The return of some warm weather in May helped drive sales growth at British supermarkets and they are set for a boost from the upcoming Euro 2024 soccer championship, according to industry data published today (31).
Market researcher NIQ said sales at UK supermarkets rose 3.3 per cent in the four weeks ending May 18 year-on-year, thanks to a brief period of hot weather in the week ending May 11. The data is the most up-to-date snapshot of UK consumer behaviour.
"It was the warm weather which helped to move the dial in terms of shopper spending at the UK supermarkets, more so than food inflation, which is expected to remain at around 3% for the next few months," Mike Watkins, NIQ’s UK head of retailer and business insight, said.
He said NIQ's survey data showed at least 45 per cent of UK households are interested in Euro 2024. Of those 69 per cent plan to watch the matches at home by themselves or with other household members.
"This could be a boon for supermarket sales of drinks, snacks and food for event-driven categories, such as barbecues," said Watkins.
The tournament, held in Germany, runs from June 14 to July 14, with both England and Scotland participating.
However, Watkins did point out that comparative numbers are tough as last year the UK enjoyed its hottest June on record.
Over the 12 weeks to May 18, NIQ said online player Ocado was again the fastest growing UK grocer with sales growth of 12.4 per cent year-on-year, ahead of discounter Lidl with growth of 9.0 per cent and Marks & Spencer with growth of 7.6 per cent.
Market leader Tesco saw sales growth of 5.4 per cent while Sainsbury's saw growth of 6.0 per cent. Asda was again the laggard with its sales falling 2.7 per cent, while discounter Aldi only achieved growth of 0.7 per cent.
Young women publicising Barney Springer Ltd produce at the New Covent Garden Market on the day of its official opening in Nine Elms, London, UK, 11th November 1974
Photo by Reg Lancaster/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
By the time most Londoners had rolled out of bed on Monday morning, Gary Marshall was already winding down for the day at New Covent Garden Market.
Located on the south bank of the River Thames, surrounded by high-rise buildings glinting in the dawn of early winter, the wholesale market is the UK's largest for fruit, vegetables and flowers.
"It's London's best kept secret," Jo Breare, the market's general manager, told AFP on its 50th anniversary.
London's historic fruit and vegetable market in Covent Garden, moved from central London to the southwestern suburb of Battersea on November 11, 1974, in a bid to expand and modernise.
Marshall has been working at the market for over 45 of those years, alongside nearly 200 businesses supplying London's local grocers, restaurants, hotels and offices.
He is the third generation in his family associated with the market, and his son, George, will take over his business, Bevington Salads, after him.
"New Covent Garden is part of us. It will be part of my son's life, maybe part of my grandson's life," he said.
"Once you're in it, honestly, you're in it for life," said Marshall, who is also chairman of the New Covent Garden Tenants Association.
'Like magic'
The working "day" begins at around 10:00 pm in the evening (2200 GMT) for some 2,000 people who work at New Covent Garden, with produce arriving from all over Europe and the world.
"Once you get here at 10 o'clock, you have a cup of tea, you have a look at your produce arriving.
"And then it happens. Then the buzz is on. The market's alive," described Marshall, his eyes lit up with pride.
Traders sell their produce in "old school" fashion - face to face - through the early hours, then, as the sun rises, it is shipped out across the capital and southeast England.
"So, by the time people are getting out of bed and walking into their hotel or into their office or a school or a government building, it's there... It's like magic," said Marshall.
"If you're here at one, two or three in the morning, it's like a little city with hundreds and hundreds of people," said Wanda Goldwag, chair of the Covent Garden Market Authority, which manages New Covent Garden Market.
The New Covent Garden Flower Market in Nine Elms opened it's doors on April 3, 2017 after moving from it's previous site, also in Nine Elms where it had been since 1974Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
The sprawling complex even has its own cafes and a post office that runs from 3:00 am to 1:00 pm.
Overnight work hours, in place since a decade to remove daytime commercial traffic in the congested British capital, have made attracting younger generations tricky, according to Marshall.
But the market and its vendors have weathered many storms in the last half a century.
When demand slumped at the end of the 20th century as supermarkets grew, New Covent Garden turned its attention to the hospitality industry instead.
Relevance
The market still supplies Michelin star restaurants, celebrity chefs and upscale London landmarks such as retailer Harrods and the Claridge's hotel.
One loyal customer is French chef Pierre Koffmann, who used to frequent the market when he ran La Tante Claire, his three-Michelin star London restaurant.
"It was a pleasure to come here, to meet people who were different and talk about vegetables," Koffmann told AFP.
