Iceland is hoping to speed up range innovation in a new partnership with an online platform that links retailers to 200,000 suppliers around the world.
The frozen food specialist has signed up to RangeMe, a global platform linking retailers with suppliers showcasing their products.
It will give Iceland’s buyers access to over 800,000 products across frozen, chilled and grocery, allowing them to “source the most innovative emerging” new lines, according to the supermarket.
“In a competitive retail space, Iceland aims to maximise the potential of RangeMe to source trend-led and innovative products at scale and speed,” said a spokesman.
Iceland trading director Andrew Staniland said: “Our customers have increasingly diverse tastes and preferences and RangeMe’s technology presents us with opportunity from the global product market on one screen.
“This partnership has streamlined our approach to buying and sourcing and we will continue to maximise the software to supercharge our efforts to get the best of the best on to the shelves in our stores as quickly as possible.”
Range innovation has been a big focus for Iceland during the pandemic. In September 2021, The Grocer revealed the business had launched 250 new lines in a matter of days, its biggest ever NPD push outside Christmas, including a number of exclusive brands such as Ed’s Easy Diner and Cathedral City ready meals. Staniland said at the time that innovation had been spurred on by the growth in frozen food sales in lockdowns, and was helping Iceland hold on to the gains.
RangeMe launched in 2014 and is used by 15,000 retail buyers in the UK, Benelux region, North America, and Asia Pacific.
The platform arrived in the UK last year and Asda and Tesco signed up to it in November.
RangeMe CEO and founder Nicky Jackson said the new partnership “offers Iceland the opportunity to seek out emerging suppliers and increase the number of new and innovative products it stocks online and instore”.
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