February 2009 Archives

Waitrose has been named as the surprise winner of a poll by BBC consumer programme Watchdog to find the UK's favourite supermarket. More than 36,300 consumers took part in the online poll, run on the Watchdog website.

21% of voters cited the upmarket retailer - or online partner Ocado - as the supermarket where they would prefer to do most of their shopping. Sainsbury's came in second with 19% of the vote, ahead of Tesco (15%), Asda (14%) and Morrisons (10%). Marks & Spencer claimed just 9% of the vote, although 35% of voters said it offered the best quality food, ahead of Waitrose on 29%.

Waitrose also scored highest for shopper satisfaction, with 85% saying they were 'very satisfied' with the shopping experience.

However, Asda was voted as the best-value supermarket by nearly 25% of the respondents, ahead of arch rival Tesco with 16%. Only 1% of voters thought Somerfield offered the best value.

Price, quality and convenience are all equally important, with all three cited by 26% of participants as the single most important factor in determining where to shop.

Interesting to note that Asda was voted the best-value supermarket and yet Waitrose still came out top in the poll. Obviously, although price is important, it isn't the be-all and end all even during a crisis. Customer satisfaction is more important than ever in times of recession, as retailers are battling to retain customers and the results of this survey suggest that Waitrose has got it right.

Do you agree with the survey results? Which is more important to you; price, quality or convenience or do they all play a part in your decision making?

Marks & Spencer is hoping to cash in on the popularity of retro products as well as consumers' appetite for low-price comfort food with the launch of a jam sandwich.

The basic sandwich, comprising just strawberry jam, butter and white bread, will go on sale in M&S stores from next week, priced at 75p.

"We are delighted to be launching this national favourite," said M&S sandwich specialist Katy Patino. "It really is the ultimate comfort food at an unbeatable price - plus, it's the only place on the high street where you can get a jam sandwich. For those who haven't eaten one for years, one bite takes you straight back to your childhood."

Are Marks and Spencer losing the plot in their bid to win back customers? They may well be the only place on the high street to stock jam sandwiches but isn't that because they're so easy and cheap to make at home?

Remember how you had to fight your way through plastic to get into that longed for Easter egg when you were a kid? Well Nestlé has now decided to remove the plastic packaging from 20 million of its products in the run-up to Easter in a major move by the Swiss food giant moves to reduce its environmental impact.

Nestlé says the move to replace the plastic casings around Easter eggs with cardboard will eliminate 700 tonnes of waste and bring about a 30% reduction in the weight of packaging for the products affected. The move covers major brands including Kit-Kat and Aero.

Meanwhile supermarket giants Waitrose, along with Lidl, would do well to take a leaf out of Nestle's book after having been exposed as the worst offenders when it comes to product packaging.

Almost 40% of the packaging found in a typical shopping basket at supermarket retailers cannot be easily recycled, said the Local Government Association (LGA), which wants stores to help pay for recycling services and reduce the £1.8bn councils will spend in landfill tax on rubbish sites up to 2011.

Not only does all of this unnecessary packaging cause damage to the environment, it increases the price of our weekly shopping basket.

How can we as a nation overcome this environmental problem? There are golden opportunities out there for packaging professionals to create recyclable products. Should we be putting more pressure on them to come up with innovative ideas?

RISING seafood sales are expected to drive the UK frozen food market to more than £5 billion this year. This is the view of Brian Young, director general of the British Frozen Food Federation, after figures show that the business is growing at an unprecedented rate, with frozen fish leading the way.

Figures from the TNS World Panel show that the frozen fish market is growing at the rate of 8.4% a year, whilst the frozen food industry as a whole shows year on year growth of 5.8%.
We've always known that fish is an essential element in a healthy diet. Birds Eye and Young's are now capitalising on this with their competitive prices and innovative seafood products.
But as these products become more popular, what will be the effect on fish stocks? Are we going to reach a stage where fish is in short supply due to over fishing and instead of being part of our every day menu, it becomes a luxury item?

Research carried out at the University of York shows that quotas set by EU ministers over the past 10 years have exceeded limits proposed by scientists by 45% for cod, 140% for hake, 93.6% for prawns and 14% for plaice.

