ASDA

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A number of supermarket chains produce their own cola drinks which they display with some prominence.  They also stock the leading brands.  However, do they stock smaller label brands in the spirit of fair competition?  Do they have a fair trade policy?

What is fair trade?

If you fancy trying a different cola, a cola with more in it, more healthy ingredients, a cola company that cares about the environment - that actually supports environmental projects, you're in luck.  But does your supermarket stock Solar Cola yet?  The finder table below tells you if these supermarkets have ordered Solar Cola and when delivery is due.

ASDA was founded in 1965 by a group of farmers from Yorkshire. The name is a contraction of Asquith Dairies. The company went through a troubled period in the early 1990s, but was then revived under the leadership of Archie Norman, who later became a front bench Conservative MP. He was chairman of the company during the period 1996–99.

ASDA Supercentre Edinburgh

ASDA, which then owned 229 stores, was purchased by  of the United States, on July 26, 1999. Following the take over by Wal-Mart, several "Asda–Wal*Mart Supercentres" have been opened, creating some of the largest hypermarkets in the United Kingdom. The first of these stores opened at Cribbs Causeway, near Bristol, in June 2000. At first, it was criticised for its scale and condemned as an eye-sore, but the format has now become extremely popular. In November 2004 a refurbishment of the hypermarket was completed, addressing some of the complaints. In 2005, amid reported concerns within Wal-Mart about a slight slippage in market share, partially due to a resurgent Sainsbury's, ASDA's chief executive, Tony de Nunzio, was replaced by Andy Bond.

In October 2004 ASDA launched a new format called 'Asda Living'. This is the company's first 'general merchandise' store, containing all its non-food ranges including clothing, home electronics, toys, homewares, health and beauty products. The first store with this format opened in Walsall, West Midlands in October 2004, and at the time of writing has been followed by three further stores in Cortonwood (Barnsley), Altrincham and Byker (Newcastle-upon-Tyne). A fifth has now opened in Thurrock, Essex. Tesco is also trialling a similar format, "Homeplus", in Denton, Greater Manchester. Asda has also opened a number of stores containing its George range only in several city centres.

ASDA are currently expanding their range of services to include Financial Services sold in store and at www.asda.com. Products currently sold are Car, Home, Travel, Life and Pet Insurance, Child Trust Funds and Credit Cards.

Unlike Tesco and Sainsbury's, ASDA does not operate convenience stores, a position it shares with the fourth major British supermarket chain Morrisons.

Marketing

ASDA is known for two famous marketing campaigns. In the "ASDA price" campaign, customers tap their trouser pockets, producing a 'chinking' sound as the coins that (supposedly) Asda's low prices have left in their pockets knock together. In the smiley face "rollback" campaign also used in Wal-Mart advertisements, a CGI smiley face bounces from price tag to price tag, knocking them down as customers watch. The focus of these campaigns is to portray ASDA as the most affordable supermarket in the country, a claim that is often refuted by competitors, especially Tesco.

However, for the past eight years, independent surveys have found ASDA's claim to be justified. In August 2005 following a complaint from Tesco about ASDA's claim to be "officially Britain's lowest priced supermarket", the Advertising Standards Agency upheld this complaint as the Grocer Magazine survey that these claims were based on were limited and unrepresentative, and the survey did not study low-cost supermarkets such as Aldi. Sharon Osbourne has recently been selected to be part of a new marketing campaign by ASDA. Sharon Osbourne Has now been dropped by the supermarket chain (December 2005)

ASDA has recently been forced to drop its claim as being the number one lowest price food retailer in the UK after being involved in a spat with the UK's number one by market share, TESCO. The ruling of the ASA said that ASDA's information was not transparent enough nor was it a true and reflective representation of the entire market, with several discount retailers being conveniently 'forgotten'.

It has also lost its claim that since 2003 it maintains an award statement on its corporate notepaper that it is the best company to work for in the UK, among the top 100 UK companies as awarded by the Financial Times.

A search on the Sunday Times website shows that ASDA has dropped off the page and now appears nowhere due to recent shake-ups in management, pruning of staff with some 1,000 job losses and more to come in the Gwent area and possibly more at their Midlands region distribution centres in February 2006.

