I was interested to learn that the three UK supermarkets growing fastest at present are Aldi, Lidl and Waitrose. That is two discounters who major on low prices and a limited product selection plus our most up-market food retailer. What do they have in common?They are all very single-minded in what they do. Unlike Asda, [...]
From the category archives:
Monthly Briefings
Held at the Rudolf Steiner Centre, London OCADO Lawrence Hene Head of Grocery Retail Ocado (www.ocado.com) 1.1Market Share Organic is 10% of sales and still in growth (11% year-on-year: however total business grew by 20%) Ocado has less than 0.5% total retail shares but 5% of organic sales, ie over-trades on organic x10 Believe that [...]
Meat Free Monday (and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and…) There is nothing more illogical than an organic vegetarian, but that is what I am. Organic farming relies upon animals to add fertility to the land during the rotation of fields. It is technically possible to farm organically without animals (so-called stockless systems) [...]
Martin Hickman www.independent.co.uk Monday, 4 April 2011 A £100m hole was knocked in sales of organic food last year as shoppers opted for cheaper produce in the economic downturn. Overall, sales fell by 5.9 per cent from £1.84bn to £1.73bn, according to research by the Soil Association, the country’s biggest certifier of organic products. The [...]
“Local Is The New Organic” is a headline from a recent edition of The Grocer. And there is no doubt that many people would like it to be so, especially supermarkets. It is much easier and cheaper to source potatoes ‘locally’ than organically. It also helps that there is no legal definition of the word [...]
Footprint Forum, London, March 7th 2011 Footprint Forum is organised by Foodservice Footprint whose remit is to address the environmental aspects of the foodservice process (more at www.foodservicefootprint.com ). Yesterday they organised an event at the NFT to consider how ethical marks and accreditation are having an impact on foodservice. Here are the some of [...]
Claire Videau , 24th February 2011 (from FoodNavigator.com) Organic Monitor predicts an eight per cent rise of European organic food and drink sales in 2011, as the global economy is coming out of recession more capital is now available for companies to invest. “We saw sluggish growth in 2009, but growth rates started to pick [...]
Amy Fallon, The Guardian, February 26th 2011 Consumers are being misled by “local” foods, with almost a fifth of products bearing the label making the claim falsely, a study has revealed. Items that were found to be misleading include “Welsh lamb” from New Zealand, “Somerset butter” from Scotland, “Devon ham” from Denmark and “West Country [...]
Have you seen the Yeo Valley TV ad yet ? (that should probably read Yo! Valley). The rapping farmers have become the toast of YouTube and added £10million to Yeo Valley’s sales. And hot on their heels comes another campaign to promote organic food, Why I Love Organic. Go to the website www.whyiloveorganic.co.uk and you [...]
So farewell then Patrick Holden. After 15 years as Director of the Soil Association Patrick is off to pastures new, specifically spending a month in the USA in order to set up a Sustainable Food Trust. In the New Year Helen Browning will replace him as Director of the Soil Association. Helen “has previous” with [...]