Category: Supermarkets & Hypermarkets

Keir Starmer has hailed a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to fix the UK’s relationship with the EU, as he aims for a treaty with Germany.

The prime minister is meeting German chancellor Olaf Scholz for talks on a new deal that would boost business and trade and improve the country’s relations with the bloc.

Starmer said he hoped a new cooperation agreement between the two countries would help “turn a corner” on Brexit as “part of a wider reset” of European relations.

A treaty covering areas such as trade, defence, energy and science and technology is expected to be signed by early next year.

However, the PM told a press conference that seeking closer relations with EU countries did “not mean reversing Brexit or re-entering the single market or customs union”.

“But it does mean a closer relationship on a number of fronts, including the economy, including defence, including exchanges,” he added.

The EU remains Britain’s largest food & drink trading partner, accounting for more than half of exports (58% or £3.3bn) and 70% (or £10.5bn) in imports in Q1 2024 alone, according to data from the FDF.

Germany alone was the UK’s fifth largest exports market in the first quarter of the year.

Labour has previously pledged to work on a veterinary deal with the EU to reduce costly border checks on animal and plant goods, which have been in place since April this year.

But it is unclear whether Brussels wants to look into making major changes to the current Brexit trade deal, which is set for revision in 2026.

Read more: First Brexit common user charge bills serve bitter shock to food industry

The EU has proposed plans for a youth mobility scheme, which would give EU citizens aged 18 to 30 easier paths to study and work in the UK for a limited period, with the same benefits given to British people in Europe.

But, as he spoke at a joint news conference with the German chancellor, Starmer said his government had no plans for a youth mobility scheme, stating the focus was on the bilateral treaty.

Scholz welcomed the improvement of UK-EU relations, saying Britain had always been “an indispensable partner” and “nothing has changed after Brexit”.

Starmer said: “We want a close relationship of course, and I do think that can extend across defence, security, education and cultural exchange, and of course trade. But we didn’t go into the details of that today. 

The two leaders also agreed on a joint action plan to tackle illegal immigration and smuggling mafias by sharing more intelligence.

This was Starmer’s first trip to Germany since becoming prime minister. He will shortly head to France to meet president Emmanuel Macron.

One EU source told The Times: “It is good to see Starmer in the European capitals but he must, as I am sure he does, realise that any access to the EU’s single market comes with obligations on mobility and alignment with European laws, on food safety for example.”

Dive Brief:

• SpartanNash announced Monday it has hired Erin Storm as its new senior vice president and chief marketing officer. 
• Storm will oversee various aspects of the company’s marketing function, including its private label portfolio, retail marketing programs, e-commerce and digital experience, shopper insights, and loyalty.
• The new executive onboard comes during a tough financial year for the food solutions company, which is looking to continue a “merchandising transformation,” CEO Tony Sarsam said during an earnings call earlier this month.

Dive Insight:

Storm brings nearly 20 years of food and CPG marketing experience to her new role at SpartanNash. 

Prior to joining the company, Storm spent the majority of her career working for the Kellogg Company holding numerous leadership positions, including senior director of marketing and senior director of sales. Last October, she was promoted to vice president of marketing with Kellanova, Kellogg’s spin-off company, according to her LinkedIn profile. 

Storm most recently held the position of vice president of commercial strategy for Kellanova, according to the announcement, which noted that she has provided leadership for leading brands and that her creative team at Kellogg’s won national awards and recognition for a 2024 Pringles Super Bowl commercial.

“[Storm] will play a pivotal role in driving brand awareness for our retail banners and OwnBrands portfolio, capturing market share, and leveraging consumer insights for product innovation,” Sarsam said in a statement. 

As SpartanNash’s sales continue to decline year over year, the company is focusing on bolstering and revamping things it “can control and not standing still in this environment,” Sarsam told investors earlier this month, noting how the effects of declining wholesale business with Amazon have hurt performance in recent quarters. 

