Shoppers to snub global for local, says store boss

Edwin Booth, a trustee of the Prince of Wales’s countryside fund, said he would like to see more of Britain’s landmass turned over to food production to meet concerns over sustainability and food security.

He said that regionally sourced products account for 28-30 per cent of sales at Booths, up from 25 per cent five years ago.

The family-owned supermarket group has 29 stores across the North of England, generating revenues of around £280m a year.

Mr Booth told the Yorkshire Post: “The shorter the line between the product and the plate the better the control over its quality.

“With modern production methods I believe it can be delivered on to the plate at a sensible price.”

He said that in 20 years’ time, global brands will not mean as much to consumers as local brands.

“Coca Cola is not going to leave our market. But there will be other drinks which are produced on a more localised basis, which are considered to be attractive because they are well priced, people know where they come from.

“It is like meat, cheese or yoghurt, you name it, if you can produce it locally I think there is a very strong opportunity.”

Mr Booth is also non-executive chairman of Symington’s, the Yorkshire food group which moved noodle production from China to Leeds.

He said the trend for ‘onshoring’ will continue and lead to more wealth flowing back into the pockets of working families.

When Booths opened in Ripon in 2009, local suppliers approached the supermarket with their products.

Some of these now supply the Ripon store, while others are selling direct to the group’s central supply hub for distribution to all stores.

Booths has launched a new web portal for potential suppliers to contact the group. It hosts a Dragons’ Den-style session for producers to present their wares and if successful, they enter discussions to supply stores.

Mr Booth said: “We have to do our best to provide the customer with something which is increasingly exciting.

“A lot of it comes from the region, but not all of it. Provenance is more important than localism.”

Booths has been one of the winners in the increasingly polarised grocery market, reporting a six per cent rise in like-for-like sales during the festive trading season, its best ever.

Mid-market players like Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsbury’s have been hit hard as value rivals like Aldi and Lidl suck up sales.

Mr Booth said the growth of the discounters represents the beginning of structural change in the sector.

He said: “There is a very particular issue for the economy at the moment. We are just moving into the phase now which almost reflects what happened in the industrial revolution when the weavers ceased to carry out manual weaving and it all became mechanised.

“There was then quite a lag before those people benefited from the prosperity that was created.

“In this digital age we are just about to run into that again, which is a massive challenge which again will be addressed by the discounters because they know there is a massive opportunity to serve people who are going to be on the baseline for a long time.”

He is expecting the squeeze to last for three to four years; he has to be careful about how quickly the business grows and where it locates new stores.

The group is working on six live projects for new stores over the coming three years.

Mr Booth said: “I have nothing juicy to tell you about Yorkshire at the moment, only that we are continuing to look for opportunities in North Yorkshire.”

He mentioned Harrogate, Malton, Easingwold and Pocklington as possible locations.

“Many people will say to me, ‘Mr Booth, you don’t put your stores into poor areas’.

“We don’t because we deal with people who like to spend discretionary income on food that tastes great and drink well. Unashamedly. We have done that for 166 years,” he said.

Booths is exploring how it might expand its fast-growing reserve and collect service. It is already increasing the number of own-label products on sale at Amazon.

Mr Booth said the group will look at new ways of taking its products to market, but it has to offer a unique proposition and a profit stream.

“We are a business at the end of the day and this is where the monolithic industry we see before us now has to be very careful,” he added.

Twitter: @bernardginns