Palmer & Harvey has smashed its sales targets for core non-tobacco lines to report 11.5% growth across the 600 products included in its cash & carry price match.

The 600 branded lines included in the price match, launched in December, account for 55% to 57% of non-tobacco convenience sales. P&H had to lower 60% of its prices to bring its portfolio in line with cash & carries and now monitors their prices every week.

Marketing director Richard Hayhoe said P&H had needed an 8% sales uplift in those products to break even but had surpassed targets with 11.5% growth.

“If we’d kept the existing volume, the investment would have been around £800,000,” Hayhoe said. “But we knew that if we increased volumes by 8% we’d start to benefit from the increased sales.”

“The key thing was getting the message to our existing customers that it’s absolutely right to keep an eye on the prices available through other channels, but by shoring up and investing in our pricing, they’re back buying some of those products with P&H.”

The wholesaler is now rolling out changes to its tobacco price initiative to make it easier for retailers to qualify for its “unbeatable” prices. The tobacco price had been linked to the number of non-tobacco outers in a single order, with retailers rewarded for high non-tobacco orders with lower tobacco prices. But following a trial in Northern Ireland, P&H has moved to base the discount on the total non-tobacco orders received in a week.

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