British supermarket retailer Sainsbury’s has seen a growth in sales of over 6% in the first quarter of 2009 – the best spike in sales they’ve seen in ten years. Consumers seem to have switched from branded goods to their ‘value’ offering. The FT gives a little more insight:
Justin King, who next week celebrates five years as chief executive of Britain’s third largest supermarket chain, said he had achieved the growth by poaching shoppers from rivals and getting them to spend more.
Underlying sales, excluding fuel, rose 6.2 per cent in the 11 weeks to March 21 compared with the same [...]

Hey – it’s not all doom and gloom. Especially if you’re a brand trying to do good: the Financial Times report that retail sales of Fairtrade products, led by bananas and coffee, have risen to a record high of £700m up 47 per cent in 2008 on a year earlier. Apparently, much of this has been driven by larger brands like Starbucks and J Sainsbury who have “boosted” their commitment to Fairtrade products and ethical trading.
Financial Times

Reacting to the statistic that the UK generates around 25 million tonnes of household waste per year, much of which ending up in landfill, a local government think tank in Britain has put forward an idea that supermarkets should be held responsible for over-packaging the products they sell and therefore have to pay for recycling costs. In a report entitled ‘War On Waste’, the Local Government Association argues that by levying a charge for supermarkets on the the collection of their packaging they will be incentivised to cut back. The BBC reports:
Since the LGA’s first report in October 2007, the [...]