Asda is to invest a further £27m in quality improvements across its fresh food business, with “market-leading quality specifications” introduced across all its fresh meat and produce categories as it seeks to further boost sales.
The grocer has trebled the number of quality inspectors employed throughout its supply chain process and the retailer claims that as a result, sales of key meat and fish lines have already increased significantly.
Asda has introduced more stringent butchery specifications on all its fresh meat and now insists that all the cod and haddock sold on its fish counters and in pre-pack, is line caught and as a result sales of fish products are up between 34-58% by category.
Last year the retailer invested more than £100m revamping its entire core range of Asda brand food. As a result, ‘Chosen by you’ is now the fastest growing mid-tier own label brand in the UK according to Kantar. Chosen by You represents around 80% of Asda’s own label food sales, equivalent to annual sales of between £8-9bn.
Asda president and chief executive Andy Clarke said: “We are now embarking on the next phase of our quality programme.
“And through a combination of significantly more quality controls on our farms and in our depots, and by removing unnecessary middlemen along the way, we’ve been able to enhance the quality of our fresh food and keep prices low.”
Separately, Asda has launched a trade-in service for second-hand gadgets.
The Asda Tech trade-in accepts mobile phones, satnavs, digital cameras, MP3 players and portable games consoles, and from June customers will be able to trade in larger electronic goods such as laptops, tablets and games consoles.
The service is backed by a pledge that Asda will not be beaten on price by Mazuma, Envirofone, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Boots and it will scan the prices offered by these competitors at the time the electrical item is entered on the Asda site. If the customer can show that Asda’s price is not the best offer in 24 hours, it will pay the difference.
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