Retailers Meat
Sainsbury’s has announced price cuts to its meat and poultry categories as the supermarket’s Christmas sales fell for the first time in a decade.
In a bid to keep up with discounters Lidl and Aldi, Coupe revealed price cuts to its meat, fish and poultry categories this week, as part of a £150m price cut programme announced in November.
“For example, the regular price of our 260g boneless cod fillets has dropped from £4 to £3.30 and the regular price of a Sainsbury’s 1.35kg British whole chicken has fallen by a £1 from £4.50 to £3.50,” he explained.
Meanwhile, the supermarket released its third-quarter results, showing like-for-like (LFL) sales to be down 1.7%. Total sales also fell 0.4%. And chief executive Mike Coupe said the rest of the financial year would “remain challenging”.
Despite falling Christmas sales, Coupe said the week before Christmas was a “record-breaking” period, with more than 29.5m transactions.
“The outlook for the remainder of the financial year is set to remain challenging, with food price deflation likely to continue. Our performance in the third quarter showed an improving trend quarter-on-quarter.”
Coupe predicted the supermarket’s fourth quarter LFL sales to be similar to those during the first half of the year due to “the uncertainty in the trading environment”, food price deflation and the price reductions announced this week.
Tesco and Marks & Spencer are both due to release trading updates for the Christmas period on Thursday.
The Co-operative Food has committed to sourcing all its own-brand meat from British farmers as part of a £1.5bn initiative announced today (5 December).
The three-year commitment to support and celebrate British food sees the retailer pledge to source British products over and above alternatives for its own-brand meat, poultry, produce and dairy products.
With the exception of New Zealand lamb and Danish bacon, all own-brand meat will be British, including its chilled ready meals, pie and sandwiches, with the exception of continental varieties including ingredients such as chorizo
While a spokesperson for The Co-op admitted that the retailer was currently sourcing more or less 100% British meat anyway, he said that the three-year campaign would see the retailer try to make more of its stance to support British food, in terms of its marketing, promoting this aspect more to customers.
Environment secretary Elizabeth Truss has lent her support to the commitment, saying it was a “fantastic vote of confidence for the UK food and drink industry”.
Steve Murrells, The Co-operative Food’s retail chief executive, said: “Trust in retailers has been dented in recent years and we hope our openness about where we source our meat, poultry and produce will encourage more retailers to follow suit.
“Shoppers want to know about the origin of their products and if supermarkets import meat for use in products, it is important that, as well as being identified on product labeling, in-store marketing should not seek to unwittingly mislead.”
Research for the The Co-op’s UK sourcing report, Born and Bred, revealed that 73% of customers had more confidence in British-sourced food, with 86% feeling it was more traceable
Of the food or products shoppers most wanted to be British, fresh meat came top with 72%, while 33% were keen that frozen meat was sourced from Britain, and 29% wanted the same from ready meals.
“These figures show shoppers want to buy more British – we’re supporting this by improving country-of-origin labelling, which will be mandatory for lamb, pork, poultry and goat meat from April next year,” added Truss.
The Co-op said that, in 2014, it expected to have invested a total of £350m in sourcing British meat for its fresh and prepared products: £54m on bacon, pork and sausage; £123m on chicken; £111m on beef; £6.5m on lamb; £44m on cooked meat; and £13m on meat ingredients.