Product rationalisation in Food and Drink: Causes and challenges for manufacturers

The need for product rationalisation has significantly increased in recent years for a number of reasons. Major events have influenced changes in consumers’ shopping behaviour, affecting retailers, and in turn suppliers. The Covid-19 pandemic caused retailers to reduce their product range following consumers’ shopping patterns, contributing to the development of a ‘simplification’ trend that has […]

Morrisons slashes prices on almost 500 items, but are they enough?

Trying to remain competitive against deep discount retail chains Aldi and Lidi, Morrisons recently reduced prices on nearly 500 more items including some fruits and vegetables. Although Morrisons now has lowered the cost on 1,000 products, it only has committed to those reductions over the course of eight weeks. “We’re now going again with a […]

Waitrose cuts already-reduced items, including produce, to help struggling shoppers

As new data from Kantar revealed the struggles of British consumers to fight off inflation, Waitrose joined its competitors in slashing prices, including reducing items that were already on sale. Putting what it says is a £100m investment to “lower prices on hundreds of everyday favourite products,” Waitrose has trimmed some items by a further […]

Aldi named favourite UK supermarket in latest consumer survey

Tesco might hold a huge edge over its rivals in the UK in terms of market share, but they aren’t No. 1 in terms of approval from consumers. Discount chain Aldi, sitting at No. 4 overall in share according to the latest data from Kantar Worldpanel, has been named by British shoppers as their favourite […]

UK consumers spent record £12.8B in December, but sales volume dropped

Total grocery sales in the UK jumped more than 7.5% in the run-up to Christmas, according to new data released by Kantar, helped by a slight dip in price inflation. However, the data insight and consultancy points out that while sales did reach a record £12.8 billion, volumes were down by 1% year over year. […]

Hurt by inflation and consumer change, Morrisons’ profits tumble during Q3

Could the news over the past month get any worse for retailer Morrisons? After being surpassed recently fourth place in the UK’s supermarket rankings by discount chain Aldi, Morrisons reported that its profits were less than half of what they were during the same period last year, tumbling to just £177m in the third quarter. […]

Aldi’s move into Big Four shows power of discounting, inflation

Although Aldi’s rise into the Big Four of UK supermarkets ahead of Morrisons was not a surprise given its surge in the past two years, it nonetheless showed the power of discount chains in a budget-crunched sector for consumers. With inflation soaring to 12.4%, Aldi pulled down a 9.3% share to leap ahead of Morrisons […]

Shoplifting putting further strains on retailers, including Tesco

Little Helps? Tesco to have shareholder vote on tackling obesity in UK

Rising inflation and strains on budgets have furthered the wave of shoplifting in retail shops across the UK in the past few months, including Tesco, which has taken additional steps to try to protect food items from being stolen. The retailer has gone so far as to wrap some higher-priced products in netting with security […]