Marks and Spencer will unveil a radical new look for its food offer in its Basingstoke store this autumn as part of a series of initiatives to revive food sales.
This will be followed in January by a new dieting concept and developments in healthy ready meals. The initiatives were revealed shortly before Philip Green withdrew his 400p ‘virtual takeover bid’.
Speaking as M& S posted a 1.5% decline in like-for-like food sales in the 14 weeks to July 10, chief executive Stuart Rose underlined his commitment to 500,000 sq ft of new standalone food space by March 2006.
Although M& S has not outlined how much new space would be from Simply Food and how much under the larger M&S Food banner, Rose insisted Simply Food would continue. “We will continue to roll it out.
And we will continue to open in high traffic locations with our franchise partner Compass. They both give good return on capital and buyback."
The best returns from Simply Food had been generated by stores turning over more than £3m and situated well away from other M&S stores, he said. Just six stores had so far failed to meet this criteria and were now under review.
Acting head of food Guy Farrant said the new food format at Basingstoke would be built around the concept of four ‘shopper missions’: reasons to celebrate; gastronomic adventure; the extraordinary; and fresh, natural, healthy and enjoyable. Details of the design were being kept under wraps, but the aim was to make food departments easier to navigate.
The new mantra at M&S Food was now ‘less is more’, with 500 lines already eliminated, said Farrant. Of the 100 new products M&S was originally planning to launch this month, just 20 had gone into stores.
“We’ve already taken out 10% of the range. Our catalogue has grown by 40% in five years but not all of that has really added to customer choice. Some of it has just been about product proliferation. We want to create space for exciting new product development.”
The range reduction would also tackle the cost of food waste, up from 1.7% in 1995/6 to 2.5% in 2003/4.
Elaine Watson
This will be followed in January by a new dieting concept and developments in healthy ready meals. The initiatives were revealed shortly before Philip Green withdrew his 400p ‘virtual takeover bid’.
Speaking as M& S posted a 1.5% decline in like-for-like food sales in the 14 weeks to July 10, chief executive Stuart Rose underlined his commitment to 500,000 sq ft of new standalone food space by March 2006.
Although M& S has not outlined how much new space would be from Simply Food and how much under the larger M&S Food banner, Rose insisted Simply Food would continue. “We will continue to roll it out.
And we will continue to open in high traffic locations with our franchise partner Compass. They both give good return on capital and buyback."
The best returns from Simply Food had been generated by stores turning over more than £3m and situated well away from other M&S stores, he said. Just six stores had so far failed to meet this criteria and were now under review.
Acting head of food Guy Farrant said the new food format at Basingstoke would be built around the concept of four ‘shopper missions’: reasons to celebrate; gastronomic adventure; the extraordinary; and fresh, natural, healthy and enjoyable. Details of the design were being kept under wraps, but the aim was to make food departments easier to navigate.
The new mantra at M&S Food was now ‘less is more’, with 500 lines already eliminated, said Farrant. Of the 100 new products M&S was originally planning to launch this month, just 20 had gone into stores.
“We’ve already taken out 10% of the range. Our catalogue has grown by 40% in five years but not all of that has really added to customer choice. Some of it has just been about product proliferation. We want to create space for exciting new product development.”
The range reduction would also tackle the cost of food waste, up from 1.7% in 1995/6 to 2.5% in 2003/4.
Elaine Watson
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