This week, just-food spoke with the CEO of Nestle Greater China, Roland Decorvet, who went into detail about the company’s strategy in China and the challenges it faces there. Elsewhere, JBS announced a deal to buy domestic poultry business Seara Brasil, Sobeys bought Safeway’s Canadian operations, and B&G Foods snapped up Pirate Brands. We also garnered analysts’ thoughts on Amazon‘s plans for its US grocery business and Carrefour‘s prospects for the African market.

“The great thing about China is it is such a large country that each of our categories can and will, one day, be a multi-billion dollar business by itself” –  Roland Decorvet, chairman and CEO of Nestle Greater China, sees a bright future for each of its businesses in China.

“We have felt for some time that any steps by Safeway to monetize Blackhawk and the Canadian businesses would serve to expose the US operations in a much more negative light” – Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Ajay Jain says Safeway was “burning off the furniture to save what’s left of the house”, noting the disposal of the Canadian business followed the recent IPO of its gift card business Blackhawk.

This deal allows us a couple of things. We would de-leverage the group [and] that basically means the capability to grow in the years to come – but now [with] more focus” – Marfrig’s Sergio Rial insisted the sale of Seara Brasil to JBS would make the company stronger.

“We are buying this as something we believe we can grow well above our average” –B&G Foods CEO David Wenner expands on its acquisition of Pirate Brands.

“Online marketing in the food group broadly seems vastly overrated: consumption is flat/down over the past five years despite much more digitally based advertising. If anyone can change that, Amazon can” – Janney analyst Jonathan Feeney believes Amazon has what it takes to change consumer habits when it comes to US online grocery shopping.

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“We think our success over the last five years… is because we have never been shy of helping our consumers spend less money” – Sainsbury’s CEO Justin King believes its strong private label offering is one of the reasons it has been able to continue to grow sales in a market marked by lower volumes.

“I have been here 15 years and I would be completely incapable to judge if this product tastes good or not for the Chinese. I am not Chinese” – Roland Decorvet, chairman and CEO of Nestle Greater China, believes local innovation is of prime importance.

“As much as there are around 1bn consumers in Africa, only a small percentage of those have spending power, so inequality is a big issue” – Euromonitor analyst Izaskun Bengoechea believes Africa’s growing middle class does offer some opportunities for retailers like Carrefour but says retailers interested in the continent need to serve its poorer consumers.

“We deeply regret having to consider transferring production of our Chinese infant milks to New Zealand, and I understand the concerns that this news and the wider efficiency measures will cause for employees and their families” – Itziar Albisu, the vice president for the supply chain for Heinz’s infant and nutrition business, on the closure of its plant in Kendal in the UK.

“Brazil is a large pasta market, it’s an established pasta market and because of the tradition of Italian immigrants going there, that’s where we want to focus right now” – a spokesperson for Barilla says its focus at the present time is on growing its business in Brazil.