SpartanNash’s private label growth, which Storm will now oversee, is included in areas the company is continuing to focus on to bring back a positive sales trend. Earlier this year, the company announced the launch of its new private brand called Finest Reserve by Our Family, offering pasta, sauces, dressing and more. 

Storm marks SpartanNash’s latest executive announcement. In early June, the company named a new vice president of merchandising and pharmacy.

With Gov. Gavin Newsom’s finalizing of a package of 10 bills recently, The golden state possesses a brand new collection of devices to eliminate managed retail criminal activity as well as various other residential property fraud, while hanging on to illegal compensation reforms that the guv points out have actually muzzled relapse as well as conserved the condition billions.

Depending on to Newsom, the California Retailers Affiliation contributed in creating the bundle as well as acquiring it to his workdesk, or even, extra efficiently, a makeshift job area established at a Home Depot site in San Jose. CRA Head Of State Rachel Michelin, communicating together with the guv as well as a number of various other stakeholders, mentioned work with the regulation was actually collaborative, yet that the issue was actually given legal forerunners as well as police through sellers.

” Our experts functioned collaboratively. As well as I’ll mention I had the capacity to reassess the means I approach this concern, as well as I presume I had the capacity to possess all of them reassess exactly how they approach this concern,” Michelin mentioned. ” Stores have actually never ever had to do with mass imprisonment or even that sort of way of thinking. Our experts have actually consistently desired to belong to the option.”

What the brand-new rules do

The brand-new regulation takes on not just retail theft, yet likewise various other residential property fraud as well as damages, consisting of vehicle fraud. Extensively communicating, pertaining to retail criminal activity, the legislation concentrates on internet markets as well as regular wrongdoers, provides police as well as district attorneys extra freedom as well as places payload theft in emphasis.

The National Retail Alliance as well as Retail Sector Frontrunners Affiliation, which have actually each concentrated on retail criminal activity in recent times, dropped to discuss the brand-new rules, referring sis website Retail Plunge to the CRA.

Primarily, every a fact sheet from the governor’s office, under the regulation:

• District attorneys may pack the market value of swiped residential property coming from various sellers or even legal systems to meet the $950 “legal splendid fraud” limit. Burglaries as well as relevant offenses coming from various areas could be made an effort all together.
• An individual could be prevented for theft even when a policeman failed to witness the action.
• Trial for theft or even petty fraud is actually prolonged coming from one year to 2.
• Judges may provide “retail fraud limiting purchases” that would certainly disallow anybody “sentenced of managed retail fraud, theft, fraud, hooliganism, or even attack of a retail worker coming from getting into bureaucracy for around 2 years.”
• Retailers can not be actually presented or even fined for duplicated fraud records.
• Anybody “having much more than $950 of swiped products along with intent to offer, swap, or even come back the products” currently confronts 3 years behind bars, as well as district attorneys need not verify the accuseds recognized those products were actually swiped.
• Punishing is actually enriched for “large resell of residential property.”
• Online markets need to gather details on “high-volume 3rd party dealers.”
• The condition’s existing managed retail fraud legislation as well as its own local residential property unlawful acts commando, which were actually arranged to sunset, were actually created long-term.
• Payload fraud, as pertaining to retail criminal activity, currently features railways, depending on to Michelin.

” Each of these traits in this particular bundle is actually visiting assist sellers, police as well as area legal representatives have the ability to offer the outcomes for the habits that our experts need to have to ensure folks do not carry on performing this actions, which is what our experts have actually consistently required,” Michelin mentioned.

What the brand-new rules do not do

The brand-new regulation does not reach Prop 36, a mandate that California voters will consider in November, in tensing fines for retail fraud.

The particular obtaining one of the most focus– as well as also some prestige in the 2024 governmental political election– is actually that The golden state currently sorts frauds of products worth lower than $950 as violations. In contrast to common belief, that restrict is actually one of the most affordable in the country, depending on to a July report on retail crime coming from the Little Bit Of Hoover Percentage, an individual error company in The golden state.

Prop 36 would certainly recategorize lower-level thefts as a legal for folks along with previous sentences as well as permit even more comprehensive penitentiary paragraphes.

