Re: Result!

[The Older Gentleman]

OK, fair enough, I stand corrected.

[The Older Gentleman]

Yes it is.

OK, how about The Sudan-1 debacle? Premier Foods? The Worcestershire sauce that had been contaminated with a particularly nasty petrochemical dye, and which turned up in products in just about every supermarket in the country.

Britain's biggest-ever food recall. You must have heard of it?

And Google yourself for any amount of supermarket product recalls. It happens. Nobody is immune. Get used to it.

Back in the dark days of the BSE crisis, when beef prices sank and lamb (and other meat) prices soared, there was a case of a large supermarket chain flogging lamb mince that had been cut with beef. Pre-interweb days so I doubt you'll find anything about it. Basically, the supplier had a contract to provide lamb mince and as the price soared, said supplier was losing money on every pack, so added about 15% beef mince.

Supermarket chains tend not to know when products are adulterated, you know. They take it on faith that their suppliers sell them decent stuff. But it has always happened, and it will continue to happen. Not often, thankfully.

[The Older Gentleman]

Again, not quite right. Iceland boomed during the 1980s and into the

1990s, and then the wheels fell off. One problem was that they discounted heavily, to the point where profitability really suffered.

Secondly, they made a *disastrous* foray into organic veg. Their boss, Malcolm Walker, announced that Iceland would only sell organic frozen veg, and failed to realise that sourcing it is not quite that simple. Or wasn't then.

Thirdly, they couldn't make up their mind whether they wanted to sell frozen foods or be an electrical retailer flogging fridges and freezers as well.

But the real problem was the devaluation of the products through incessant discounting and three-for-two and BOGOF offers.

[The Older Gentleman]

Christ, you don't know anything, do you?

posts record profits)

wins Retail Week awards - "turnarounds don't come much bigger")

"It earned its largest-ever share of the cut-throat grocery market last month, at the expense of arch-rivals Tesco and Sainsbury's."

"shoppers particularly enthusiastic about upmarket "The Best" range "

"Bolland has also been applauded for his part in helping to define the Morrisons brand as a symbol of quality food,"

Would you like to explain how this success is, in your eyes, a failure???

[Fran]

Very true. Easier now.

They've mostly stopped that.

Still doing some of that, but much cleverer.

Walker got his own back, though.

[Fran]

In his world, it is.....

[Fran]

20 percent year on year since 2005, iirc. And, of course, Baugur got them dirt cheap after the idiot Grimsley managed to lose so much money.

[SteveH]

That one came about when Malcolm Walker had pretty much taken a back seat and had left day to day business to Russell Ford, the MD. Certainly, he's the one who fell on his own sword for the whole disasterous episode.

[The Older Gentleman]

Now there is an element of truth here. UK consumers are quite conservative.

[The Older Gentleman]

Ah, I wondered when you'd show up!

[The Older Gentleman]

*Sigh*

Fran said "some scandal or other".

I brought one up which, yes, wasn't about food adulteration or quality.

I have since returned to the exact topic, several postings ago, with "But, since you ask, I shouldn't think there's a supermarket chain anywhere that hasn't been done for selling iffy products at one time or another."

Do keep up.

[SteveH]

I had a coffee with one of their senior store managers a couple of weeks ago, as I'd been one of his assistant managers with Safeway.

He reckons the turnaround has come because they've ditched Sir Ken and his backwards ways and adopted a lot more of the old Safeway strategies, but combined with the new, merged-company buying power.

I have to say that the new, refitted, stores are looking very impressive.

[SteveH]

That would be a hard one to quantify, as most of the losses actually came from Booker and not from Iceland high street retail.

Now the companies have de-merged, it makes any comparisons very difficult.

[The Older Gentleman]

Yes. I remember interviewing him in about 1990, and thinking he was a clever and charming sod.

[The Older Gentleman]

Ah. I thought it was MW who made the announcement, though? Still, it was an almighty c*ck-up. Any idea how much it cost them?

[The Older Gentleman]

Probably true. He's terribly keen on presenting his own impressions and beliefs as hard fact.

I'm waiting for the posting which rubbishes all those nice news stories as irrelevant, or whatever... Because his statement has to be correct...

[Fran]

The website is very rude about Grimsley. Heh.

[SteveH]

Heh.

I was on holiday last week with one of their freelance project managers.

The Cooltrader conversions are (allegedly) amazingly profitable as they have such a simple business model and very few overheads.

[:Jerry:]

Err, so M&S can sell from the location but Iceland can't, that suggests that Iceland's business model is failing apart - now if you had said that M&S had sold to Iceland your 'rational' would have worked - basically, most people don't want crap food anymore!

[The Older Gentleman]

A Tchibo coffee, I hope?

Our local one, which used to be a Safeway flagship some time back, certainly is. And it's definitely not flogging cheap & cheerful products.