Tuesday 18th July, 2006
ASDA LODGES INVERNESS PLANS WITH THE HIGHLAND COUNCIL
£27m investment and 400 jobs set for Slackbuie site
Just weeks after announcing it had found a long awaited site in Inverness, ASDA has moved quickly to put forward proposals for a 45,000 sqft net superstore and petrol filling station at Slackbuie off the Southern Distributor Road.
The outline application – part of a wider vision for the area – also includes the provision of five smaller retail units.
A separate outline application has also been lodged by Glasgow based Elphinstone Developments to build a 100 bed hotel and a health centre on an adjacent site at Slackbuie.
The proposed new store will offer the full ASDA food ranges including bakery, butcher, delicatessen, takeaway and café.
Non-food ranges will include the hugely successful George clothing ranges for men, women and children as well as music, DVD and jewellery.
The store will also have a petrol filling station, bringing ASDA’s famously low fuel prices to Inverness and the wider area.
400 new jobs are in prospect – a mixture of full and part-time positions, the majority of which will go to people living in the area.
ASDA is proud to be regularly nominated as one of Britain’s Best Places To Work and last year was named Scotland’s Best Employer.
Describing the Inverness plans, Senior Development Surveyor Andy King said,“We have looked long and hard at sites for Inverness but this is in our opinion the best possible location.
We want to bring competition and choice to Highland shoppers.
ASDA’s low prices are recognized throughout the UK and proven by our winning The Grocer 33 award for the 9th successive year for the lowest weekly grocery shop.”
He added,“That’s not the whole story though. We have an exciting strategy for the North of Scotland.
By developing a store format to suit smaller country towns such as the one we opened in Huntly in May, we now have plans to bring ASDA to Thurso, Tain and Banff for the convenience of many people and to help reduce the amount of traveling which people here take as a fact of life to do the weekly shop.”
Notes for Editors
For further information, please contact:
James Harbison, Dundas & WilsonT: 0131 200 7446M: 07836 665236E:
james.harbison@dundas-wilson.com Sian Horner, Corporate Press Office, ASDAT: 0113 241 7829
ASDA voted lowest priced supermarket for the 9th year running by The Grocer Overview
· ASDA was formed in 1965 when Associated Dairies and the Asquith brothers' supermarket chain Queen's, came together.
ASDA Stores Ltd was founded as a supermarket committed to offering shoppers 'permanently low prices'. We continued to grow as an independent business until 1999 when we became part of the Wal-Mart family.
· Since then we have grown to become one of the largest food retailers in the United Kingdom. Despite operating more than 300 stores in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, we have stayed true to our heritage. Never losing sight of our agricultural roots, food and farming remains at the heart of our business.
Recent years have seen us flex our store formats and ranges to meet our customers’ changing priorities. Current trials include 'ASDA Living' food-free general merchandise stores, George High Street stores retailing ASDA's exclusive private label clothing brand and 'ASDA Essentials' - a small food store built around ASDA's private label brands.
The arrival of these new concept stores and our entry into Northern Ireland, has helped us to bring down the cost of living for even more people across the UK.
· Over the last few years we’ve led several campaigns to save customers millions, while always ensuring our products meet the highest quality and ethical trading standards.
· ASDA employs over 150,000 colleagues and is the UK's biggest employer of over 50s workers with almost 25,000 working in our stores, depots and offices. It's proud to be independently assessed as one of Britain's best places to work - the latest last year when it was named Scotland's best employer.
· Investment in the UK· ASDA is investing more than its annual profits back into building its business in the UK though new stores, improving and refurbishing older units, new customer services and lowering prices.
· Since 1999 it has opened over 80 new stores and moved into new areas such as pharmacies, opticians, jewellery and photo shops.
· But while it deals with many multi-national suppliers, we're particularly proud of our local sourcing programme - we have a dedicated local sourcing team whose sole aim is to identify local products and work with small suppliers to enable their products to reach our stores. The team enlists the support of regional food groups and our own customers and colleagues to discover what the essential local brands are in each area.
· We now sell 3,000 local products, which our colleagues helped to source, from 250 truly local suppliers - many of which have less than 20 employees. In the last two years we have launched the following ranges: Best of Cornwall, Best of the West Country, Best of the Lakes (Plumgarths Food Hub), Scotland's Best, Best of Wales, Yorkshire's Best, Best of the North East, Best of the North West, Best of East Anglia, Best of Kent and Best of Lancashire.
· In January 2005 we introduced 48 brand new locally sourced products from 11 new suppliers in the North East of Scotland making the ‘Scotland’s Best’ range more local than ever with all products selected on a store-by-store basis.
· Support for British Agriculture
· ASDA is proud of its roots in British agriculture. We're continually working to reduce imports and extend UK growing seasons. Ninety per cent of the fresh food we sell that can be sourced from within the UK, is sourced from the UK. Our eventual aim is to source all of our fresh vegetables and potatoes from within the UK.
· ASDA is the first UK retailer to halt imported carrots by extending the British carrot season from 46 to 52 weeks. We also extended the new and salad potato season by an additional 10 weeks.
· We continue to innovate in the way we source from UK farmers. We have a true partnership with 550 dedicated dairy farmers to provide our milk. Not only does this mean they receive a fair price, but it also means we can trace all of our milk back to our farmers - offering the quality and peace of mind that most others can't match.Support For Local Communities
· From building relationships with MPs and schools, through to working with local businesses and charities, our stores are all ‘Stores of the Community’. Our success is a tribute to our colleagues’ commitment. We were pleased to receive the IGD’s Nestlé Social Commitment Award in recognition of this.
· Last year we raised more than £4.8m for local communities and a further £1.8m for the Tsunami appeal. We also supplied 3,500 tents to the Kashmiri earthquake appeal in October 2005, providing much needed shelter for thousands of families made homeless as a result of the disaster.
· Our Community Programme in support plus our national events, Tickled Pink which raises money for Breast Cancer charities and BBC Children In Need, together have seen us raise more than £14 million since we became part of the Wal-Mart family in 1999.