Now, he mainly comes down to buy flowers, from the bundles of pink-purple hydrangeas to crates of roses and tulips that the CGMA says supply 75 per cent of London's florists.
For Goldwag, remaining relevant is one of the main challenges.
"So, so many of us buy our food from supermarkets now. And of course, in tough economic times, everyone is very money conscious," she said.
"Wholesale markets have to make sure they stay relevant and sustainable."
London's other main wholesale markets, Smithfield meat market and Billingsgate fish market, face uncertain futures after plans to relocate them were put on hold.
"They could very soon be out of anywhere to work from," rued Marshall, adding that New Covent Garden would "support" the other markets.
At New Covent Garden, however, business is booming, with a turnover of £880 million last year, regeneration plans set to be completed before the end of the decade and a guaranteed lease for at least the next 25 years.
"I don't know if I'll still be here in 25 years," said Marshall. "But my son certainly will be."
In a bid to dodge a US lawsuit, Swiss chocolatier Lindt & Sprungli has scuppered its own claims about the excellence of its products - a cornerstone of its marketing strategy.
Lindt has unsuccessfully tried to end a class action lawsuit in the United States, launched in February 2023 following an article by a US consumer association questioning the presence of heavy metals in dark chocolate bars from several manufacturers, including two bars produced by Lindt.
"In its defence strategy, the company has dismantled its own promises of quality," claimed the Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag, raking over a September US court decision.
The chocolatier's lawyers maintained that the words "excellence" and "expertly crafted with the finest ingredients", printed on its bars, were unactionable "puffery", according to a decision by the Eastern District of New York district court.
The court, which dismissed Lindt's motion, defined product puffery as "exaggerated advertising, blustering, and boasting upon which no reasonable buyer would rely".
The Swiss newspaper Le Temps said Lindt was "walking a tightrope" with this "daring defence".
Lindt's high profit margins are due to "the fact that consumers are willing to pay more for its industrial chocolates because of their quality image", the daily noted.
The court decision said the plaintiffs brought the class action against Lindt alleging that the firm "deceptively marketed their dark chocolate bars as 'expertly crafted with the finest ingredients' and 'safe, as well as delightful', when the bars in fact contained significant amounts of lead".
Lindt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Consumers in the US states of Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Nevada and New York had taken legal action on the back of a 2022 article by the US consumer organisation Consumer Reports, concerning the levels of lead and cadmium in dark chocolate bars.
The organisation tested 28 bars sold in the US. One of the Lindt bars was among eight found to have a high level of cadmium, while another was among 10 with a high level of lead, though neither had the highest levels.
Two of its bars, marketed under the US brand Ghirardelli, were among the five classified as "safer choices".
While bars from other manufacturers had higher concentrations of heavy metals - including from organic brands - consumers insisted in the class action lawsuit that they had paid premium prices for Lindt because they believed they were "purchasing quality and safe dark chocolate".
Switzerland is very attached to the quality of its goods, its calling card to sell products that are often more expensive given the high production costs in the wealthy Alpine country.
(AFP)
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Britain's main opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, arrives to give evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry in central London on November 11, 2024. (Photo by ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images)
The government let bureaucracy get in the way of redress for wronged sub postmasters, former business secretary Kemi Badenoch today (11) told the inquiry into the Post Office scandal.
The Tory leader said that during her time as business secretary, she and former postal affairs minister Kevin Hollinrake "wanted to get the money out there" but were constantly given reasons why they could not by officials.
During an appearance before the Horizon IT inquiry, Badenoch said, "We had briefings on the issue with officials, and it was quite clear to me that we were allowing bureaucracy to get in the way of redress too much of the time.
"Kevin (Hollinrake) and I wanted to get the money out there, and we were always given a reason why we couldn’t.
"I feel that there is often too much bureaucracy in the way of getting things done, because people are worried about the process. They are worried about: if things go wrong, they’ll be on the hook for that. So they carry out lots of checks and balances well beyond what I think is required in order to deliver the right outcome."
Questioned by counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC on who allowed bureaucracy to get in the way of redress, Badenoch replied: "Well, the government machine.
"I think I remember asking a question like- ‘Why can’t we just give them the money?"’
Badenoch, who was Business Secretary for 17 months, also told the inquiry that she was determined to speed up the whole process of compensation.
“What I was seeing, the way the Department [of Business and Trade] and the Post Office was going on we’d never get to the end of it. I had my own objective of making sure we did right by the sub-postmasters.”