That possesses some outcomes, depending on to Newsom as well as others. Set 36 can incorporate “10s of numerous bucks” to nearby illegal compensation device sets you back every year, while dealing with financial savings linked with existing legislation, depending on to a fiscal analysis of Prop 36 carried out due to the condition’s detached Legal Expert’s Workplace. Worse, however, it disrupts productive illegal compensation reforms that possess certainly not just conserved amount of money yet likewise aided folks avert coming from criminal activity, Newsom mentioned.

Michelin failed to promptly reply to inquiries concerning whether the CRA sustains Prop 36, as lots of private sellers in the condition carry out.

” Set 36 takes it back to the 1980s battle on medicines. Mass imprisonment. Markets a commitment that can not be actually provided,” Newsom mentioned. “I would certainly inquire those that sustain it, specifically mayors, where are actually the procedure ports? Where are actually the mattress? … That campaign neglects retail fraud.”

Numbers stay elusive

Both Gov. Newsom as well as CRA’s Michelin defined the slate of brand-new rules as only a part of job that is actually on-going. Left behind unspecified through everybody acquired for the expense finalizing is actually the monetary expense of retail criminal activity for the condition’s sellers.

Because a Retail Plunge record uncovering an error in a special report on retail crime coming from the NRF, which ultimately retracted a key statistic, the field has actually avoided evaluating the effect. In its own record launched final month, the Little bit of Hoover Percentage, foreseing that chastening regulation as well as various other modifications in recently’s regulation would certainly end up being legislation, concentrated on the requirement for far better records. The compensation took note that it could not discover records on managed retail criminal activity, which is actually a focus of the industry.

The compensation encourages that condition legislators:

• Require as well as fund records compilation “to a lot better comprehend the instances around criminal activity as well as individuals associated with it,” consisting of enhanced criminal activity data; market records as well as instances bordering retail criminal activity offenses; police reaction; district attorneys’ activities as well as their outcomes; “as well as the criminal’s recovery, reentry, as well as relapse,” to name a few particulars.
• Partner with educational institutions as well as detached analysts to examine retail fraud to “fill up existing understanding voids as well as help the growth of potential answers.”

The record likewise takes note that mentioned retail fraud is actually despite having prices coming from the 2010s as well as less than previous years; that little bit of records is actually accessible; which diminish prices mentioned due to the field “have actually somewhat enhanced over recent years.” Across the country, the NRF’s yearly records reveal that shrink has remained steady for a minimum of 7 years.

” The golden state requires complete records compilation as well as review to a lot better handle retail fraud as well as its own influences,” the compensation likewise mentioned. “The golden state’s Division of Compensation has actually created a great begin in accumulating criminal-justice relevant records, yet this attempt requires to become extended substantially.”

ARLINGTON, VA. — Consumer grocery trends continue to evolve as shoppers increasingly focus on value driven propositions and convenient meal solutions, according to new data from FMI – The Food Industry Association.

The report, “US Grocery Shopper Trends: Finding Value,” utilized responses from over 2,000 primary shoppers in the United States to determine consumer behaviors and sentiments amid inflationary challenges. While 91% of shoppers are concerned with rising prices and have changed their shopping habits, only 32% are buying fewer items, and even less are cutting back on key food categories like organic (15%) and fresh products (14%), explained Leslie G. Sarasin, president and chief executive officer of FMI.

“FMI’s national survey found that grocery shoppers’ concerns about inflation have stabilized in recent months, illustrating how resilient consumers are when it comes to food shopping,” Sarasin said. “To manage higher prices, shoppers are increasingly prioritizing getting good value, which involves focusing more on quality and optimizing purchases for personal enjoyment, convenience and waste-reduction at home.”

Quick meal options, particularly those preparable in under half an hour, have grown significantly in popularity over the last four years. FMI found that 32% of shoppers spend less than 30 minutes preparing meals at home, up from 18% in 2020, and 75% spend less than an hour preparing their meals, an increase from 63% in 2020. The findings align with an earlier report from FMI, which identified that nearly 60% of consumers’ midday meals and 65% of morning meals are prepared in less than five minutes.

