back to menuIn the Daily Telegraph of 13th of July ASDA claimed to be the No. 2 grocery retailer in Britain. This claim, made by Tony Page, ASDA’s grocery business unit director, was based on data from Taylor Nelson Sofres, the market research group. This would show, he claimed, that ASDA’s share of the grocery market was 16.53% in June, displacing the previous No 2, Sainsbury, where the share was only 16.50%, measured by volume.
However, Taylor Nelson said that its explicit guidelines were only to use the data, which it collects from 10,000 households in the form of expenditure figures, when quoting market shares. On this basis ASDA’s market share for the four weeks to June 27th was 12.7% while that of Sainsbury was 17%. Sainsbury’s marketing director, Kevin McCarten is quoted in the Daily Telegraph of July 13th as accusing ASDA of "pulling a cheap stunt" and he went on to say "we are pleased to see that Taylor Neilson has acted to refute claims that these are official figures. Asda has irresponsibly attributed misleading data to an official source without agreement. If this is the kind of behaviour we can expect now that ASDA has linked with WAL*MART; then UK consumers had better beware."
When confronted with these statements ASDA pointed out that definitions of market share based on ‘value’ will always show Sainsbury’s in a more favourable light because their prices are higher!
While all very interesting, does it matter to consumers which supermarket chain has the biggest market share, however measured? I think not.
However the slanging match may well give notice of more interesting matches to come, when WAL*MART’s enormous buying power is put at the disposal of ASDA. Dare we hope for a price war and real competition at last?
Foodlink - which describes itself as "the A to Z programme for safety throughout the food chain" has launched a new Foodlink website - www.foodlink.org.uk. It provides a wealth of tips on keeping food safe, information about some of the bacteria responsible for food poisoning (just ideal for breakfast reading), background information on the Foodlink initiative and links to other relevant sites.
A press release arrived announcing a new ice-cream made without any dairy products. It is described as the brand leader in soya based dairy alternatives, providing a healthy, dairy and cholesterol-free treat for the whole family. As well as appealing to those who are vegetarians or vegans, or who require diets free from dairy products, these Ice Desserts will tempt everyone who likes ice-cream.
The press release made no mention of where the soya used in making this product came from, or whether there was a possibility that some of it could have been harvested from genetically modified crops. We know that Food Minister, Jack Cunningham MP, has said publicly that there is no evidence that GM foods cause anyone any harm but, nevertheless, it is time that manufacturers realise that consumers want to know whether or not GM ingredients are present.
The press release should have mentioned this. We hope that the label will!
The National Consumer Council is concerned that GM and conventional crops continue to be mixed together at source in world markets.
Director, Anna Bradley, said "mixed harvests make meaningful labelling of foods derived from GM sources impossible. This denies consumers the information they need to make effective choices".
Manufacturers, such as the ice-cream maker, are faced with a problem. What do they say if they do not know whether ingredients may have traces of GM constituents or not? "May contain traces of nuts" is a real off-putter to some people, "may contain traces of GM ingredients" is much worse!
NCC urges the Government to take the lead in international negotiations that will ensure that GM and conventional crops are segregated.
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