A
number of supermarket chains produce their own
cola drinks which they display with some
prominence. They also stock the leading
brands. However, do they stock smaller
label brands in the spirit of fair
competition? Do they have a fair trade
policy?
What
is fair trade?
If
you fancy trying a different cola, a cola with
more in it, more healthy ingredients, a cola
company that cares about the environment - that
actually supports environmental projects, you're
in luck. But does your supermarket stock
Solar Cola yet? The finder table below
tells you if these supermarkets have ordered
Solar Cola and when delivery is due.
ASDA
was founded in 1965 by a group of farmers from
Yorkshire. The name is a contraction of Asquith
Dairies. The company went through a troubled
period in the early 1990s, but was then revived
under the leadership of Archie Norman, who later
became a front bench Conservative MP. He was
chairman of the company during the period
1996–99.
ASDA
Supercentre Edinburgh
ASDA,
which then owned 229 stores, was purchased
by of the United States, on July 26, 1999.
Following the take over by Wal-Mart, several
"Asda–Wal*Mart Supercentres" have
been opened, creating some of the largest
hypermarkets in the United Kingdom. The first of
these stores opened at Cribbs Causeway, near
Bristol, in June 2000. At first, it was
criticised for its scale and condemned as an
eye-sore, but the format has now become
extremely popular. In November 2004 a
refurbishment of the hypermarket was completed,
addressing some of the complaints. In 2005, amid
reported concerns within Wal-Mart about a slight
slippage in market share, partially due to a
resurgent Sainsbury's, ASDA's chief executive,
Tony de Nunzio, was replaced by Andy Bond.
In
October 2004 ASDA launched a new format called 'Asda
Living'. This is the company's first 'general
merchandise' store, containing all its non-food
ranges including clothing, home electronics,
toys, homewares, health and beauty products. The
first store with this format opened in Walsall,
West Midlands in October 2004, and at the time
of writing has been followed by three further
stores in Cortonwood (Barnsley), Altrincham and
Byker (Newcastle-upon-Tyne). A fifth has now
opened in Thurrock, Essex. Tesco is also
trialling a similar format, "Homeplus",
in Denton, Greater Manchester. Asda has also
opened a number of stores containing its George
range only in several city centres.
ASDA
are currently expanding their range of services
to include Financial Services sold in store and
at www.asda.com.
Products currently sold are Car, Home, Travel,
Life and Pet Insurance, Child Trust Funds and
Credit Cards.
Unlike
Tesco and Sainsbury's, ASDA does not operate
convenience stores, a position it shares with
the fourth major British supermarket chain
Morrisons.
Marketing
ASDA
is known for two famous marketing campaigns. In
the "ASDA price" campaign, customers
tap their trouser pockets, producing a
'chinking' sound as the coins that (supposedly)
Asda's low prices have left in their pockets
knock together. In the smiley face
"rollback" campaign also used in
Wal-Mart advertisements, a CGI smiley face
bounces from price tag to price tag, knocking
them down as customers watch. The focus of these
campaigns is to portray ASDA as the most
affordable supermarket in the country, a claim
that is often refuted by competitors, especially
Tesco.
However,
for the past eight years, independent surveys
have found ASDA's claim to be justified. In
August 2005 following a complaint from Tesco
about ASDA's claim to be "officially
Britain's lowest priced supermarket", the
Advertising Standards Agency upheld this
complaint as the Grocer Magazine survey that
these claims were based on were limited and
unrepresentative, and the survey did not study
low-cost supermarkets such as Aldi. Sharon
Osbourne has recently been selected to be part
of a new marketing campaign by ASDA. Sharon
Osbourne Has now been dropped by the supermarket
chain (December 2005)
ASDA
has recently been forced to drop its claim as
being the number one lowest price food retailer
in the UK after being involved in a spat with
the UK's number one by market share, TESCO. The
ruling of the ASA said that ASDA's information
was not transparent enough nor was it a true and
reflective representation of the entire market,
with several discount retailers being
conveniently 'forgotten'.