Badenoch added that the Post Office would have “disappeared in its current form long ago” if it was a private organisation, adding that it is a “20th-century organisation that is struggling to evolve in a 21st-century world.”
Badenoch also stated that it was “extremely disappointing” that it took an ITV drama about the Post Office scandal to get the government to accelerate compensation for wrongly convicted postmasters.
“I was not expecting the documentary [Mr Bates vs the Post Office] in January, which helped speed things along. It suddenly turned it from a value-for-money question to a public perception question.”
The inquiry saw an exchange of letters between Badenoch and the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in August 2023 requesting the extension of interim payments for the Group Litigation Order (GLO) compensation. But he initially rejected the idea.
“If you look at it in the context of what’s happening in government," she told the inquiry. "There are a thousand things that are being asked, money requested for. After a while, it just becomes another line in a ledger."
A string of robberies have hit more than half a dozen convenience stores in Derbyshire in the past weeks in which a significant amounts of cash was stolen from stores including a Best One and several Co-ops.
According to latest reports, seven stores in Derbyshire were struck by armed robbers in the last six weeks. Police have shared footage of one of such robbery in which a shopkeeper can be seen fighting off a knife-wielding robber.
The force said the suspect had not physically harmed anyone during any of the robberies - which police are treating as being linked - but said significant amounts of cash had been stolen. Independent charity Crimestoppers is now offering a reward of up to £1,000 for information.
The force said the first three robberies happened in Derby between 18:00 and 21:32 on Oct 5 with the suspect described as wearing a bright orange top. Another shop was targeted in Derby the next day followed by a fifth on Oct 14 in Ilkeston. Two more shops were robbed in Chaddesden and Oakwood. The suspect in the later incidents was described as wearing dark or black joggers or tracksuit bottoms, a navy hoodie and a face covering.
Chief Inspector Chris Thornhill said: “These offences have understandably caused concern and a team of detectives are following a number of lines of enquiry in an effort to bring the man responsible to justice.
“I know there are people in the community who know who this man is – and they know that the right thing to do is to come forward. We have thankfully seen nobody physically hurt in the incidents so far, but any person who is willing to arm themselves with a knife is putting our community at serious risk.
“We are increasing both our uniformed and plain clothes patrols in the city – as well as armed response officers including potential targets as part of their patrol strategies. I would urge anyone who has any information, no matter how small it may seem, to come forward as soon as possible.”
A good majority (69 per cent) of those working in retail have experienced verbal abuse while most of these incidents were triggered by shoplifting, shows a recent report by retail trade union Usdaw.
According to the interim results based on over 4,000 retail staff responses show that in the last twelve months, 69 per cent have experienced verbal abuse while 45 per cent were threatened by a customer. 17 per cent were assaulted while 70 per cent of these incidents were triggered by shoplifting and two-thirds of those were linked to addiction.
The report comes as Usdaw launched its annual Respect for Shop workers Week that runs from Nov 11-17, with its members raising awareness of the union’s year-round Freedom From Fear Campaign and talking to the public to promote a message of "respect for shop workers".
Commenting on the report findings, Paddy Lillis – Usdaw General Secretary stated that it has become increasingly common for retail stores to be targeted by organised crime gangs stealing to order amid a retail crime epidemic.
“Our survey demonstrates that theft from shops is not a victimless crime, with incidents regularly being a major flashpoint for violence and abuse against shop workers. Having to deal with repeated and persistent theft and even looting can cause issues beyond the incident itself like anxiety, fear and in some cases physical harm to retail workers. Our members are reporting that they are often faced with hardened career criminals in their stores and much of the abuse they suffer is from those who are stealing to sell goods on, often to fund an addiction.
“After 14 years of successive Tory governments not delivering the change we need on retail crime, we are pleased that the new Labour Government announced a Crime and Policing Bill in the King’s Speech. This new legislation will deliver a much-needed protection of shop workers’ law; end the indefensible £200 threshold for prosecuting shoplifters, which has effectively become an open invitation to retail criminals; along with town centre banning orders for repeat offenders.
"The Chancellor announced in the Budget funding to tackle the organised criminals responsible for the increase in shoplifting and the Government has promised more uniformed officer patrols in shopping areas. It is our hope that these new measures will help give shop workers the respect they deserve.
“This week, Usdaw activists will be campaigning in their workplaces and communities calling on the shopping public to ‘respect shop workers’ and ‘keep your cool’, particularly in the run-up to Christmas when the number of incidents increases as shops get busy and customers become frustrated. This is a hugely important issue for our members and they are saying loud and clear that enough is enough.”