The collapse of Palmer & Harvey yesterday has sent a shockwave through the convenience and wholesale channel. It is deeply distressing for the 2,500 employees whose jobs have been terminated with immediate effect and of course extremely worrying for the 90,000 outlets who rely on P&H deliveries for their very livelihoods. Sadly however the demise and failed rescue packages have been well documented, so the writing was on the wall. The final nail in the coffin was perhaps Tesco’s £3.7bn takeover of food wholesaler Booker which got the go-ahead from the competition authorities. This effectively gave the green light for Tesco Booker to take in house the valuable contracts that P&H held to supply Tesco and One Stop stores. Neil Brenson of Food and Drink Agency Jellybean Creative sums up the situation as he sees it.
Last night the Asian Media & Marketing Group hosted the 29th Asian Trader Awards. The event held at the Park Plaza, Westminster is one of the highlights of the year for the independent retailing industry and gathers all the key players together to recognise and reward the very best of independent retailing.
Last night we joined over 800 people from across the grocery and convenience retail industry at the Grosvenor House to celebrate and reward retail excellence.
Convenience retailers rely on, trust and act on the advice of other retailers. Ask any convenience retailer and they will tell you the same. As a marketer specialising in convenience retail trade and category communications for leading food and drinks brands, reaching and influencing convenience retailers is what myself and the Jellybean team do day in and day out. Now I could write a few thousand words here in this blog and take up a lot of your valuable time labouring the point about the rise of influencer marketing, the power of peer to peer endorsement and the role of ambassadors, but I won’t. The simple fact is… and I’ll say it again… convenience retailers, rely on, trust and act on the advice of other retailers. So, it stands to reason that food and drink brands should be really collaborating with convenience retailers and making damn sure they get retailers to be the champions of their brands.
Convenience is going through an unprecedented level of change and competition is tougher than perhaps ever before. This really does go to show just how important and relevant convenience has become and will continue to be in all of our lives.
Keeping up to speed with this ever-changing market is no easy feat. At Jellybean our food and drink clients rely on us to help them understand, interpret and navigate this complex market so that together we can fully maximise their trade marketing and sales potential.
So what better time and place to share some convenience retail truths that give us and our food and drink clients reasons to be cheerful and further confidence to continue to focus and invest in this highly entrepreneurial, buoyant and people-centric channel.
Here are our top 10 Convenience Retail Truths (inspired by the ACS Local Shop Report 2017):
1. Sales in convenience have risen by £500m in the past year alone to £38bn – which makes this sector of the economy comparable in scale to other large UK sectors like recruitment, defence, oil and gas 2. Convenience sales make up over one fifth of the total grocery market 3. By the end of 2017, sales in convenience are predicted to reach £40bn 4. Convenience store retailers have invested over £858m in the last year on improving their stores, extending their range of services available to customers and making their businesses more efficient 5. Independent convenience retailers run 74% of convenience stores in the UK. Not only are they putting their hand in their pocket to invest in their stores they are also putting in long hours, with 20% working more than 70 hours a week and 19% not taking any holiday 6. The average sales of an unaffiliated independent store is £339,685 per year and they rely on working in partnership with food and drink brands to survive and thrive 7. The average shopper visits their convenience store 3.47 times per week and their average spend is £6.28. Proximity of store, friendly & helpful staff, supporting local and long opening hours are the top four key drivers for visiting local stores 8. Food and drink products are essential to convenience shopper missions – top-up (32%), food to go (15%) and meal occasions (8%) are key reasons to visit convenience and retailers want help from suppliers to get them right 9. Chilled Foods (17.2%), Alcohol (14.3%), Canned & Packaged Grocery (7.3%) are three of the biggest categories driving sales in Symbol and Multiple convenience stores – but other categories are also critically important to ensure shopper needs are met. These include: Fruit & Veg (6.4%), Soft Drinks (5.9%), Savoury Snacks (3%) and Frozen Food (2.1%) 10. Convenience stores are offering a greater number of services which gives shoppers more reasons to shop – mobile phone top-up (83%), Lottery (79%), Post Office (21%) and even local grocery delivery (16%) show how stores are changing with the times and listening to what shoppers want
To discuss how Jellybean can help you maximise the potential of your trade marketing and grow sales in convenience then please get in touch with our Group Account Director Neil Brenson on 01372 220 814 or email neil@jellybeancreative.co.uk
You can download a full copy of the ACS Local Shop Report 2017 here.
