A round-up of supermarket news and gossip
Climate change is as great a threat to the world as terrorism and nuclear war, Professor Stephen Hawking announced recently. The size of the problem means that every household in the UK produces six tones of C02 in heating and powering their homes – enough to fill 1.5 hot air balloons. The UK’s annual output of C02 – 559m tones would cover the City of London to a depth of nearly 2.5km. Not surprisingly therefore for major retailers to jump to the rescue.

Marks and Spencer plans to spend £200m over the next five years on going green as the battle to become the most environmentally-friendly retailer steps up. The high street giant, which launches its strategy with an advertising campaign in March, has set some challenging targets, including a pledge to stop sending all waste to land fill and reduce CO2 emissions by 80%. M&S has worked on the project for six months, taking advise from Jonathon Porritt, the former director of Friends of the Earth.

Tesco pledged to spend £100m on developing green energy technologies. They will announce plans to open a second green store in Shrewsbury. Tesco environmental stores, which are claimed to reduce energy use by about 30%, are also planned in Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Turkey. South Korea and Thailand. Our Royal family is also lending a hand.

The Prince of Wales has invited the head of Wal-Mart to address British supermarkets on how to be more environmentally responsible. The invitation to Lee Scott will raise eyebrows among Wal-Mart’s rivals. Under his leadership, the American Giant has built out-of-town stores on green-field sites and created a distribution network that generates millions of tons of CO2 emissions. Scott first announced his plans to staff in 2005,promising that the company would invest at least £250m a year to reduce waste, switch to 100% renewable power and use eco-friendly products.

French supermarkets make their TV debut as the advertising rule is scrapped. Banned from advertising on television under a law set in 1968 to protect the regional market, the union of small shopkeepers described the liberalisation as unacceptable saying it would have a catastrophic impact on the country’s small shops.

Supermarkets including Les Mousquetaires, Leclerc and Auchan have reserved slots for more than 60 TV advertisements at the start of 2007.

Asda is planning to go head-to-head with Ikea, Argos and Next in a £500m assault on the £9bn-a-year UK furniture market. The company is about to launch an internet site dedicated to furniture and over the next weeks 800,000 catalogues will be distributed in Asda stores across Britain as part of a drive to seize a 5% share of the market.



Tesco snapped up half of all the new shopping space in Britain this year. Competitors called for an overhaul in the planning system, to take better account of competition in a local area.

The John Lewis board was split over the appointment of its new chairman, with several directors seeking an alternative candidate to that recommended by Sir Stuart Hampson. The partnership also unveiled a 12.4% revenue jump during Christmas at Waitrose.

Marks and Spencer staff are to land a £56m windfall after a surge in the retailer’s share price. Almost 12,000 employees stand to make between £1,000 and £4,500 through the Sharesave scheme.

Supermarket staff earning an average £290 a week are never going to be able to afford to buy a property in Greater London, so the answer might be to live above the shop – the Tesco shop. Plans have been formalised for a new superstore that will include 13 flats for staff. The proposed site is the Streatham ice rink, which will be demolished and redeveloped.

Asda is also making some serious investments in their staff – details will be reported next issue

GEMINI