“In recent years, food retailers have innovated around solutions that range from meal kits and partially prepared options to ready-to-eat meals,” FMI said. “There is a tension, however, between shoppers’ desire for more efficient and enjoyable ways to prepare and cook meals and their desire to retain control and engagement in the process.

“Shoppers feel the best way retailers can support them is by providing better value food options … and more variety in easy-to-prepare foods … rather than weekly meal plans or simply more partially prepared options.”

In addition to convenience, consumers’ emphasis on health claims was another trend noted in the report. Claims that shoppers seek out the most frequently related to avoiding negatives (62%), such as low sugar, low sodium or low fat, minimal processing (47%), good sources of fiber (31%) and ethical practices (24%).

CHICAGO ­­– Kraft Heinz chief executive officer Carlos Abrams-Rivera has only been in the top job since December 2023, but in his time with the company, he’s been pivoting toward more innovation, a more inclusive posture and an increased international focus.

Abrams-Rivera spoke to the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference on May 30 in New York.

Kraft Heinz is a stronger and much different company than it was four years ago, he said, crediting a strategy of innovation and organic growth focused on consumers of the company’s well-known ketchup, macaroni and cheese and hot dog brands.

“I think that we cannot be growing a company in a competitive environment like food if we don’t invest in the marketing and understanding our consumer better,” he said.

Kraft Heinz is reportedly exploring a sale of its Oscar Mayer brand in an effort to refocus its portfolio following the company’s first-quarter 2024 sales drop of 1.2%. While Abrams-Rivera didn’t directly address a sale, he said the brand would see new packaging by the end of the year and noted there is now a plant-based version and a recent stuffed hot dog product.

At the same time, he said the company is going to be clear about what is expected for its businesses to maintain a dynamic portfolio.

“We’re going to continue — just like we looked at our Kraft Cheese business, we’re always going to look at opportunities,” he said. “But I will say we are very disciplined in how we think about those things.”

Abrams-Rivera described talking to the Kraft Heinz board about how the company didn’t have an innovation problem, although he added there was more to the issue.

“We had a good innovation problem, meaning we were throwing a lot of stuff out there, but the things are — would only be lasting for about six to nine months,” he said. “And it created a huge amount of inefficiency in a factory. It’s a huge amount of waste.”

Subsequently, Kraft Heinz has improved operations to focus on disruptive innovation “that is truly new to the world,” he noted.

Examples include intellectual property-driven innovations such as away-from-home, the Heinz Remix machine and the 360CRISP technology first used in grilled cheese sandwiches.

Parallel to the innovation piece is a focus on efficiency throughout the company’s manufacturing operations. Abrams-Rivera said Kraft Heinz has 38 different Agile@Scale pods, mostly in North America, and 19 of them have an embedded artificial intelligence solution.

The question now is how to deploy the solutions to enhance efficiency in company factories, in logistics and in the retail environment, he said.

One efficiency success story is the company’s Philadelphia cream cheese business, Abrams-Rivera said. It started with Kraft Heinz developers and engineers coming into a factory and working with a Microsoft developer and engineer to see how things were being run.

They found that sometimes the equipment would start breaking down and was only able to be fixed after the breakdown occurred. Sensors were put across the entire production line, and now they’re able to see what will actually be breaking down and can address it beforehand.

“Just on one line on one factory, it had been about $10 million in savings just on that,” he said. “That’s a model that now we’re taking to other parts of our company in order to continue to replicate.”

Abrams-Rivera also is focusing efforts on boosting sales in emerging markets, which currently comprise 10% of company sales. He sees an opportunity to continue to expand the portfolio geographically given its well-known brands.

“… (Heinz is) such an iconic brand that even in countries where we’re not present, there is a latent demand for our products,” he said.

Having Heinz bottles on restaurant tables in movies and television shows doesn’t hurt either, he noted.