Jellybean Creative is a leading convenience retail marketing agency. We help top brands with convenience marketing, strategy and design. If you feel we could help you with your brand then drop us a line today.
The New Forest is blessed with some of finest artisan producers and eateries in the country. The coastal market town of Lymington is home to many of them. As a leading food and drink marketing agency we went to check out some of the best places to eat and drink in this thriving foodie scene. From established fish restaurants serving locally caught crab and lobster, to a new Nordic deli serving Viking platters and a jewellery shop cafe fusion which caters for food intolerances; our team of intrepid roving reporters complied this video of our five foodie favs. And of course being Beans we had plenty of fun and lots to eat and drink along the way. Make sure you watch right to the end to see some of us in action as we visited restaurants and interviewed chefs and managers on our foodie safari. Enjoy.
Soaring temperatures can mean soaring sales for convenience stores. Key categories like soft drinks, ice cream, BBQ food and booze see huge spikes in sales as shoppers spend lots of time in the sunshine. However during long spells of hot weather there’s a danger that demand can out strip supply and that can be a big problem.
According to newspaper reports Sainsbury’s has entered into exclusive discussions with Nisa about a potential acquisition of the retail business for a reported £130m.
Shopper marketing and shopper loyalty in convenience can sometimes be unnecessarily over-complicated and over-thought. That’s the positive conclusion I came to after attending the him! Convenience Tracker Programme (CTP) Unveil event. The headline findings show it’s all pretty simple stuff as to why convenience shoppers shop and what needs to be done to keep them coming back and spending more.
At the annual Association of Convenience Stores Summit we heard from a host of speakers about their perspectives on the convenience market. One key recurring theme throughout the event was food-to-go, which is perhaps unsurprising given a third of delegates in the room said it was the no.1 priority focus for their business. So with the IGD predicting that food-to-go will be worth over £21bn by 2021, here are seven key take-outs. Neil Brenson of leading food and drink agency Jellybean reports.
The annual National Convenience Show and Farm Shop and Deli Show have just taken place at the NEC in Birmingham. Around 600 food and drink brands across a huge variety of different categories were there in all their glory, trying to capture the attention of what was a record attendance of retailers and operators this year. As you’d expect from a leading integrated agency that specialises in all things food and drink, we were there taking in everything that these great shows have to offer.
Food is an incredibly important part of Easter traditions for families up and down the country and as a nation we spend millions of pounds on food at Easter every year. This is something that hasn’t escaped the attention of the supermarkets and out of home operators who continue to pull out all the stops to cash in. It’s a real battleground. Whether it’s hot cross buns for Good Friday, Easter eggs for gifting, a pub lunch, an evening meal out, or the traditional Lamb and trimmings to cook at home for the family – our nation’s appetite for food continues to grow.
The food industry has just been served with a healthy spoonful of bitter sweet sugar guidance from Public Health England. The new voluntary guidelines will limit the amount of sugar found in products across nine food groups. If you work in food and think this doesn’t apply to you then think again. It’s going to impact on all corners of our industry, from retailers to manufacturers, QSR’s to coffee shops. The word is, if food companies don’t follow the advice, then it could signal full-on regulation in the future and you know what that means…. sugar tax! Yes, just like we’re about to see introduced on soft drinks. So, it’s time to take action on sugar.
Yes folks, it’s that time of year again when the convenience trade show season kicks off. From Nisa Stoneleigh to the National Convenience Show and P&H’s Pro Retail, the calendar is certainly chock-a-block. Over the coming weeks and months, suppliers big and small will be investing hundreds of thousands of pounds in these shows, from stand builds, staffing, promotional materials, travel, accommodation, PR, marketing and of course that bar bill. With so much outlay, are these shows really cost effective? And what are the best ways to really guarantee sales success and ROI? Trust Jellybean, your retail trade marketing to take you though the top tips…
The lines between retailing, wholesale and foodservice just got even more blurred with the recent controversial announcement of the proposed merger between the UK’s biggest retailer Tesco and one of the UK’s biggest wholesalers Booker. Opinions on the merger differ widely and depending on your view point, this could either be a big opportunity or a big threat.
Our resident retail trade expert and former BBC journalist. Neil is a passionate food and drink marketer who has delivered award-winning integrated campaigns for a heap of leading household brands. Not to mention he’s a hockey player extraordinaire with international honours representing Wales in the Masters European and World Cup competitions.
