Retail and consumer goods industry news

Frozen food specialist Iceland has outlined its store opening plans for the year and confirmed its intention to re-enter the online market "soon". 40 stores to open in 2013 Following strong recent trading, Iceland has confirmed that it sees opportunity to build further scale with 40 stores planned for this year. The retailer has benefited from budget conscious shoppers valuing their focus on ...

SPAR has become the latest UK symbol group to step up its focus on the forecourt sector, with the launch of a fully branded site format, providing SPAR branding across both fuel and store offers. The biggest symbol in the forecourt sector With almost 700 affiliated stores located on forecourts SPAR has a bigger presence in this sector than any other UK symbol group, though retailers opera...

DIA has announced the sale of its Turkish business to Yildiz Holding and SOK Marketler Ticaret, for some €136.5m. DIA had been considering future of Turkish business for some time DIA announced, in October 2012, that it was reassessing its options in  Turkey . At its results announcement in February this year, the retailer reported a difficult year due to the tough competitive environment...

Buyout plans are off as the Turkish discounter announces plans to grow at pace. Ambitious store opening plans A101 is a hard discount operator which has doubled its store estate in the last two years, operating 1,000 stores in 2011, which grew to over 2,000 stores by the end of 2012. Speaking at a press conference, CEO Erhan Bostan announced ambitious plans to continue to expand the estat...

Lidl UK is dedicating 50% more in-store space to its fresh meat and poultry categories after sales of its fresh range increased by 30% in 2012. Boosting range by 49% The £66m investment will see new cabinets installed across Lidl's entire estate, with floorspace increasing by 50%. The investment will allow Lidl to expand its fresh meat and poultry range by 49%. In addition to the refur...

Sainsbury's is following up the introduction of new bolder shelf edge labels with changes to make its ready meals aisle easier to shop. 'Digital wall' used to reshape ready meals layout New signs are being introduced to help customers navigate the offer more easily. According to meal solutions range planner Richard Thorn Sainsbury's used a digital wall to help decide the optimum arrangement f...

Musgrave has introduced a wholly revamped private label range for its Irish convenience and neighbourhood stores under the Centra brand.  Differentiated with simple and bold on-pack designs, presenting a 'Bright New Range', the Centra brand of products now includes 900 lines across key grocery categories. Biggest ever launch by Centra The new Centra range demonstrates Musgrave's commitment ...

In a preliminary release of results for Q1 2013 the Belgium-based group has revealed revenue growth of 2.1% to €5.5bn. Price investment driving recovery Delhaize saw positive performance in all its regions in the first quarter, with the US delivering like-for-like sales growth of 1.9% and Belgium growing 2.4%. This was driven by price investment in both markets, with the retailer contin...

We look at Mercadona, how it's coping with the economic conditions in Spain, and more widely at what the future may hold for European grocery formats.   Mercadona's unique model is its main strength Mercadona's strengths are small and medium-sized stores, in convenient neighbourhood locations; best-in-class fresh produce and private label products. In terms of similarities among its pee...

Swedish retailer Axfood has seen the year start positively, with sales growth of 2.7% in the first quarter. Positive development Total sales for the three month period January-March reached SEK 8.9bn, up 2.7% year on year. Like for like sales grew by 2.3%. Group-owned stores performed particularly well, growing by 4.2%. Axfood delivered operating profit of SEK 254m. Developments in the peri...