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Tesco is aiming to boost sales of its upmarket Finest own label range by an extra £1bn as it targets winning customers from Waitrose and Marks & Spencer.
CEO Ken Murphy told the Financial Times (£) over the weekend he was “very conscious” of the increasingly important role of its premium offering.
Sales of Finest jumped 16% to £2bn in year to 24 February 2023 as more than 23 million shoppers bought into premium brand.
However, Murphy set no target for reaching £3bn in sales.
He told the newspaper: “We genuinely believe . . . that our intrinsic [food] qualities are every bit as good as anything you would get at Sainsbury’s and increasingly out of Waitrose.
“M&S we probably still have a bit of work to do.”
The Finest range celebrated its 25-year anniversary in 2023 and picked up the Own-Label award at the recent Grocer Gold Awards 2024.
Over the past year, Tesco has added more than 300 new products to the range, which now spans 1,000 SKUs across all fresh and packaged food categories.
Morning update
Elsewhere, it is a quiet start to the week on the London Stock Exchange.
The papers report that high-end chocolatier Hotel Chocolat is planning to open 25 new shops and expand manufacturing in the UK, with the backing of new owner Mars.
The FTSE 100 sank 0.5% to 8,208.74pts as markets opened today.
Early risers in fmcg include Glanbia, up 3.4% to €18.82, PZ Cussons, up 2.5% to 106.8p, and PayPoint, up 1.9% to 660p.
Ocado started the week badly, plunging 5.6% to 358.6p, while Virgin Wines is down 4.1% to 41.3p, with Nichols and M&S down 3.3% to 1,015p and 1.6% to 304.8p respectively.
This week in the City
Things pick up tomorrow when Ocado posts interims, discounter B&M puts out a Q1 update, household cleaning own-label supplier McBride issues a trading update and the latest monthly Kantar grocery market share data gets an airing.
Wednesday brings the latest UK inflation figures from the Office for National Statistics.
Bisto and Mr Kipling owner Premier Foods reports first-quarter numbers on Thursday ahead of its AGM.
The week rounds off with the latest report from the closely watched GfK consumer confidence index and the ONS publishes retail sales figures for June.
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