It
has also lost its claim that since 2003 it
maintains an award statement on its corporate
notepaper that it is the best company to work
for in the UK, among the top 100 UK companies as
awarded by the Financial Times.
A
search on the Sunday Times website shows that
ASDA has dropped off the page and now appears
nowhere due to recent shake-ups in management,
pruning of staff with some 1,000 job losses and
more to come in the Gwent area and possibly more
at their Midlands region distribution centres in
February 2006.
The
company has come under intense and prolific
attack by its employee's of late (called
colleagues by ASDA) for the underhand and
draconian treatment both in stores and in depots
across the country. A recent posting on the GMB
Union website heralded the attempt to get TESCO
to honour the 20% Christmas staff discount which
ASDA dropped for reasons of 'operational profit
protection', this resulted in a humiliating
about-turn, however the damage has been done,
and with that, less than 40% of its staff
actually shop in-store, instead choosing cheaper
retailers, like TESCO, Sainsbury's and the
heavy, minimal brand retailers ALDI (UK) Ltd and
LIDL Group. ASDA has been described by
colleagues in postings to the GMB website as
being the worst of all UK employers and the
attacks are relentless, repeated and vitriolic
in their nature and tone.
Its
US operation has come under scathing attack as
to its treatment of its workforce by the release
of a movie by a prominent US Hollywood producer
Robert Greenwald, this parodies the companies
claims that it is an employee friendly company,
ethically minded and works for and not against
local communities.
Online
ASDA
lauched its online retailer service in 1998 but
was somewhat more cautious about expanding it
than Tesco or Sainsbury's. It uses the store
based model rather than servicing internet
customers direct from its depots. In May 2005 it
announced a major expansion of the service which
will increase coverage from 30% of the UK
population to 60%.
George
label
ASDA
has its own range of clothing known as George.
This is marketed as being quality fashionable
clothing at affordable prices. Wal-Mart also
sells the George brand in Germany, United
States, Canada and South Korea. Recently a trial
has begun of a standalone George format on the
high street, which is expected to be expanded
nationwide if it is a succes. The George label
is named after George Davies, founder of Next,
who went on to set up the Per Una clothing
business for Marks & Spencer.
Asda
cuts 1400 managers in bid to stay number 2
grocer - July
6, 2005
Asda
supermarket group is to cut 1,400 managers in a
move to slash the red ink and boost its
profitability after losing market share.
Chief executive Andy Bond said the savings
generated by the cutbacks would be ploughed back
into improving customer service on the shop
floor.
Announcing
the losses yesterday in London, Mr Bond, who
took over as chief executive three months ago,
insisted Asda was not "a retail
straggler", but added: "I'm simply not
satisfied with this year's average performance.
Our natural home is outperformance."
He outlined a strategy based on "five key
building blocks" - from simplifying
internal procedures to cutting queues - designed
to kick-start growth and deliver promised
results in 12-18 months.
The
279 store chain also revealed it had re-engaged
two former senior executives. Asda is part of
the giant US Wal-Mart empire. It has been
losing market share to Tesco and Sainsbury's in
recent months.
Analysts
believe the Leeds-based group is on the brink of
losing its position as Britain's No 2 grocer,
when it overtook Sainsbury's in 2003.
Wal-Mart admitted in May that Asda was suffering
in the fiercely competitive British supermarket
business and described the store's recent
profits as "below plan".
Many
retailers are feeling the squeeze as shoppers
have reigned in spending in response to higher
interest rates and the stalled housing
market. Accordingly, Bond is urging the
Bank of England's monetary policy committee to
cut the cost of borrowing at its meeting this
week.
About
200 of the jobs being cut are at Asda's head
office in Leeds and the head office of its
George fashion brand in Lutterworth,
Leicestershire. The cuts equate to 1 in 10 of
headquarters staff and those affected will leave
"in the coming days". The
other 1,200 jobs affected are junior managerial
positions in the stores. Mr Bond said the cuts
were "very unfortunate for the individuals
but important and right for Asda and its
customers". The savings would be invested
in "frontline customer service".
