing the headache
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