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Rumours of a tie-up between Palmer & Harvey and Costcutter had been circulating in the industry for more than a year and the logic of the alliance is explained in a short marketing booklet. Together they have set up a not-for-profit Buyco to negotiate the best possible terms. The duo are promising existing customers even better prices than ever before. Will this happen? There is a good chance if the new retail arm can organise its disciplines and demonstrate that it is creating new purchase opportunities for suppliers. What independent retailers have to be realistic about is that Tesco has a six per cent margin advantage because it controls around a third of the market. Simply lumping all their invoices together does not create the value, working collaboratively to meet shopper needs does. P&H has handed over all its symbol group convenience operations to Costcutter as part of this deal. Thus its Mace and SuperShop members will be managed by the team at Costcutter. P...

As you can see from this photograph of PR girl Suzi Price standing in front of the doors, the new fridge freezer (the rooms behind her) at Palmer and Harvey's new Hemel Hempstead distribution depot is very large. Along with a team of trade journalists, I visited the newly refurbished depot last week after a £6.5 million fit out. Julian Streeter, managing director of operations for P&H, explained that this depot was an investment in capacity for growth. Its two depots serving London and the south east of England were reaching capacity. The Hemel Hempstead location to the north west of London was a great fit with his existing network of 14 sites around the UK. Between them they make 48,000 deliveries a week to everyone from Tesco to the local independent c-store. What may concern independent operators in the south east is that Mr Streeter, pictured here in front of the ambient storage in the 168,000 sq ft depot, says that growth in the south east is being led by the multi...

I snapped David Morgan of Real Organic as he received feedback  from trade journalists on the quality of his range of cooking sauces. Mr Morgan joined around 50 other small suppliers in the Market that was bolted on to the front of wholesaler Palmer and Harvey's Pro-retail show in Telford last month. In a fantastic book introducing the small suppliers, the wholesaler says: "By chatting to these [suppliers] we hope you'll gain new insights into what could be the next big thing in retail: small." Whether or not this was the case, by chatting to these small businesspeople, independent retailers will  have had an opportunity to recharge their entrepreneurial batteries. If supermarkets put fruit and vegetables inside the front door to slow shoppers down and get them picking products up - stimulating the buying process - then the market must have worked similarly for retailers on the hunt for new ideas to use in their shops. It certainly worked for me. Steve Bailey...

At the launch party for Pro-retail 2012 held in London this January most of the independent retailers there told me they were inspired by Palmer and Harvey’s taster event for the Futurezone. The Futurezone is a multi site feature of this year’s Pro-Retail trade exhibition to be held at Telford on 24 and 25 April. So when I saw the pre-publicity for Michio Kaku’s new book, Physics of the Future , and its promise to show what the world would be like in the year 2100, I was inspired to have a read and to report back to local retailers on what the future holds. The book delivers on this promise but on so much more as well. If you are a business person who likes new ideas and to think about what may work this is a book for you This paragraph from his introduction hooked me. If you like it you will love the book. “Later, when I was in high school, I decided to follow in the footsteps of these great scientists and put some of my learning to the test. I wanted to be part of this great r...

Analysis of the UK's £32 billion and fast growing convenience market by Ed Garner of KantarWorldpanel shows that fresh and chilled is where Tesco Express is putting its emphasis. Speaking just after him at Sweet Charity's Independent Retailer Conference, Chris Etherington, chief executive of wholesaler Palmer and Harvey, said that fresh was nowhere near as high as it should be on the agenda of the independent trade. A reason for this is that the wholesale industry is not as good at delivering this as it should be. The major multiples are very good at it. We need to get better, Mr Etherington said. In a speech that was otherwise optimistic about the growth prospects for local shops, this was an important caveat. Mr Etherington, who heads the UK's largest wholesaler by sales, says that the market will grow. "It is a great, great opportunity and it's the shoppers that are doing it," he said. But how soon can the wholesalers get it right? This week's n...

It was the stream of shoppers visiting Steve Archer’s new convenience store in Newcastle-under-Lyme last week that really underlined his point that sometimes local shopkeepers cannot see the opportunity under their noses. He had persuaded the landlord of two small closed shops to let him lease them, knock them together and provide a full convenience offering including off licence. Nearby retailers led a petition of their customers to oppose the off licence and lost. “Local people really like the idea of being able to walk to their shop, rather than travel to the supermarket,” Steve told me. I could see this was true with my eyes. Mr Archer’s message is pretty much the same as the one Justin King, the boss of Sainsbury, told the national media at a City dinner around the same time. Shoppers are going “back to the future”, Mr King said, making more frequent trips and putting fewer items in their baskets. There is a big opportunity, Ed Garner, communications director of Kantar Worldpanel,...

The bar at Vanilla is "entirely done in eyeball-searing white". Hidden underneath an anonymous office block, the  trendy London meeting place is accessed via entryphone and subterranean staircase, like some illegal drinking den, the reviewer for the Independent newspaper noted. It was the perfect space for leading wholesaler Palmer & Harvey to launch its 30th Pro-retail exhibition, which takes place on April 24 and 25 this year and will include a dedicated future zone, showcasing upcoming trends for independent retailers. Seeing Vanilla was part of the attraction of coming to the event for Pindar Cheema, a Coventry retailer, who was wowed by the ideas showcased in an exclusive preview of the future zone. It gets you thinking about what shoppers are looking for, he says. Martyn Ward, commercial director of Palmer & Harvey, demonstrated how mobile technology might drive sales by inviting leading suppliers and retailers at the launch to take part in a simple text ...