Kraft Heinz is changing its corporate culture on Abrams-Rivera’s watch to drive additional transformation. There’s been a sense of ownership and ambition in the company, he said, and he wanted to take those elements and evolve them.

A previous sense of individual ownership shifted during the past four years to owning it together, Abrams-Rivera said. It implied an incentive for people to think long term about organic growth and focus on the company’s consumers, he added.

“… We’ve been around for 150 years, and now we have the team in place and the structure and the right priorities in order to be another 150 years also here in the company,” he said.

HOUSTON — The instore deli and bakery departments of 2024 need to cater to consumer needs for convenience, experimentation and physical and mental health — just to name a few. Oh, and they need to keep one eye firmly fixed on cost at all times. A tall task, indeed.

A panel of industry experts kicked off IDDBA 2024 on June 9 with a discussion of these and other trends in deli, bakery and dairy that bear close watching.

Heather Prach, IDDBA’s vice president of education and industry relations, began the discussion by outlining the six trends the association is focusing on this year:

• Food’s influence on not only body but also mind and spirit, representing a switch to a more holistic view of health.
• Sourcing, sustainability and salary — how to make sure your company or store is environmentally responsible without breaking the bank.
• The technology of today and for tomorrow.
• Young, youngish and young at heart. 
• Community, convenience and cash flow. 
• Culture, cuisine and culinary explosions.

Following Prach’s introduction, Anne-Marie Roerink of 210 Analytics kicked off the panel discussion by looking at the differences in shopping behavior between younger and older Americans.

“There are massive differences based on low versus high income, different regions people live in, different ethnicities, but more than everything, the biggest differences are generational,” she said.

Fifty-two percent of baby boomers, for instance, cook mostly from scratch. That number falls to 37% for younger Millennials and Gen Z. 

Younger Americans go to the store far less and they’re much more likely to get their recipe inspiration from TikTok, YouTube and Instagram than from cookbooks. 

“We’ve gone from a written world to a world of pictures and videos,” Roerink said. 

Young people are also far more likely to experiment with Korean, Cuban, Japanese and other ethnic foods. Thirty-five percent are up for trying new foods they’ve never had before, compared to 15% of older consumers.

That said, even older consumers are starting to piggy-back on the younger generations when it comes to tapping into the power of social media, said another panelist, Jody Barrick, senior vice president of fresh for UNFI.

Boomers, too, want to discover “the next feta pasta” craze taking over social, Barrick. 

Another panelist, Josh Bickford, president of Clyde’s Donuts, said that after companies had to reign in their experimentation and focus on just staying afloat during the pandemic, innovation is back on the table.

“People are desperate for new flavors,” he said. 

For Clyde’s, that’s meant new flavors like spiced chai and new, upscale variations on nostalgic favorites, like strawberry pink lemonade. 

To thrive in today’s environment, it’s also crucial to introduce not just innovative products but innovative promotions, panelists said. 

Look beyond the traditional holidays, Bickford recommended. Clyde’s got the idea, for instance, to build a promotion around the Masters golf tournament. The company rolled out a brioche pimento cheese donut, in honor of the Masters’ famous pimento cheese sandwiches.

Barrick agreed. A popular recent outside-the-box promotion for UNFI was a “halfway to St. Patrick’s” promotion on corned beef — a new, and very successful, spin on Christmas in July promotions.

Even with innovation in full creative swing following the pandemic, there are still many challenges the industry faces, and they don’t all have to do with price.

There’s a huge education battle that producers and retailers have to fight with consumers over perceptions of products’ healthfulness, which continues to become more and more important.

An alarmingly large number of Americans, for instance, think that cheddar cheese qualified as an “ultra-processed” food, said David Stearle, vice president of sales, US dairy, for Land O’ Lakes, and president of Vermont Creamery. 

“I’m glad I’m in sales because our marketing people have a hard job educating consumers about what’s healthy,” Stearle said. “It’s a challenge to communicate where food comes from. I think we wish it would all go away, but it’s not.”

WASHINGTON — Laoban, an Asian frozen dumpling brand, is expanding its product line to include frozen bao buns.

