December 2008 Archives

Local food-buying cooperatives, which cut out the middlemen between producers and consumers, are taking the country by storm.

The concept is far from new, but it's proving increasingly popular. "Interest is definitely growing," says John Atherton of Co-operatives UK, an organisation that supports cooperative enterprise across Britain. "We're seeing rising numbers of buying groups and community shops. It's a trend that is set to continue."

As well as cutting out the middlemen, cooperatives are jointly owned and democratically controlled by their members - and it is the members who are the beneficiaries of the activities of the business.

Across Britain, food co-ops are sprouting up in school halls, community centres, farm sheds or even your neighbour's front room - anywhere, in fact, where rent is free.

The system is simple: find a supplier, buy in bulk and collectively cover the costs. Smaller co-ops will only buy what participants have ordered, whereas larger organisations operate as markets or even set up their own shops. Some of these "community" co-ops invite customers to become members. You pay a nominal fee to be able to shop from it, or have a say in how it is run.

So what are the benefits? In Trealaw, a small community in the Rhondda Valley, they have an Aldi, Lidl and an Asda and yet the Food Co-op has around 200 members. They collect their pre-ordered fruit and veg. every Thursday and reckon that for £3 you get what would cost you about £7 in the local supermarket.

Many cooperatives get their fresh supplies from local farms thus helping their local community and on top of that there's no expensive packaging to pay for.

Will the trend continue and more and more people use their local co-op or will the supermarkets bring down the prices of their fresh produce to win back customers? Do you use a local food cooperative and if so how does it compare in terms of quality and price?

Despite the credit crunch, food sales are still rising according to the British Retail Consortium, albeit with heavy discounting from the retailers, and with all the excitement about other sectors in the past such as IT, technology or cars, it's easy to forget that the one sector that continues to slowly edge on is the food industry.

People may be tightening their belts, but they still need to eat, and this opens up a whole new range of possibilities for food industry personnel. As we look for cheaper ways to feed the family this is a great time for development chefs to put their skills to good use, creating new and exciting recipes. Also for operational teams to drive business efficiencies, and commercial teams to find long-term solutions to price competitiveness.

Once the festive season is over and life returns to a semblance of normality, many food companies will be facing up to harsh business realities that will need strong and experienced managers to drive a sustainable future.

What is also interesting at this time is that Focus Management are currently working internationally across three continents - exporting British food industry talent to the rest of the world.

So I know the heading is a little corny, but my view is that there will be demand for the best; there will be opportunities and I accept that there will be casualties along the way, but we as consumers, let alone the retailers themselves, need a strong manufacturing supply base producing great cost effective products across all ranges.

In 2009 we may not buy a new television or car...but we will be buying a pizza, and a sandwich and biscuits and baked beans and drinks...and therefore we will still be recruiting the best talent.

We are all familiar with the British Christmas Day lunch of roast turkey and all the trimmings, but we thought it would be interesting to discover some of the foods that people in other countries eat to celebrate the festive season.

Czech Republic - The traditional meal consists of fish soup, fried carp and potato salad followed by sweet biscuits is eaten as dinner on Christmas Eve.

Haiti - Fried pork or goat with spicy pickled carrots and cabbage and fried plantains followed by a sweetened potato, fig and banana pudding known as Pain Patate.

Romania - Force-meal rolls in cabbage or in vine leaves, sausages, blood pudding and cozonac (a Romanian Christmas cake). The Romanians eat their festive meal late at night on the 24th.

Italy - Italians probably have the longest Christmas lunch, it's not uncommon for the feast to last 5 hours. Most families will have about 8 courses including antipasti, a small portion of pasta, a roast meal, followed by 2 salads and 2 sweet puddings - then cheese fruit, brandy and chocolates.

St Kitts and Nevis - St. Kitts has a carnival over the Christmas holidays - one huge party with music and dancing in the streets. Festive foods include black pudding, goat water, conchs, Johnny cakes, and roti.

Tanzania - Tanzanian's have their main feast on Christmas night consisting of pilau, chai, and a chicken, red meat, or seafood.

Mauritius - The Mauritian Christmas feast is often served as a picnic and includes cold meats, fish terrine and salads.

Armenia - The traditional Christmas meal consists of fried fish, lettuce, and spinach. The meal is traditionally eaten after the Christmas Eve service.

Sweden - The Swedes eat their festive meal of ham, herring and brown beans on Christmas Eve, usually after attending midnight mass.

