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Asda sets aside £27m in food focus
by shropshirestar.com - 19/05/2011
"Supermarket Asda has set aside £27 million to invest in fresh food as it reported a flat quarter for sales but said trading picked up last month with the help of Easter and the royal wedding."
The UK’s second biggest supermarket chain revealed that like-for-like sales excluding VAT grew by 0.1% in the quarter to March 31, although stripping out an early Easter sales were up 0.8%.
This still represents a slowdown on the 1.6% seen in the final quarter of 2010 but Asda pointed out that April had been stronger as the extended bank holidays boosted trade.
Asda also announced £27 million of investment in fresh food by trebling the number of quality control staff in its depots and farms, as well as improvement in its meat department and ensuring its cod and haddock is line caught.
Chief executive Andy Clarke, who took over a year ago, admitted last year the standard of the company’s produce was not good enough.
He has already responded by investing £100 million on its own label food and drink including the launch a new mid-tier range Chosen By You range, which contains 6,500 products endorsed by customers.
Asda’s operating income fell in the first quarter on a year ago, according to results released on Tuesday by Asda’s US parent company Walmart, although no figures were provided.
The chain, which has 386 stores, took a 67 million US dollar (£41.3 million) charge from its pension scheme and incurred costs through the acquisition of 147 Netto stores. Excluding these expenses, Asda’s operating income was flat.
Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, reported that total sales increased 4.4% to 103.4 billion US dollars (£63.8 billion) in its first quarter, while operating income was up 2.8% to 5.9 billion US dollars (£3.6 billion).
Asda’s recent completion of the acquisition of Netto added smaller supermarkets to its portfolio of stores, which tend to be large and out of town.
More Details: http://www.shropshirestar.com/business/city-news/2011/05/17/asda-sets-aside-27m-in-food-focus/
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