From trade body chiefs to innovators and leaders of the country’s biggest supermarkets, influential names have talked us through the ups and downs of the past year in grocery
Ian Wright
Ian Wright has always been known as a straight shooter. Some might say confrontational, but he doesn’t see it that way.
As Wright prepares to stand down as CEO of the FDF, he chatted about his accomplishments at the helm, overseeing some of the most challenging times in living memory.
The former Diageo and Liberal Democrat spin doctor’s career as FDF boss almost came crashing to an abrupt halt before it even got started. On his first day, he was so shocked at the state of the organisation’s dilapidated offices in Covent Garden - which he calls an “embarrasment” - that he almost handed back the contract.
It’s been more than six years since that day, and though he wouldn’t have thought it at the time, handing back the reins is proving tough.
Read the interview here.
Stuart Machin
After joining in 2018, Machin’s ambitious five-year food transformation plans have taken a while to come good, after a turbulent Covid-ridden 18-month hiatus.
But when it finally happened, M&S’s share price hit a two-year high amid rumours of a private equity bid, following two profit forecast upgrades. And M&S’s food division, led by Machin, deserves much of the credit.
In the half-year to October, food sales rose 10% compared with the six months before the pandemic and 17% when adjusting for the hit to its cafés and franchises. Clothing & Home, by contrast, was down 1%.
When he first joined, M&S was perceived as a grab-and-go type of grocer, specialising in the meal for tonight, due to its focus on small stores and historically limited range in all but a handful of outlets. With the coronavirus, both the mission and the location of many of its stores in transport hubs further compromised the model.
Find out how he tackled that perception here.
Justin King
The ex-Sainsbury’s CEO is now investing in the fast-growing online and mobile technology platform Snappy Group, and is joining the board as a non-exec director.
Snappy’s unique business modelcould mobilise and facilitate “40,000 independent corner shops at very low cost to do what most of them would love to be able to do if they could work out how to do it,” he says.
The plan is to bring the traditional c-store into the 21st century. In a world where rapid delivery companies and dark stores have sprung up seemingly overnight to compete with the sector, King believes the smarter option is to take advantage of the infrastructure already in place at local corner shops.
What these corner shops have lacked is an online trading platform to help them compete cost-effectively. This is where Snappy comes in.
Read all about it here.
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