Wal-Mart Stores is still struggling in the US but it has found a bright spark in the positive comparable sales in its food division. Similarly, this week, Carrefour talked up its ability to turnaround the more sluggish aspects of its business this week. Here’s the best of what was said this week:
“I believe that sales improvement supports our belief that we’re on the right track” – Wal-Mart US president and CEO Bill Simon highlights improving food comparable sales in the US.
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“The very encouraging results we are seeing from Carrefour Planet, our new hypermarket concept, and the continued execution of our transformation plan, underpin our confidence that we are on track to achieve our goals” – Carrefour CEO Lars Olofsson insists the French retailer’s turnaround plan will be successful.
The fat tax will encourage Danes to buy more butter, meat, and other foods south of the border in Germany” – Mette Feifer, an economics consultant to the Danish Chamber of Commerce, describes why Denmark’s planned tax on foods with high levels of saturated fats will not improve the health of the nation.
“We have a branded model that people do not appreciate. We are a branded player. We’re now taking that branded model into the snacks area” – Zetar chief executive Ian Blackburn describes the company’s plans to boost its branded offer.
“Our dairies business is facing an increasingly tough operating environment. A very competitive market has put pressure on this side of the business” – Dairy Crest CEO Mark Allen on the challenges the sector is facing at the moment.
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By GlobalData“Currently the costs of the resin used to produce plastic bottles and fuel are respectively 20% and 13% higher than the average costs incurred in the year to March 2011. Whilst the longer-term outlook remains uncertain, were these to stay at their present levels through to March 2012, the annualised increase in our cost base for resin, fuel and other costs would now be in the order of GBP7.5m” – Robert Wiseman Dairies chairman Robert Wiseman outlines the impact of rising input costs.
“Danisco’s attractive specialty food ingredients businesses and Genencor’s leading industrial enzymes complement DuPont’s own nutrition and health and applied biosciences offerings. This combination will create an industry leader in industrial biosciences and nutrition and health” – DuPont chair and CEO Ellen Kullman describes the benefits of the group’s acquisition of Danisco.
“American children have grown up with breakfast cereals which are often sweet and heavily marketed on TV. I would say that children’s breakfast cereal is more fun for children than yoghurt is, given the wide range of colourful shapes, sweet fruity and chocolatey flavours, and bright packaging.”- Euromonitor analyst Virginia Lee describes why historically yoghurt consumption has been lower in the US.
“The more you’re able to put the reality into a computer, the more you’re able to virtually engineer your product, the more you’ll be able to find issues early and fix them on a low-cost basis” – Tetra Pak vice president of development and engineering Michael Grosse talks about the packaging group’s design process.
“Bilbrey has been the co-architect of many of Hershey’s successful strategies of the past several years and we believe can capably maintain Hershey’s current momentum, which remains very good, in our view” – Barclays Capital senior analyst for packaged food Andrew Lazar suggests that Hershey interim president and CEO JP Bilbrey may be set to take the position permanently following the departure of Dave West.
