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I first came across people who called crisps, crips in Dublin when I was working in a pub some 30 years ago. Seeing it as a brand name at a show last week prompted me to ask one question, why didn't someone think of this before. However, Crips are not crisps but cleverly baked snacks launched three years ago by Karl Traae and his buddy using a patented recipe. They are building distribution by attending trade shows and persuading small multiples, the big grocers and independent food stores to stock the brand. Newsagents and convenience stores are, however, less likely to try the product than shops that specialise in food, says Mr Traae. Why is this? Perhaps because they are not used to explaining the make up of products that they sell. "It someone walks into your shop and they have never seen Crips before and see that they are 70p and ask you what this product is about, are you going to be able to explain how it is made and why it is better for you?" he asks. Which is a g

At an rsp of £3.49, this SFC product is doing well, rival suppliers say. Currently only in the freezer, there are reports of a microwave version for 2011. Southern fried fish is also available. My friend Deepak Tana says the product caught his eye but he does not do frozen in his six stores. I approached the company representative for a story but he did not want to leave the comfort of his chair. He has listings in all the major grocers. Well, perhaps the product sells itself. One to try.

Speaking to a company representative of Bernard Matthews last week, I sense a new optimism from the company that was hit by negative publicity a few years back. The health benefits of turkey are well rehearsed by the company in its marketing and on its web site so I will not repeat them here. More interesting was our discussion of how effective independent shops are at providing a fresh and chilled offer to their shoppers. Many do not get the balance between soft drinks and fresh and chilled food right, with strong branding of the former and a weak offer of the latter. If you are going to have one Bernard Matthews SKU, the chunks pictured are the ones to choose. The £1 offer mimics the red spots used by multiples and complements the green grass imagery of the packs, which also have clear nutritional information. In a big display of Bernard Matthews products it looks great. But how would it stack up in your chilled offer? On its own, would the authority of the healthy message be lost? W

There was a statistic in Fortune magazine's listing of the top 500 companies that caught my attention. Number one company Wal-Mart had just under 1 billion square feet of floor space worldwide. Think of it another way, it is operating 1 million 1,000 sq ft c-stores. This investment in floor space for shoppers shapes the world independent retailers operate in. Back in the UK, last week Tesco announced it was back to business as usual, with sales up and profits up. Its like-for-like sales uplift was 3.2 per cent, which is a useful benchmark for local shopkeepers to use in assessing whether they are ahead of or behind the market. But looking forward, it expects to grow sales by adding space. This year Tesco plans to add 181 Express stores, which is 460,000 extra square feet of selling space and will take its estate to 1,310 shops. In addition it will add 32 One Stop shops, adding 61,000 square feet of selling space and taking it to 540 One Stop outlets. Terry Leahy, chief executive, s

My company runs an annual programme for independent retailers called the Independent Achievers Academy (IAA) that encourages them to do a better job for their customers. Last week, we launched the 2010 version by asking last year's top retailer Rav Garcha to speak to a group of shopkeepers and supportive suppliers. I made a note of his thoughts and I think it is useful to share them with you. I am part of a family business that my father set up in 1982 when he bought a small off licence. The Independent Achievers Academy has helped me and my staff to think about how we can achieve more. After college I worked as a financial advisor but I came back into the family business because I wanted to create something for myself. As an independent our first challenge is how we get a customer who is passing by to come into the shop. We started off by thinking about our window and displays. I started working in our second shop, working from 6am to 9pm, seven days a week. Our first Christmas w

"After a while the crud kept rising. We not only had dirt, we had dirty dirt." This is a famous quote from a former A&P manager who was telling Jim Collins about why his company, which had been the leading supermarket chain in the US for most of the 20th Century failed. When shoppers no longer wanted cheap, its management simply refused to change what they did. It was not that the managers did not know that something was wrong. In fact, they set up a new store that told them what shoppers wanted. Clean stores, more choice, easy parking. But when they saw the solution meant change they simply chose to ignore it. If you are reading this column, ask yourself if this kind of thinking could affect you. Ask yourself how good your shop is. Be honest. Earlier this month, I visited 10 newspaper sellers (one a multiple) unannounced in one town centre. Only two of the shops were in pristine condition and one of these, a gift shop, did not sell newspapers. The other eight were tired

Steve Baldwin, a Southport newsagent and member of the NFRN, hosted a visit from local parliamentary candidate Brenda Porter this week and we soon learned the benefits and difficulties of such a visit. The first hurdle is the need to be polite and welcoming. Mrs Porter is a prominent local politician and an acquaintance of Mr Baldwin. We take some photographs (mine not very good as you can see). Taking a leaf from the NFRN's briefing document sent to its members, Mr Baldwin explains the changes to wholesale contracts that mean he has a fixed carriage charge that he must pay. The charge goes up yearly, even if the price of newspapers falls. Mrs Porter had heard this message from other newsagents earlier today and the message is reinforced. "We do get a good service," Mr Baldwin says, "But the costs keep going up and we need MPs to keep an eye on it!" But it is the tobacco display ban where being in store provides a real impetus for Mr Baldwin. Where will the regu

Shopkeepers may learn good lessons from other shopkeepers who sell completely different ranges. A reason for this is that you are all competing for the attention of customers and today there is an oversupply of things for people to buy. So what works in one store can be adapted by you. I bought a copy of the April issue of Monocle because of its cover line: "The art of sell: the world's best shopkeeping and retail stars". Underneath there was a snappy illustration showing a man about town buying things. The first time I looked at the 25 stars I thought that I had been sold a pup. I was underwhelmed. On a second reading, I started to find stuff that was really interesting. Firstly, the magazine says that its guide is a "celebration of good design, the art of doing the basics well and knowing how to treat people." Looking closely at the photographs you can see how these three values interact. Second, there is a short interview with Bonnie Brooks, president of the

