Each month, we highlight new and interesting products, displays and features our team has snapped in the leading grocers
Lidl
Lidl Plus Offers pop out in an end-aisle gondola, touting Lidl’s new weekly discounts exclusive to loyalty scheme members. In mid-May, the retailer overhauled its loyalty scheme, bringing in new discounts for members on a selection of products which change each week. To redeem discounts at the tills, shoppers must first ‘activate’ each one in the app. Lidl then uses the data to further personalise further coupons.
Also on display at Lidl: a middle aisle price comparison on Henry the hoover.
M&S
Tis the season of asparagus, as M&S reminds us. It has also devoted an aisle to “seasonal fruit”: strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. Jersey Royal new potatoes are on offer for £3, alongside more tropical produce – pineapples and bags of oranges – both selling for £1 a pop. And a limited edition Katsu Sando that taps into the Asian food trend.
Sainsbury’s
There’s another way to celebrate warmer days ahead, Sainsbury’s “summer” booze display suggests. Raspberry vodka and strawberry daiquiris feature here, as does rose prosecco.
Tesco
If the weather doesn’t think it’s spring, Tesco certainly does. Pimp up your garden with some fantastic gnomes – there’s a gnome for every occasion, and an aisle’s worth of all the items you need to get your lawn BBQ-ready.
Plus, its Clubcard prices are prominent, with £3.40 meal deals and bright yellow signposting on products from Nutella to KP Nuts. But the loyalty points go beyond the signs; in late April Tesco announced its new “hyper-personalised” Clubcard promotion for millions of customers, driven by its new tie-up with AI technology company Eagle Eye. The retailer invited three million loyalty card holders to take part in the Clubcard Challenges campaign, launching in May.
Waitrose
After six years in the making, British-Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi’s first retail range hit Waitrose stores in late April.
The exclusive nine-strong range of spice mixes, pasta sauces and marinades is designed to capitalise on the trend of consumers trading down from restaurants to posh home-cooked meals. Billed as a “quick and easy” option for shoppers, it also has the “inspiration and pizzaz Waitrose shoppers expect”, writes The Grocer’s Stephen Jones.
“With clean, classy red on white packaging, the range has a genuinely premium feel, and to be fair the price range of £3.95 to £5 is at the higher end of the category,” he notes. “But Waitrose shoppers will always pay a little more if they are getting excited and inspired by a product, and this range should certainly have that effect.”
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