Defra has put measures in place to halt and ultimately reverse this decline. These measures have included restrictions on cod fishing in the Irish Sea, North Sea and the West of Scotland during the key spring spawning periods alongside cuts in the amount of cod that could be caught in these areas. A recovery plan for Northern Hake stocks has also been introduced.
What alternatives are available if these plans don't work? We could always go for pollack, gurnard, sprats, mullet, flounder and mackerel. This could be an ideal opportunity for forward thinking development chefs to come up with some innovative and mouth-watering recipes to tempt our palates.

Will the major players in the frozen food industry experiment with the alternatives? Could you be tempted by one of the more unusual fish or are you a steadfast cod and chips person?

We'd love to hear your views, and if you have a special recipe you'd like to share, why not post it on our blog...

It seems Jamie Oliver knows best, as new research suggests the celebrity chef's healthy school dinners have helped to improve exam results and classroom attendance.

An independent study shows the performance of 11-year-old pupils eating Oliver's meals improved by up to 8% in science and as much as 6% in English, while absenteeism due to ill-health fell by 15%.

The findings, from a report by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at Essex University, vindicate the chef's decision to banish fat-laden Turkey Twizzlers and replace them with iron-rich foods such as red meat and green vegetables.

Oliver's new menus, adopted by 81 out of 88 primary and secondary schools in Greenwich, included more pasta and fresh fruit, plus dishes such as Mexican bean wraps, chickpea soup and vegetable chow mein. Hayley Franklin, 11, from John Roan School in Blackheath, southeast London, said: "The new dinners give me much more energy, for longer, so I can concentrate on work through the whole day."

In a country where education standards appear to have fallen, especially in the sciences, this has to be good news for teachers and parents alike.

The current Change4Life campaign is urging us to make changes to our diet and levels of activity. Whilst we can't dictate what people eat in their own homes, food industry professionals can go a long way towards encouraging people to eat healthily while at work.

If the new menus work for the Greenwich school kids, will they work for adults? If staff canteens adopt a similar approach can we expect to see a more productive workforce?

What do you think? Would a tasty pasta dish appeal to your midday palate or are you a fast food junkie who couldn't survive the day without your pizza or burger fix?

Internet retailer Amazon is to take on the major supermarkets with the launch of an online food store.

Industry experts say the ambitious plans are a huge threat to Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda and Morrisons.

Amazon is expected to emulate its US grocery offer, comprising more than 45,000 non-perishable food, drink and household items, in this country. Although fresh items would not be on offer at the launch, Amazon is currently testing the viability of selling perishable foods in the Northwest U.S. A launch date has yet to be announced but industry sources said it is likely to be this year.

Grocery shopping from Amazon has proved popular with American customers who enjoy discounts for buying in bulk, a function to create regular shopping lists and free delivery.

Amazon.co.uk is the UK's biggest online retailer, best known for selling cut-price books, DVDs and electrical items. But will it be easy for them to penetrate the Internet grocery market? Discounts for bulk buying should be welcomed by UK consumers but will the lack of fresh produce deter many customers? Do we want to login to two separate online stores when we can get everything we need from the likes of Tesco or Sainsbury's?

Do you graduate in 2010? It may seem a while off; in fact, it probably is. However major players in the food industry don't seem to think so. Due to many of the blue chip food manufacturers putting all their graduate recruitment on hold in 2008 and 2009, they seem to be planning ahead for a 2010 intake. So although you may not graduate for over a year, and are certainly not looking for any post-grad employment for the next 18 months, this does not mean that many companies will not be looking for you.

This method of proactive search not only means that graduates can secure places early and get the type of graduate scheme they desire, it also could be considered in some opinions to be giving clients access to the more 'on-the-ball' graduates, who are also proactive in their searching - maybe due to their hard-working nature or their desire to take advantage of the best opportunities available to them, these graduates will get their grad schemes sorted before many of the 'I'll-do-it-tomorrow' grads even start looking.

Not only this, graduates of 2010 will not just be competing against other students graduating that year, but also against the 300,000 students who graduated in 2009, many of which will be eager to secure graduate schemes after facing the industry-wide graduate recruitment freeze in 2008/09.

What this says for the food industry? On the one hand it may suggest that the larger food companies have adjusted to the current economic conditions and are now able to take on new employees. However on the other hand it may imply that these same companies anticipate a more productive and profitable 2011 and thus are planning accordingly - otherwise, they wouldn't be taking on graduates, right?