Asda food trading director Darren Blackhurst is keen to sing the praises of the retailer’s revamped food offer, but as James Thompson reports, inflation is threatening to strike a note of discord

Like most dads, Asda food trading director Darren Blackhurst likes to spend weekends with his children. Unlike most retail executives, however, Blackhurst regularly spends a couple of hours at the weekend jamming with his son and daughter.

Blackhurst plays the guitar – he owns six – and is partial to grabbing the microphone. The youngsters play guitar, drums and saxophone.

“The great thing is they come up with all these different riffs on the guitars and drum beats and we end up putting lyrics and melody lines to it and having a bit of fun,” he says.

The retailer has written six songs and quips that by the time he retires he will have enough for an album – “although I don’t think I will use it as a fall back for my career”, he admits.

Away from the recording studio, Blackhurst acknowledges that Asda was not in the best shape when he joined in January 2006 after spending 18 years at its rival Tesco.

“I came into a business two years ago that was heading in the wrong direction,” he says. “What I have tried to do is to put in a very simple framework for food. I wanted to be very clear about why we are here.”

Two ways Asda has simplified its food operation include putting more lines on the end of aisles and replacing shelving with clear displays on pallets. The Wal-Mart-owned grocer also runs fewer promotions. For instance, it has cut the number of wine promotions to focus on a three-for-£10 offer on its 50 best-selling wines, including Banrock Station and Blossom Hill.

A more strategic objective has been to broaden Asda’s appeal beyond its core customer base. To this end, the grocer has invested heavily in expanding its own-brand food offer over the past two years.

“One of the key strategic imperatives is that we need to broaden core customers. We have extended our premium ranges, organic and whole food ranges and we now sell more local than other retailers.

“Collectively, that has been a core port of our growth over the past year and we have now got a platform for attracting a broader customer base,” says Blackhurst.

The strategy seems to be paying dividends. Sales of organic lines rose 26 per cent last year with the premium Extra Special range enjoying a 66 per cent increase. This has helped the grocer to increase its number of socio-economic group AB customers by more than 5 per cent over the past two years.

However, Blackhurst admits that Asda, like other grocers, is having to contend with severe food price inflation this year. “This is an intense inflationary period, driven by different factors, whether it be demand in countries such as India and China for food, climate change affecting supply or demand for bio-fuel,” he says. He declined to comment further on Asda’s food price inflation.

To combat inflationary pressures, Asda is leaning on suppliers to cut their prices, although Blackhurst says this is a collaboration. “I would certainly want us to be able to challenge our suppliers in an open and honest way if we believe they can operate for less so that we can deliver more for customers,” he argues.

“While inflation may be hitting the industry overall, we pride ourselves on the fact that we are working very hard to keep our price proposition below that of our competitors.”

Reduced packaging is a key way that Asda has worked with suppliers to cut costs. According to Blackhurst, Asda has slashed packaging levels by 25 per cent in the past year.

In terms of his own career, Blackhurst declined to comment on speculation that he could be in the frame to get the chief operating officer job at Asda, which the highly regarded David Cheesewright held before we went back to run Wal-Mart Canada last month.

Even if such a promotion to become Asda chief executive Andy Bond’s number two does not come to fruition, Blackhurst will still have played a key role in the recovery of the grocer’s food business.

Whatever happens, it looks a safer bet that Asda will continue to enhance its food offer than that Blackhurst will get his own record deal.

CAREER CONNECTIONS

Age: 41
Family: married with two children
Lives: with family in Cambridge and an apartment in Leeds

CAREER HISTORY
2006-present: food trading director, Asda
2002-05: commercial director, Tesco Thailand
1998-2002: category director, Tesco
1995-97: Tesco’s Catteau chain in France
1988-95:
numerous buying positions at Tesco