Founded by Tim Ma and Patrick Coyne, Laoban Dumplings began as a dumpling shop in Washington in 2017. Ma and Coyne later created a line of restaurant-inspired frozen dumplings in 2021.

The bao buns are formulated with chicken, pork, beef and shiitake mushrooms.

To prepare the buns, consumers may put them in the microwave for one minute, providing a convenient, on-the-go meal.

“Our buns tap into the two greatest reasons consumers turn to us — the unique combination of high-quality convenience and delectable flavor,” Coyne said. “We want to change the way consumers think about the frozen aisle by making quality frozen food like our buns part of your weekly, or daily, routine.”

The buns come in a four pack and include flavors of Chinese style barbeque pork, spicy beef and sesame chicken.

The buns will roll out in Whole Foods Market locations nationwide this month.

“I’m so excited for Laoban’s new Bao Buns to hit freezers nationwide,” Ma said. “We’ve spent the last year working on the recipes to make sure we’re bringing the restaurant experience straight to your home kitchen. The final recipe gives me visceral memories of eating bao buns as a child with my family, and I hope it evokes that same feeling for everyone who eats them.”

SPRINGDALE, ARK. — Tyson Foods Inc. is creating a buzz with the retail introduction of honey-kissed chicken bites and three flavors of foodservice style chicken wings. The 1-lb frozen packages of Restaurant Style Crispy Wings are available in flavor profiles that include Rotisserie Seasoned, Garlic Parmesan and Caribbean Style. Tyson’s breaded Honey Chicken Bites are made from white meat chicken and breading that is infused with honey, capitalizing on the popularity of the flavor at retail and on foodservice menus.

“We’re thrilled to introduce Tyson Honey Chicken Bites and Restaurant Style Crispy Wings to consumers who want convenience without sacrificing flavor,” said Jessica Johnson, managing director at Tyson Foods.

Honey Chicken Bites, which feature 14 g of protein per serving, are available in a 24-oz package and can be prepared in under 25 minutes, either in the oven or using an air fryer.

The three new wing products were developed to mimic restaurant offerings and are fully cooked and rubbed with seasonings, featuring a crispy skin combined with tender chicken meat. Each 1-lb bag contains about 3.5 servings with 15 g of protein per serving. 

“These new offerings embody our commitment to innovation and quality, providing delicious options that cater to the diverse tastes and busy lifestyles of today’s consumer,” Johnson said.

TYLER, TEXAS — John Soules Foods announced a partnership with Mike’s Hot Honey to create a new product offering, Hot Honey BBQ Chicken Bites.

The chicken bites pair sweet heat flavor with savory, thick, juicy white chicken meat. The bites are breaded with a crisp, golden coating and then glazed with a hot honey barbecue sauce made with Mike’s Hot Honey.

“We see consumers looking for ways to put a new spin on familiar foods,” said Michael Pierce, Head of Marketing at John Soules Foods. “We’re excited to partner with Mike’s Hot Honey to do just that, bringing a fresh perspective to the traditional honey BBQ flavored breaded chicken bite. We think we’ve combined the best of hot honey with the best of chicken to create a craveable flavor experience consumers are going to love.”

The Hot Honey BBQ Chicken Bites are currently available at Kroger retail locations.

ATLANTA — Golden West Food Group, the licensed food partner of Hooters of America, LLC, is launching several new frozen appetizer and snack products under the Hooters brand.

The line features a variety of chicken wings and boneless chicken offerings in a convenient format to prepare in home ovens and air fryers. Product flavors at launch include BBQ Smoked Wings, Dry Rub Smoked Wings, Buffalo Style Boneless Wingz and Buffalo Style Popcorn Chicken.

“Whether it’s an easy meal at home, or planning food on the go, consumers now have another way to enjoy the world-famous taste of Hooters with these new frozen appetizers and snacks,” said Bruce Skala, chief marketing officer for Hooters of America.

The product line is available in Publix Super Markets locations across the United States, with more retail distribution expected later this year. Golden West also plans to add four additional Hooters licensed products in 2024.