Welcome to our ‘weekly news in brief’, covering the latest from UK retailers and manufacturers.
Retail News in Brief
To help shoppers assess the environmental credentials of the products they purchase, Amazon has launched an "eco-friendly" shopping platform. Here, up to 40,000 products that carry a certificate from one of the 18 impartial certification schemes including Fairtrade International and the Carbon Trust will be featured.
In partnership with an online library service The Social Book Club, Waitrose has developed a series of six children’s books about healthy eating. With the help of Sammy the Strawberry and Blake the Broccoli, the stories will take primary-aged readers through a supermarket teaching them about healthy food choices.
Sainsbury’s is offering its Nectar cardholders the chance to claim a Double Up Voucher worth up to £100 as it looks to attract customers into doing their Christmas shopping early. These vouchers can be spent in stores between November 11 and 17 or be ordered online between 28 October and 3 November.
Booths have introduced a bogof initiative across all its 28 branches whereby the free items customers usually get are donated to food banks. About 20 branded and own label SKUs are currently part of the deal. The retailer intended to launch the scheme in January 2021 but has opted to roll it out early owing to the continued impact of coronavirus and “increased demand” it has seen in previous years for food banks during the festive period.
Manufacturing News in Brief
Led by the continued strength of the premiumisation trend, AB Inbev has recorded an improvement in its third-quarter results with organic revenue growth of 4% to $12.8 billion. AB Inbev says the results reflect the “resilience” of the global beer category. However, an increase in at-home drinking has pushed up costs as supply chains have been adjusted.
Kombucha specialist Remedy has become the first kombucha brand to be stocked in Tesco Superstores. The move will see two of Remedy’s best-selling drinks being rolled out across an initial 327 Tesco stores nationwide, as well as online at Tesco.com within the soft drinks aisle. In Europe, kombucha was worth nearly £180m in 2019 and is expected to reach roughly £580m by 2025.
General Mills has expanded its Fibre One line of weight management snack bars with a new protein range in the UK following research that showed consumers are interested in protein but wary of high sugar levels. Containing only 90 calories, with 10g of protein and 1g of sugar, the protein bars are available in two varieties with the brand claiming that both flavours are “permissibly indulgent”.
After weeks of speculation, Coca-Cola has announced it will be entering the UK alcohol market in November with its hard seltzer brand Topo Chico, fuelling its ambition to become a ‘total beverage company’. Coke has used the pandemic as a chance to refocus - just last week CEO James Quincey said that the decision to cut ‘zombie brands’ during the summer has helped the company double its revenue per innovation in 2020, compared to last year.
Other News in Brief
TikTok has made its first foray into eCommerce thanks to a deal with Shopify that enables consumers to purchase directly from merchants on the platform. The more than 1 million merchants are being encouraged to create campaigns, target audiences and track performance in one place, with £230 in free ad credit to get started.
Rum has been named the 'drink of the lockdown' according to The Wine and Spirit Association after its latest figures showed that the spirit reported the biggest growth across all alcohol products during the lockdown. According to the WSTA, rum sales jumped up 38% year-on-year to £119m during the April-June 2020 period, equal to an extra 1.3 million bottles sold.
Prices in UK shops fell by 1.2% in October as the retail industry started to see sales bounce back. Non-food prices fell to their shallowest decline since the start of the pandemic at 2.7% while Food inflation remained steady at 1.2% in October. Fierce supermarket price competition should keep prices low unless a free trade agreement with the EU cannot be struck.
New rules and logos to protect traditional British foods such as Stilton cheese and Melton Mowbray pies have been set out by the Government ahead of the UK’s departure from the EU. They will guarantee the authenticity of regional and traditional foods for shoppers, whilst protecting British producers from imitation.