Bond's
five-point strategy focuses on simplicity,
prices, cost-cutting, differentiation and
improving basic in-store housekeeping. The
chief executive said Asda had become
"slightly bureaucratic of late". He
promised to keep prices low: "I will make
an unequivocal commitment that we will always be
the lowest-priced retailer in the UK, whatever
that takes." He said he intends to
hammer down costs, run more in-store events and
focus on basics, such as shorter queues and
filling shelves.
Bond
denied the restructuring was a reaction to the
recent lower growth and described suggestions
that Asda had run out of growth opportunities as
"absolute rubbish". He
insisted there was considerable potential in
financial services, home shopping and standalone
- George and non-food Asda Living stores. The
chain is also testing smaller high street
outlets.
The
chief executive has changed his senior
management team, installing David Cheesewright
as his deputy and Andy Clark as retail director.
Mr Cheesewright left Asda last year to head
Wal-Mart Canada, while Mr Clark returns after
three years working for Matalan and Iceland.
Trading director Angela Spindler is to be
customer and strategy director.
Aldi
(UK) (discount supermarket chain) This
UK site includes details of current weekly
special offers (with an option to subscribe to a
free email newsletter), store locations and new
additions to the range of regular products. It
also has links to Aldi web sites in Australia,
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland,
Luxembourg, Netherlands and the USA.
Asda
(UK supermarket chain) This UK supermarket
chain was originally established by Associated
Dairies (hence the name) but recently taken over
by Wal-Mart.
This
hypermarket chain based in France but also has a
few stores in other countries, including the
USA.
Big
W (UK hypermarket chain) This chain,
part of Woolworths, has a store layout and range
of good similar to the US chains KMart, Pamida,
ShopKo, Wal-Mart, etc.
Boots
or Boots
(UK retail chain) Originally
a chemists, Boots now also sell a wide range of
goods. Both URL's lead to the same
content.
Burger
King (UK)
- Includes a
restaurant locator current special offers.
Carrefour
(supermarket chain) This supermarket chain
is based in France but also has a large number
of stores in several other European countries
and other parts of the world.
Co-Op
Stores (UK) (UK retail chain) This
site covers the UK Co-op's supermarkets and
other shops. There are separate Co-op
organisations in some other European countries.
CostCo
(UK division of the US membership warehouse
retail chain)
Kwik
Save (UK supermarket chain) A few
years ago the Kwik Save chain was purchased by
Somerfield.
Lidl
(Germany) (European deep discount
supermarket chain)
Lidl
(UK) (European deep discount supermarket
chain) Includes details of store
locations, weekly specials, price reductions and
a facility to subscribe to a weekly specials
email newsletter.
Makro
(UK hypermarket chain) This chain is part
of the German Metro group, a "cash and
carry" for trade customers only. However,
in practice it is very nearly a normal shop at
normal proces.
Netto
(UK) (discount supermarket chain)
Includes details of locations and current
special offers, and links to Netto sites in
other countries featuring 'Smart Shopping'. By
taking a no frills approach and cutting out all
those unnecessary extras, we can offer you
premium quality at the lowest prices in Britain.
By only paying for what you want and nothing
else we can give today’s busy customer a
different and fresh alternative to grocery
shopping. And most importantly of all, save you
time and money, every day of every week.
Poundland
(UK discount retail chain) All items in
Poundland shops cost £1.
We
are looking for distributors in America,
Australia, Canada, Europe, and Japan.
The state of the Cola market globally is set for a fresh quality brand,
offering excellent potential for growth. According
to ResearchandMarkets.com
the UK drinks market is worth an estimated £53.5
billion, representing a 7% share of total
consumer spending.
Prospective
investors in Solar Cola should consult their
own independent investment advisers, and please
note this information is provided for general
guidance only. It is not a prospectus, but
is provided in response to the number of
requests we have received asking for more
information
For
all trade enquiries please contact: Nelson
Kruschandl at:
