Defiant Nisa-Today’s has vowed to keep on growing despite constant poaching of its leading members by major multiples.
As Jacksons Stores became the seventh Nisa member in The Grocer Top 50 to be taken over this year, Neil Turton, managing director of Nisa’s Central Buying Company, said the group was growing and had the strategy in place to continue doing so.
“We anticipated consolidation and made the business as diverse as possible, so the loss of any one member has a minimal effect,” he said.
Expanding from its original role as a buying group, Nisa-Today’s has developed a £1bn distribution business and the Nisa symbol group.
He said management’s faith in the future was demonstrated by the development of a new temperature-controlled depot at Harlow, due to open later this year, and a new ambient mega warehouse to replace its two existing distribution facilities in Scunthorpe.
Turton said they were able to commit to the Scunthorpe project after Costcutter signed a contract that would extend its distribution arrangement by a further 10 years.
“We are very sorry to lose Jacksons, they are great people and a great business, but the net effect to us is tiny,” he said.
With 20 members in The Grocer Top 50, Turton added: “In a sense we have been victims of our own success, in that we have a lot of very successful members who are attractive to the multiples. But their success proves that we can do a very good job for retailers.”
Turton said that in the financial year to April Nisa recruited 234 new stores, achieving a net increase of 141.
He said there was also potential for growth from existing members as well as recruiting new ones. “We have appointed new business development managers and their role will be to help existing members sell more as well as finding new members,” he said.
Research by The Grocer shows that £1.25bn has been spent on major convenience and neighbourhood store acquisitions in the past two years. The wave of consolidation began when Musgrave took over Budgens in July 2002 and gathered pace with the acquisitions of Alldays by the Co-operative Group and T& S Stores by Tesco on consecutive days in October 2002.
Recently the pace has increased, with takeovers of three members of The Grocer Top 50 - Morning Noon & Night, and Leathley’s in addition to Jacksons - in successive weeks.
The average price of a c-store is now approaching £500,000.
John Wood
As Jacksons Stores became the seventh Nisa member in The Grocer Top 50 to be taken over this year, Neil Turton, managing director of Nisa’s Central Buying Company, said the group was growing and had the strategy in place to continue doing so.
“We anticipated consolidation and made the business as diverse as possible, so the loss of any one member has a minimal effect,” he said.
Expanding from its original role as a buying group, Nisa-Today’s has developed a £1bn distribution business and the Nisa symbol group.
He said management’s faith in the future was demonstrated by the development of a new temperature-controlled depot at Harlow, due to open later this year, and a new ambient mega warehouse to replace its two existing distribution facilities in Scunthorpe.
Turton said they were able to commit to the Scunthorpe project after Costcutter signed a contract that would extend its distribution arrangement by a further 10 years.
“We are very sorry to lose Jacksons, they are great people and a great business, but the net effect to us is tiny,” he said.
With 20 members in The Grocer Top 50, Turton added: “In a sense we have been victims of our own success, in that we have a lot of very successful members who are attractive to the multiples. But their success proves that we can do a very good job for retailers.”
Turton said that in the financial year to April Nisa recruited 234 new stores, achieving a net increase of 141.
He said there was also potential for growth from existing members as well as recruiting new ones. “We have appointed new business development managers and their role will be to help existing members sell more as well as finding new members,” he said.
Research by The Grocer shows that £1.25bn has been spent on major convenience and neighbourhood store acquisitions in the past two years. The wave of consolidation began when Musgrave took over Budgens in July 2002 and gathered pace with the acquisitions of Alldays by the Co-operative Group and T& S Stores by Tesco on consecutive days in October 2002.
Recently the pace has increased, with takeovers of three members of The Grocer Top 50 - Morning Noon & Night, and Leathley’s in addition to Jacksons - in successive weeks.
The average price of a c-store is now approaching £500,000.
John Wood
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