The company has come under intense and prolific attack by its employee's of late (called colleagues by ASDA) for the underhand and draconian treatment both in stores and in depots across the country. A recent posting on the GMB Union website heralded the attempt to get TESCO to honour the 20% Christmas staff discount which ASDA dropped for reasons of 'operational profit protection', this resulted in a humiliating about-turn, however the damage has been done, and with that, less than 40% of its staff actually shop in-store, instead choosing cheaper retailers, like TESCO, Sainsbury's and the heavy, minimal brand retailers ALDI (UK) Ltd and LIDL Group. ASDA has been described by colleagues in postings to the GMB website as being the worst of all UK employers and the attacks are relentless, repeated and vitriolic in their nature and tone.

Its US operation has come under scathing attack as to its treatment of its workforce by the release of a movie by a prominent US Hollywood producer Robert Greenwald, this parodies the companies claims that it is an employee friendly company, ethically minded and works for and not against local communities.

Online

ASDA lauched its online retailer service in 1998 but was somewhat more cautious about expanding it than Tesco or Sainsbury's. It uses the store based model rather than servicing internet customers direct from its depots. In May 2005 it announced a major expansion of the service which will increase coverage from 30% of the UK population to 60%.

George label

ASDA has its own range of clothing known as George. This is marketed as being quality fashionable clothing at affordable prices. Wal-Mart also sells the George brand in Germany, United States, Canada and South Korea. Recently a trial has begun of a standalone George format on the high street, which is expected to be expanded nationwide if it is a succes. The George label is named after George Davies, founder of Next, who went on to set up the Per Una clothing business for Marks & Spencer.

Asda cuts 1400 managers in bid to stay number 2 grocer - July 6, 2005

Asda supermarket group is to cut 1,400 managers in a move to slash the red ink and boost its profitability after losing market share.  Chief executive Andy Bond said the savings generated by the cutbacks would be ploughed back into improving customer service on the shop floor.

Announcing the losses yesterday in London, Mr Bond, who took over as chief executive three months ago, insisted Asda was not "a retail straggler", but added: "I'm simply not satisfied with this year's average performance. Our natural home is outperformance."  He outlined a strategy based on "five key building blocks" - from simplifying internal procedures to cutting queues - designed to kick-start growth and deliver promised results in 12-18 months.

The 279 store chain also revealed it had re-engaged two former senior executives. Asda is part of the giant US Wal-Mart empire.  It has been losing market share to Tesco and Sainsbury's in recent months.

Analysts believe the Leeds-based group is on the brink of losing its position as Britain's No 2 grocer, when it overtook Sainsbury's in 2003.  Wal-Mart admitted in May that Asda was suffering in the fiercely competitive British supermarket business and described the store's recent profits as "below plan".

Many retailers are feeling the squeeze as shoppers have reigned in spending in response to higher interest rates and the stalled housing market.  Accordingly, Bond is urging the Bank of England's monetary policy committee to cut the cost of borrowing at its meeting this week. 

About 200 of the jobs being cut are at Asda's head office in Leeds and the head office of its George fashion brand in Lutterworth, Leicestershire. The cuts equate to 1 in 10 of headquarters staff and those affected will leave "in the coming days".  The other 1,200 jobs affected are junior managerial positions in the stores. Mr Bond said the cuts were "very unfortunate for the individuals but important and right for Asda and its customers". The savings would be invested in "frontline customer service".

Bond's five-point strategy focuses on simplicity, prices, cost-cutting, differentiation and improving basic in-store housekeeping.  The chief executive said Asda had become "slightly bureaucratic of late". He promised to keep prices low: "I will make an unequivocal commitment that we will always be the lowest-priced retailer in the UK, whatever that takes."  He said he intends to hammer down costs, run more in-store events and focus on basics, such as shorter queues and filling shelves.

Bond denied the restructuring was a reaction to the recent lower growth and described suggestions that Asda had run out of growth opportunities as "absolute rubbish".  He insisted there was considerable potential in financial services, home shopping and standalone - George and non-food Asda Living stores. The chain is also testing smaller high street outlets.

The chief executive has changed his senior management team, installing David Cheesewright as his deputy and Andy Clark as retail director. Mr Cheesewright left Asda last year to head Wal-Mart Canada, while Mr Clark returns after three years working for Matalan and Iceland. Trading director Angela Spindler is to be customer and strategy director.

SUPERMARKET and RESTAURANT LINKS:

Aldi  - Discount supermarket chain

Aldi (UK) (discount supermarket chain)  This UK site includes details of current weekly special offers (with an option to subscribe to a free email newsletter), store locations and new additions to the range of regular products. It also has links to Aldi web sites in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands and the USA. 

Alldays (UK convenience store chain)

Asda (UK supermarket chain)  This UK supermarket chain was originally established by Associated Dairies (hence the name) but recently taken over by Wal-Mart. 

