Thursday 27th July, 2006
ASDA CELEBRATES 'LOCAL' WITH UK SUPPLIERS
ASDA will be living up to its reputation as a pioneer for local products through a series of celebratory events taking place in its 307 stores across the UK during August.
To highlight the strength and significance of its relationships with suppliers, ASDA is hosting ‘Local Celebration Weeks’, offering local food producers the chance to get onto the shop floor and give customers a taste of their local delicacies.
Starting on 31st July, the event aims to confirm ASDA’s commitment to the local products and service ranges it has been developing since the scheme started five years ago.
And as part of its commitment to increase its local supply range, ASDA is asking the customers to let it know exactly which local foods they want to buy in store.
The search for a ‘Local Food Hero’ is open to anyone with a passion for a local product – including shoppers and suppliers – and nominations could result in the ‘hero’ product being sold in ASDA stores UK-wide.
“As we’re approaching our fifth anniversary for Local Sourcing, we felt it was time to highlight the impact of our pledge to work with local suppliers – and Local Celebration Week is the ideal opportunity,” said Karen Todd, Head of Local Sourcing for ASDA.
“Choice, value and quality are what our customers really want and local food products really seem to hit the spot. Offering them means more choice for customers and more sales for suppliers - everyone wins!” Karen added.
Some of ASDA's best selling local lines which will be showcased throughout local week include: Porky Whites Sausages (South East), Just Puds Puddings, (Yorkshire) Doddington's Dairy ice cream (North East), Roberts bread (North West) and Bury Black Pudding (North West) Malcolm Allen Pies (Scotland).
With over 3000 local products across the country, customers won't be short of choice.
Other activities taking place as part of the ‘Local Celebration’ events include cookery demonstrations, health checks, and awareness sessions from local charities, emergency services, councils and community groups – all aiming to bring local people closer together.
Notes for Editors
Over 2,500 great local products, of which 1,500 are truly local.
We work with over 300 local suppliers – over a third of these are through our award winning local sourcing hubs.
The local sourcing team provides practical advice and support to all our local suppliers - helping us to win the BBC Food and Farming National Retailer of the Year Award 2004
All of ASDA stores now stock local products
120,000 litres of Definitely Devon milk are sold each month in our South West stores
Rolling Hitch from the Darwin Brewery in County Durham, was the winner of our national beer competition. It is now available in all our stores nationwide
Doddington dairy ice-cream, initially only sold in one store in the North East, is so good it is now sold in 16 of our North East stores
West Yorkshire's Denby Dale Pies was recently voted 'Britain's Meat and Potato Pie of the Year' on ITV's Paul O'Grady Show
15,000 puddings made by family-run Just Puds were sold in our Yorkshire stores in 2005
Plumgarths Cumberland Sausage, a Lakeland favourite, is our biggest selling sausage on a store by store basis
English Lakes ice-cream outsells Ben and Jerry's by 30 to 1 at the ASDA store in Kendal
Braces bread outsells Warburtons by 3 to 1 on our Welsh stores
ASDA Hubs are –
- Plumgarths – first local sourcing hub in Cumbria and award winner concept . ( see case study for details). Plumgarths themselves are producers supplying ASDA top selling sausage on a store by store basis , they also coordinate around 16 other producers from Cumbria and deliver direct to our 3 Cumbrian stores . Soon Plumgarths will help small producers in North Lancashire to get their products to relevant Lancashire stores and these stores will too be bale to enjoy the Plumgarths Cumberland sausage .
- AHG Management – set up in the North East of England to coordinate suppliers from Northumberland , Country Durham , Teesside. Closely linked with One North East and Northumbria Larder the regions food group. Deliver direct to all 20 ASDA stores in the North East
- SIBA – Society of independent brewers . Nick Stafford coordinates on behalf of ASDA small brewers across the country , all orders and invoices in this case all individual brewers deliver products direct to store.
- Elveden Fine Foods – Based on the Elveden estate in the county of Suffolk , they coordinate quality local producers across the counties of Suffolk , Cambridgeshire , Norfolk and Essex. Starting with 3 stores from June, as of 19th September they have been extended to supply a further 2 stores.
- Bank Farm – Latest Hub for Kent . Start trading with ASDA on the 26th Sept launching initially into 2 Kent stores – Canterbury and Ashford. Bank farm is a family business and family farm . Doug and Steph Wanstall young husband and wife are the main drivers and link with ASDA . Together we are working to bring quality Kent produce to our customers. Bank farm continue to farm and have a successful free range egg business. ASDA will be stocking these eggs which lay in view of the ASDA Ashford store.
- Castel Howell – Our welsh hub supplier , coordinates a number of South Wales producers ( but not all) . Working with Castel Howel has enabled us to take South Wales product into our North Wales stores.
- Malcolm Allen - our most recent addition in May 2006. Malcolm Allen have been suppliers to ASDA for some years, but they will now run our Scottish hub in the Edinburgh region. Based in Falkirk, Malcolm Allen Butchers are a family business who supply all ASDA stores in Scotland with their pies and sausages.
