Jan
26
It’s a community thing…
2010 | Filed under Perspective-Analysis | (0) 
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John McNeill says that the Co-operative is experiencing a ‘renaissance’ on high streets and in communities across the UK, including in Northern Ireland where the business goes from strength-to-strength…
We are continuing to invest in the province by refitting and rebranding our stores to deliver the best in modern retailing and customer service to our customers. In 2009, almost £1m was invested in Northern Ireland in rebranding and upgrading five existing stores – Finaghy, Sydenham and Shankill in Belfast, Whitewell Road in Newtownabbey and Bushmills. Following the pattern of stores refitted in 2008, these branches are showing significant sales growth post-launch.
Business acquisitions and development remain a key objective and we are constantly searching for opportunities to increase the number of stores in our portfolio and grow our market share. In 2009, we acquired the former Costcutter store and Post Office in the village of Ballynure and invested £300,000 refitting it to our latest convenience store format.
The refurbishment of stores in 2009 brings total investment in Northern Ireland over the past two years to £4.5m.
In February, we completed our £1.56bn acquisition of the Somerfield supermarket chain, making The Co-operative Group the fifth largest food retailer in the UK with more than 3,000 outlets. While there are no Somerfield supermarkets in Northern Ireland, the acquisition and integration of Somerfield into The Co-operative Group is already bringing benefits to our Northern Irish customers. Our greater buying power is bringing lower prices to our customers and shoppers are also benefiting from improved promotional offers.
AWARDS
Other successes in 2009 have included garnering a raft of awards in recognition of our commitment to responsible retailing, our ethical trading policies and our quality ranges.
The Belsize Road store in Lisburn scooped the Best Meat Counter in the annual SuperMeat awards, beating large Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s supermarkets across the UK. It was the smallest ever store entered during the ten years of the awards. The Group also won the title of Meat and Fish Retailer of the Year.
In addition, we topped the Marine Conservation Society’s (MCS) league table of supermarkets for supporting and selling sustainably-sourced fish, which endorsed our earlier Grocer Gold Award for Own-Label Range of the Year for our responsibly-sourced fish. The National Convenience Chain of the Year title, the RSPCA’s People’s Choice Award and awards for our Fairtrade wines were also among the triumphs of 2009.
Last year was challenging for many businesses, and indeed consumers, struggling to survive through the recession. But as our annual results showed, more people are shopping locally and more regularly and our food stores which operate at the heart of many communities, continue to thrive.
However, to help our customers, we have had some fantastic in-store promotions which have proved very popular and in November, we announced wide-ranging Christmas price cuts and a promotional package worth over £200m in savings to our customers. This included a first-ever triple Dividend, equivalent to a 6p-in-the-pound saving for shoppers.
In 2009, we paid our customer members in Northern Ireland £580,000 through the Share of Profits scheme and a further £23,300 to the Community Fund which helps good causes across the province.
We have also put much emphasis on cutting waste, particularly relevant during this economic climate, and have been working closely with WRAP to ensure less food, products and packaging end up as household waste.
To help our customers cut waste and ultimately, cut their food bills, in June, we announced we would be the first retailer in the UK to include storage instructions for fruit and vegetables in fresh produce bags. We have also switched the emphasis, particularly on perishable goods, from BOGOFs to half-price offers.
Even during these tough financial times, our staff and customers across the UK have demonstrated an unbelievable amount of generosity and helped us to raise the staggering amount of more than £3m for our charity of the year, the RNID.
We enter into the year ahead with ambition and excitement and look forward to the challenges and opportunities 2010 will bring.
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