Welcome to the April issue of The Grocery Trader. Happy Easter, Spring is here at last! As we approach the long weekend, we hope everyone reading this gets a good break after three months of hard work since Christmas.
Shopping is now officially the UK’s largest consumer leisure activity, but the downside is an exponential rise in retail crime. In our Retail Fraud & Loss Prevention feature we hear from an expert on the subject, Professor Joshua Bamfield, Director of the Centre for Retail Research and author of the book “Shopping and Crime.”
Once confined to health stores, over the last two decades gluten-free foods have become familiar stock items in supermarkets. In our ‘The Lite Stuff’ feature we have an overview from Coeliac UK, the world’s oldest and largest coeliac disease charity. And in our Big Night In feature we highlight some of the sharing products available to help your shoppers relax with friends and family this spring.
As reported on our front page, Seven Seas’ new gender-specific supplements Perfect7 Woman and Perfect7 Man have achieved record sales for a new launch from this leading VMS brand, repeatedly selling out online and in store. The daily supplements’ sales success is impressive, considering the notoriously challenging VMS category, and with a further £5m marketing investment planned for 2015, record-breaking sales look set to continue. Gender-targeted nutrition is a category first for Seven Seas, and the two gender-specific supplements are specifically formulated to suit each sex’s particular needs and the different health issues affecting men and women.
Also on our front page Schoeller Allibert, the UK’s largest manufacturer of plastic reusable transit packaging, has delivered a fresh idea for leading produce experts, M Leggate & Sons, leading to supply chain cost savings of €35,000 to date. Leggate originally used wooden crates to transport produce, but recognised the risk of contamination due to crates being hard to clean and the possibility of contents becoming damaged by splinters or the chemicals used to treat timber against pests. The company also required a product fully compliant with BRC standards for use in clean rooms and able to contribute to the company’s policy of zero tolerance on contamination.
To resolve these issues, Schoeller Allibert provided a sustainable and cost effective alternative in the shape of their Maxinest trays, an award-winning range offering a complete field-to-shelf solution for fresh produce. The trays also offer improved vehicle fill on inbound and outbound trips, contributing to carbon reduction targets and saving up to 50 per cent on space.
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