While you're tucking into your roast turkey, spare a thought for researchers at the McMurdo scientific research station on Antarctica, or anybody else in remote places, whose Christmas dinner may just consist of a meal of dehydrated food.

If you've spent Christmas abroad what did your festive meal consist of? We'd love to learn more about other traditional festive cuisines...

Convenience foods have become a fact of life especially for consumers with demanding and hectic lifestyles. Eating out, takeaways and other convenience foods can be expensive and as the credit crunch continues to bite will customers turn away from these foods and return to traditional home cooking?

The Mirror told us recently that cash-starved Britons are turning their backs on expensive convenience foods and returning to the kitchen. They quoted a survey of 1,072 adults carried out by Morrisons which suggests 85 per cent of us are cooking at home again.

Justin King, the chief executive of Sainsbury's agrees. More recently, said the Sainsbury's boss, sales of heat-and-eat ready meals have gone into decline. Shoppers "are trading away from ready meals to buying fresh food and ingredients to save money", he said. The exception, he added, was sales of heat-and-eat Chinese and Indian meals, which are "growing strongly, replacing takeaways".

The ready meal sector within the UK suddenly finds itself fighting to maintain the dramatic growth it has seen over the last 10 years. According to research published earlier this year by Mintel, sales of ready meals, both frozen and chilled, represent 7% of all main meal occasions in the UK. Totalling a forecast market value of £2.1 billion in 2008, these statistics go some way to explaining the reputation within Europe of the UK as a country that has forgotten how to cook and is now viewed as the European capital of the ready meal.

For retailers, the battle to keep the sector growing will demand greater R&D and a continued emphasis on healthy, fresh ingredients. It is also clear that with the economy under pressure, price and value will figure strongly. M&S, for example, has been heavily promoting 2 meals for £10 - including 2 main meals, side dish, desserts and a bottle of wine.

So what's going to be on the menu for Christmas lunch in your household this year? Will you be enjoying the delicious smell of roast turkey wafting throughout the house, or nuking a Bird's Eye Roast Turkey Platter? I know which one I'd go for...

Richard Hammond and Des O'Connor are going head-to-head as the Christmas TV faces of two of the UK's biggest supermarkets, and O'Connor's Tesco is now trailing way behind Hammond's Morrisons. Tesco, the UK's biggest retailer, yesterday revealed its worst sales figures for 14 years. Like-for-like sales - which exclude gains from new stores - were ahead just 2% in the last three months, or half the growth achieved in the previous quarter.

Bradford-based Morrisons is - so far - storming through the recession. Tomorrow it is expected to reveal recent sales up around 7.5% on last year - maintaining much the same impressive rate of growth as it reported three months ago.

Tesco's performance is also markedly worse than its rivals Sainsbury and Asda. Sainsbury - which has hired "I'm a Celebrity ..." hosts Ant and Dec to star in its adverts alongside its usual frontman Jamie Oliver - last month revealed like-for-like sales up 3.9%. Meanwhile Asda, which is filming traditional family Christmas ads in the Yorkshire Dales, grew 6.9% in the three months to the end of September.

Up until a couple of years ago, Morrisons was virtually unheard of in the south-east. Now they are pulling in thousands of new customers per week. This success is no doubt due to the marketing initiatives instigated by chief executive Marc Bolland.

The stores were given a new look and out went the outmoded "More reasons to shop at Morrisons" adverts. In their place Bolland brought in a raft of celebrities - Denise van Outen, Lulu, Alan Hansen, Nick Hancock and, more recently, Richard Hammond.

One retail executive said: "It was an old-fashioned grocer competing with the slicker marketing of rivals. The new Bolland empire has given the brand a slick new look and feel. He has taken the brand and the business and given it a polish".

So is Tesco in danger of losing their hold on the market? They say a resounding NO and claim the lower sales figures are a direct result of the recently launched Discounter range which now consists of 800 products.

In times of recession the supermarkets are obviously trying to entice as many customers as possible away from their competitors. In the six months leading up to 30 September, Tesco outspent its supermarket rivals, increasing its television advertising spend by almost 19% to £47.9m making them the UK's fifth-biggest TV spender overall.

So how much impact do the personalities in TV adverts have on your weekly supermarket shopping? Is Des O'Connor really the best person to be advertising the Christmas turkey or do you believe that whilst he might well appeal to pensioners, he is too old fashioned for the rest of us? If so, who would entice you?

We'd love the hear you thoughts...