Auchan (hypermarket chain)

This hypermarket chain based in France but also has a few stores in other countries, including the USA. 

Big W (UK hypermarket chain)  This chain, part of Woolworths, has a store layout and range of good similar to the US chains KMart, Pamida, ShopKo, Wal-Mart, etc. 

Boots or Boots (UK retail chain)  Originally a chemists, Boots now also sell a wide range of goods. Both URL's lead to the same content. 

British Home Stores (BHS) (UK department store chain)

Budgens (UK supermarket chain)

Burger King (UK)  -  Includes a restaurant locator current special offers.

Carrefour (supermarket chain)  This supermarket chain is based in France but also has a large number of stores in several other European countries and other parts of the world.

Co-Op Stores (UK) (UK retail chain)  This site covers the UK Co-op's supermarkets and other shops. There are separate Co-op organisations in some other European countries.

CostCo (UK division of the US membership warehouse retail chain)

Debenhams or Debenhams (UK department store chain)

Both URL's lead to the same content.

Farmfoods (UK supermarket chain)  This chain sells mainly but by no means exclusively frozen food.

Iceland (UK supermarket chain)

Harry Ramsden's Fish And Chips  Includes details of menu items and locations.

John Lewis Partnership (UK department store chain)

Kaufhof (German department store chain)

Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) (UK)  This site includes details of menu items. 

Kwik Save (UK supermarket chain)  A few years ago the Kwik Save chain was purchased by Somerfield.

Lidl (Germany) (European deep discount supermarket chain)

Lidl (UK) (European deep discount supermarket chain)  Includes details of store locations, weekly specials, price reductions and a facility to subscribe to a weekly specials email newsletter.

Littlewoods (UK department store chain)

Londis (UK supermarket chain)

Makro (UK hypermarket chain)  This chain is part of the German Metro group, a "cash and carry" for trade customers only. However, in practice it is very nearly a normal shop at normal proces.

Marks And Spencer (UK department store chain)

McDonald's (UK)  -  Fast food chain

Migros (Swiss supermarket/hypermarket chain)

Morrisons or Morrisons(UK supermarket chain)

Netto (UK) (discount supermarket chain)  Includes details of locations and current special offers, and links to Netto sites in other countries featuring 'Smart Shopping'. By taking a no frills approach and cutting out all those unnecessary extras, we can offer you premium quality at the lowest prices in Britain. By only paying for what you want and nothing else we can give today’s busy customer a different and fresh alternative to grocery shopping. And most importantly of all, save you time and money, every day of every week.

Poundland (UK discount retail chain)  All items in Poundland shops cost £1. 

QD Stores (UK discount retail chain)

Range, The (UK retail chain)  This chain has a small number of large stores with a layout similar to K-Mart and Wal-Mart, but UK prices. 

Safeway (UK supermarket chain)  Most of Safeway's 479 supermarkets in Britain have now been acquired by Morrison's, hence may be re-branded. 

Sainsbury's (UK supermarket chain)

Somerfield (UK supermarket chain)

WH Smith (UK retail chain)  -  WH Smiths sells books, magazines, stationary items.

Spar (UK) (European convenience store chain)  -  This is Spar's UK site. 

Spar (International)  -  This site covers Spar's operations in all countries. 

Subway (UK) - The Subway submarine sandwich chain has 150 locations in UK & Ireland

Superdrug (UK retail chain)  Superdrug is primarily a chemist. 

Tesco (UK supermarket chain)

Upim (Italian department store chain)

Waitrose (UK supermarket chain)  Part of the John Lewis organisation. 

Wimpy's (UK fast food restaurant chain)  Includes details of menu items and a restaurant locator, but no prices.

Solar Cola sponsor this website.

Trade orders accepted from March 2006

SOLOR COLA LAUNCH IN SUPPORT OF THE SOLAR NAVIGATOR WORLD NAVIGATION CHALLENGE

We are looking for distributors in America, Australia, Canada, Europe, and  Japan.  The state of the Cola market globally is set for a fresh quality brand, offering excellent potential for growth.  According to ResearchandMarkets.com  the UK drinks market is worth an estimated £53.5 billion, representing a 7% share of total consumer spending.  

Prospective investors in Solar Cola should consult their own independent investment advisers, and please note this information is provided for general guidance only.  It is not a prospectus, but is provided in response to the number of requests we have received asking for more information

For all trade enquiries please contact: Nelson Kruschandl  at: 

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