Six out of 10 McDonald's outlets in the UK are run by franchise owners, each of whom contributes 4.5% of sales to the group's marketing budget. This may be a useful benchmark for your business when you think about how much you spend on promoting your business. While McDonald's frachisees expect to see great TV advertising for their money, local retailers might like to think about the strategies behind the advertisements. In 2005 McDonald's had a terrible year in the UK, losing sales and generating bad PR. In the past year, sales have grown by £460 million, chief marketing officer Jill McDonald tells Campaign magazine, driven by £90 million of marketing spend. The turnaround has been achieved by refreshing the outlets, investing in better kitchen equipment so it could deliver hot food faster, and by promoting the quality of its food. If you look behind most successful local shops in the UK you will see a similar pattern: investment in making the store attractive, gettin

Just prior to Easter the UK's Food Standards Agency unveiled its latest initiatives that will affect how the manufacturers of treats develop products for local shops. Portion-sizes for single serves was firmly in the front line as the agency targeted chocolate, soft drinks and biscuits. Its recommendations, based on a "public consultation", are the starting gun of the next phase in tackling obesity. The FSA is asking manufacturers to "make smaller single portion sizes more easily available for chocolate confectionery and soft drinks". It suggests 250ml servings of soft drinks, which may unwind the industry's investment in moving people from 330ml cans to 500ml screw top plastic bottles. It wants a 10% reduction in saturated fat in filled chocolate bars. Proposals for savoury snacks will follow in the summer. Unlike salt, which can be reduced gradually, removing fat from foods means changing the recipe. Big manufacturers have invested millions in making their

"Asda is very one-dimensional. They have only got price in their golf bag. They are a one club golfer", says Greg Lawless, a City consultant talking to the FT about Andy Bond's decision to stand down as chief executive of Asda. This is a ridiculous oversimplification. It also helps to expain how difficult it is to keep investors on side - and by extension customers. Perhaps Mr Bond is leaving because he is bored at having only one club to use. But his successors are unlikely to put the club away. For local retailers, who have seen their margins squeezed and their shoppers lured away by Asda, there is likely to be no relief in the battle to win and retain customers. Big packaged goods companies will still rely on Asda for one in five sales or more. Shoppers in the UK are keener than ever on promotions, accounting for one in three sales according to Kantar Worldpanel. What local retailers may learn from Mr Lawless's comments is the importance of a clear strategy. Asda h

The news that Cadbury is to open café style shops in the UK is further evidence of the strength of the food-to-go market. Reports suggest that the plans were already advanced before Kenco owner Kraft Foods acquired the chocolate-making company. City analysts responded with scepticism, saying if it wanted to be in this market, it would be cheaper to buy an existing chain like Caffe Nero. While 60 coffee shops are unlikely to make a major change in the way that Cadbury supports local shops, on the surface it is likely to be a distraction. Valuable management time will be diverted away from worrying about the pricing of countlines and promoting treats in a way that does not upset the health lobbyists. For local retailers who are already selling hot drinks, the move by Cadbury could help to increase the innovation in the market, with new products to try out and new formats. Cadbury is likely to be closely studying shoppers in an effort to ensure that its cafés are innovative and not a nove

A good idea, good marketing and good sales skills helped Emilio Lavazza spread the concept of the Turin coffee bar through Italy and the world from the 1950s to today. Mr Lavazza, who died earlier this year, and his family business developed vacuum-packed coffee, which meant that cafe-quality coffee became widely available. Secondly, they invested in advertising on television, which set up their coffee brands as the benchmark for quality. Finally, they exported their coffee to the world. The family business started out as a grocery store in 1895 but when Mr Lavazza joined the business as a salesman it specialised in supplying coffee. His passion for all things coffee helped him to persuade his father to invest in technology and marketing. Importantly, he never stopped investing in new ideas and never lost his passion for coffee. This focus made his company the most successful in Italy and has helped the world think of Italy as the home of coffee.

Management Today recently provided some advice to entrepreneurs who hoped to get their products into supermarkets; advice which could be useful to local retailers too! Graham Cassie, who sources local and regional foods for Waitrose, advises suppliers to think about why their product should replace someone else's. "Ask yourself what your product is bringing to the range for the customer," he says. If there is a similar product, "why does your product do a better job?" For local shopkeepers, this is a useful exercise when thinking about stocking new products. Is a new product a novelty - something that will have a short life until shoppers get bored. Or an innovation - something that will change how shoppers think about your business and build new revenue streams. Small suppliers, if persistent, can be successful in supermarkets because they need new products to keep shoppers interested. Your store needs new products too and you need to evaluate what is right for

Humans can't live without salt, but most Americans could do with far less of it, says the latest issue of Time magazine. As local retailers know, the regulators have prepared foods firmly in their sights. It costs the US $24 billion a year in health care costs and 150,000 lives. These statistics, as we know from efforts to stamp out tobacco use, will be hammered into the public arena again and again. (Surely that $24 billion includes lots of jobs in hospitals and medical centres and lots of profits for big pharmaceutical companies!) Back to Time, it helpfully notes that salt "often lurks where you don't expect it. A dollop of cottage cheese, for instance, can pack twice as much of the mineral as a palmful of salted peanuts." And this takes us back to the discussion about portion sizes and disclosure. How big is your dollop? Talking about disclosure, I am looking at a Sainsbury's museli packet that invites consumers to recycle the cardboard and simultaneously claim