All articles by Gaelle Walker
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News
Foreigners snap up best of British
The UK's food industry has faced a foreign invasion in the past 10 years, with some of the country's most iconic food brands being swallowed up by overseas companies, a new report by Grant Thornton Corporate Finance reveals. Some 650 UK...
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News
Tesco clothes supremo rejects M&S approach
Tesco's clothing boss Terry Green has rejected a lucrative job offer with Marks & Spencer. The style guru, who is responsible for the soaring success of the supermarket's fashion business, had been approached by M&S chief executive...
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News
Somerfield takes action to boost flagging stock levels
Somerfield is overhauling its supply chain and in-store procedures in a bid to revive its flagging availability levels. Last month the retailer, which is the subject of takeover speculation, had an availability rating of just 93.8% having...
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News
Kwik Save pledge on morale 'meaningless'
Kwik Save chief executive Paul Niklas may believe he has saved the soft discounter - but he still has his work cut out to win over disgruntled employees. Last week we revealed Niklas had secured a new refinancing package in an 11th-hour...
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News
Comparison site gets users, but no revenue
The group behind grocery price comparison website Mysupermarket.co.uk are insisting the site is a success - even though it has yet to generate any revenue nearly five months after it went live. Johnny Stern, one of the investors in the...
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Profiles
Rosier becomes MD in Organix shake-up
Organix, a leading children's organic food company, has promoted Anna Rosier to replace founder Lizzie Vann as managing director. Rosier, who is currently heading up the company's sales team, said Organix was the category innovator and...
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News
Tesco's Wharton takes on MBL supply chain
After five years as network development director for Tesco, Scott Wharton has split ranks and joined MBL as its new supply chain director. He steps into the shoes of Mark Aylwin, who left the MBL team in September to become chief...
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News
Retail Spotlight
Located beneath a sweeping arch of the Docklands Light Railway, Budgens' new-look London store is a sign of things to come, not just for Virginia Quay, the developing heart of the capital's Docklands, but for the Budgens business as a...
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News
Morrisons in lead with price-cutting
Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda have been making all the big noise about new year price reductions - but Morrisons has quietly been beating them all, according to exclusive data from The Grocer Price Index. Morrisons has cut the cost of our...
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News
Kwik Save crisis grows
The crisis at Kwik Save looks to have deepened, with a claim from inside the company that some suppliers are no longer delivering products to the retailer, while evidence has emerged of issues relating to the supply of electricity and...
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News
Festive high, but 2007 set to be tough say supermarkets
Grocery retailers reported Christmas cheer this week with strong trading results - but warned the year ahead would be tough. Chief executive Stuart Rose was first to spin the cautionary tale as Marks & Spencer reported good like-for-like...
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News
Price Survey
Welcome to what looks set to be another turbulent year for grocery prices at the top six supermarkets. A number of significant changes have already taken place since our last report on 16 December, with the price of loose apples tumbling...
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News
They've learnt how to do it
Asda's 53,000 sq ft Ashton store, the winner of this week's Top Store Award, had just benefited from a festive facelift when our shopper visited on the Friday before New Year's Eve. Work had been carried out to increase space in the store's...
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News
Price Survey
To say 2006 has been a turbulent year for pricing at the top six supermarkets would be putting it mildly. Rising energy prices, feed costs, poor harvests, and lower yields of certain fresh fruit and vegetables have caused the rate of food price...
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News
Availability: now you see it, now you don't
Availability levels in the UK's top six supermarkets have plummeted over the past six months, data produced exclusively for The Grocer has revealed. The Grocer 33 six-month review, published this week, shows some major stores are racking...
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News
Price Survey, Service & Availability
It's been all change for The Grocer 33 over the past six months. We have increased the frequency of basket rotations from once a month to once a week, and boosted our pool of products from which our shopping list is constructed, giving us a much...
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News
Price Survey
The price of oranges has risen this week by a whopping 61%. Hurricanes in the US and Caribbean have affected the volume of oranges produced there this year, while frost in South America and flooding in South Africa have also contributed to the...
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News
Price Survey
Fresh fruit and vegetable prices continued to fluctuate in this first week of December. The cost of parsnips has risen by an average of 11% in the past seven days, and now rests at £1.82 for a kg. The largest increase took place at Asda,...
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News
KS puts its housein order
Kwik Save is putting its availability woes behind it with Christmas imminent, according to The Grocer 33 shoppers - but the news comes as fresh speculation emerges surrounding the troubled chain's future. A source close to Kwik Save said...
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News
Online blitz planned by new farm retail chain
Farmers' City Market, the new supermarket chain stocking only products supplied directly by local farmers, is to launch an online shopping service. The chain, which is gearing up for the opening of its first outlet in three weeks' time...