Christmas adverts rated: Which retailer has made the best ad of 2016? November 12, 2016 Argos A gang of multicoloured yetis on ice skates stealing unattended electrical items from a pleasant-looking neighbourhood. Does anything say ‘come and visit our store’ less? ★☆☆☆☆ Aldi Good-looking food. But the poor carrot, Kevin, who we become attached to in this one-minute advert, is surely destined to meet an unfortunate ending. ★★★☆☆ Ebay Definitely [...]
Aldi wants to lure craft beer fans with… craft wine November 4, 2016 You can see Aldi's thinking. "Craft beer's still doing well: what next?" And it's landed on… craft wine. The discount supermarket is cracking open a range of "craft-beer-style wines" this month which it says will turn traditional wines "on their head". It's betting on the "Whole Foods generation and millennial drinkers" toasting the new beverages as many [...]
The Aldi fightback is on: Morrisons records fourth consecutive quarter of growth November 3, 2016 After the devastating news that Morrisons was hiking the price of Marmite, it needed a good third quarter. And it has delivered the fourth consecutive quarter of growth, with sales up 1.6 per cent. Potentially a sign of, whisper it quietly, momentum building? The figures The 13 weeks to 30 October, like-for-like sales were up [...]
Asda vows to clean up its act after probe finds poor home delivery hygiene standards November 2, 2016 Supermarket Asda has taken “immediate action” to improve the standards of its home delivery service after an investigation exposed unhygienic conditions. Six in 10 deliveries were found to be “dirty or worse” by an undercover BBC Watchdog team, which launched the probe after a whistleblower raised concerns. Read more: Take that, Aldi: Tesco just gained [...]
Tesco executives to go on trial in September next year October 20, 2016 Three former Tesco executives have appeared in court today on fraud charges and a trial date has been set for September next year. Former finance director for Tesco UK Carl Rogberg, 49, ex-UK managing director Christopher Bush, 50, and ex-commercial director for food John Scouler, 48, have been charged with one count of fraud by abuse [...]
How one buccaneering family dominated the UK scampi market October 20, 2016 "At the tender age of 32, I got involved in buying assets from the receivership of what was the Whitby Shellfish Company”, says Graham Whittle, founder of Whitby Seafoods. From relatively humble beginnings, in just over thirty years, the business has gone from one that was sinking to the biggest producer of scampi in the UK, [...]
HSBC marks out the winners and losers from the national living wage October 19, 2016 HSBC has today outlined how businesses can combat the cost pressures of the national living wage – and the kind of companies that will be the winners and losers from the legislation. The best way to offset the new costs is to find productivity growth, HSBC analysts said in a note, although "this would require a [...]
Take that, Aldi: Tesco gains market share for the first time in years but Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Asda decline further October 18, 2016 It looks like Tesco is beginning to win the battle of the supermarkets, after new figures showed it won supermarket share in the last three months – for the first time in five years. Figures by Kantar Worldpanel showed Tesco increased sales by 1.3 per cent in the 12 weeks to 9 October, which pushed its [...]
Marmitegate: A typical story of belligerent boardrooms October 14, 2016 Marmitegate – it divided the nation. You might even say it spread fear. Either way, Tesco revealed last night that it has resolved its feud with Unilever, producer of everything from Marmite to Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, after the consumer goods giant tried to impose a blanket 10 per cent price hike on its products due [...]
As Tesco shares jump after it reported another rise in sales, is the retailer out of the woods? October 5, 2016 Clive Black, head of research at Shore Capital, says Yes. If you go down to the woods today… well, you won’t find Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis. Two years on from a troubled and tortuous analyst meeting, with the business on its knees, the Tesco boss is reporting that the remedial measures introduced to guide the [...]