Walmart's Japanese arm replacing Great Value
Tokyo-based Seiyu GK – a Japanese group of retailers owned by Walmart – will gradually phase out the Japanese version of its parent company's Great Value brand while introducing two grocery brands, reported Japanese business news website Nikkei.com. The retailer will offer roughly 120 SKUs – including cup noodles, liquor, frozen foods and beverages – under the new brands in 371 stores nationwide. Seiyu will expand the brands' SKU count to 500 this year, and it aims to triple its store brand sales by 2015. |
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Superdrug launches skincare, makeup brand
Drugstore chain Superdrug – a Surrey, England-based subsidiary of A.S. Watson Group, Hong Kong – said it launched B., an affordable brand of premium skincare and makeup products. Comprising 412 B. Makeup products (£4.19 to £10.99) and 19 B. Skincare products (£3.49 to £15), the brand retails in two-thirds of Superdrug's 900-plus UK stores and on its own website, Bisforbeautiful.co.uk. According to Superdrug, B. – which consists of cruelty-free products developed for women ages 25 to 54 – is designed to make the process of buying beauty products easier. For instance, rather than categorizing B. skincare products by age, the brand defines them by skin phases (such as "tired" or "dry"). Packaging doesn't bear any evidence that B. is one of Superdrug's own brands. If the business is successful, Superdrug said its parent company would consider exporting B. products to sell in its overseas retail businesses. |
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Morrisons launches budget-friendly better-for-you meals
Morrisons, Bradford, England, said it launched a line of budget-friendly meals under its NuMe brand of better-for-you products. Available for £1 each, the refrigerated dishes are more-healthful versions of consumers' favourite meals, lower in calories and saturated fat. Meals include a 386-calorie creamy mushroom pasta with Italian cheese and thyme; a 287-calorie farmhouse bake; a 275-calorie minced beef and potato meal; and a 404-calorie Mediterranean vegetable pasta bake. |
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Tesco severs ties with burger supplier after horsemeat contamination
On Jan. 30, multinational retailer Tesco said it cut off its relationship with Silvercrest, its former supplier of store brand frozen beef burgers, two weeks after discovering horse DNA in three lines of its Tesco brand beef burgers. The Cheshunt, England-based retailer was one of several UK and Irish supermarkets that discovered the DNA in their frozen beef burgers. Tim Smith, Tesco's group technical director, said the supplier used meat in the burgers that did not come from the retailer's list of approved suppliers. Nor was the meat from the UK or Ireland, despite Tesco's instruction to the supplier to use only meat from the two regions. Smith added that ending the relationship "is not enough" to take responsibility for selling the burgers. "We want to stop it [from] ever happening again, so we are taking action to reduce the possibility still further," he stated. "To underpin the strong measures already in place, we will now introduce a comprehensive system of DNA-testing across our meat products. This will identify any deviation from our high standards." |
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Carrefour relaunches Carrefour Baby in Spain
In January, Boulogne Billancourt, France-based Carrefour relaunched its Carrefour Baby range in its Spanish stores, reported Spanish business newspaper Expansión on its website. The relaunched line includes 37 SKUs of baby food and 21 hygiene products. |
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Migros replaces own-brand candy with national brand items
Swiss retailer Migros said it replaced a number of its own-brand chocolate products with a variety of national brand items. It removed its Tresella and Choco Loco private brands, as well as various chocolate bars under its Blox brand, and replaced them with products under brands such as Ragusa, Mars, Snickers, Twix, Torino, Choco-Snacks, M&M's, Maltesers, Celebrations, Merci and Toffifee. Markus Gisiger, director of the Zurich-headquartered Federation of Migros Cooperatives, said the discontinued store brand items were not in high demand because customers preferred their national brand counterparts. |
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Lidl UK doubles Deluxe brand premium products
In preparation for Christmas, London-based Lidl UK said it doubled the number of products in its Deluxe range of premium store brand products. The retailer opted for the expansion after sales of the Deluxe products increased 200 per cent from 2011 to 2012, and it noted a "marked shift" in customers' shopping habits, Lidl UK said, whereby consumers are purchasing high-quality foods and wines to enjoy at home instead of dining out. |
