The Grocer – 24 August 2019

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6 | The Grocer | 24 August 2019 Get the full story at thegrocer.co.uk

The latest attraction at Alton Towers is not a

rollercoaster but a Coca-Cola delivery robot. CCEP

Ventures has joined forces with TeleRetail to test

the “state-of-the-art technology”. The company

said if it was a success the tech could be scaled up

to be used in larger delivery vehicles.

Alton Towers hosts Coke delivery robot

Tesco is moving towards a

‘closed loop’ system

Tesco has launched the
second phase of its war
on plastic, after holding
meetings with more than
1,500 suppliers to agree
on new packaging design
rules.
The supermarket
announced in May 2018
it would ban all packag-
ing unsuitable for recy-
cling from the end of this
year, as it moves towards
a ‘closed loop’ system.
The new phase of its
Remove, Reduce, Reuse
& Recycle plan has set
out four steps to govern
packaging design across
all product categories.

Tesco announces four steps in

second phase of war on plastic

It said its steps were:

“Remove all non-recy-

clable and hard-to-recy-

cle material; where we

can’t remove, reduce it

to an absolute minimum

including excess packag-

ing; explore new oppor-

tunities to reuse it and,

if we can’t, ensure it is

all recycled as part of a

closed loop.”

Having announced

its ambition in 2018 to

remove hard-to-recycle

materials, Tesco said it

would have eliminated

the hardest to recycle

packaging from own-

brand products by the

end of 2019.

Products banned

include PVC, poly-

styrene, oxo-degra-

dable materials, PLA

(polylactic acid), water-

soluble bioplastics and

industrial compostable

materials.

The Co-op is looking to
put pressure on local
councils to accelerate the
rollout of household food
waste collections.
It is writing to the near-
half of all local authori-
ties that do not collect
food waste in a bid to
encourage weekly collec-
tions and acceptance of
compostable bags.
The society is keen for
this to happen sooner
than the date the govern-
ment is working to – 2023

• for homes to get weekly
  kerbside food waste col-
  lections. It said of the
  169 local authorities that
  do already collect food
  waste 12% did not accept
  compostable bags. The
  Co-op has written to
  these 20 local authorities.
  Its efforts come as new
  figures from Wrap data
  show about 1,000 tonnes
  of food waste a day ends
  up in landfill.

Co-op urges

local councils

to step up on

food waste

Morrisons to shut four

stores after slow sales

Morrisons Crawley superstore is one of four set to close

Ian Quinn

Morrisons has

announced plans to close

four of its stores, with the

possible loss of hundreds

of jobs.

The supermarket said

the decision had been

taken after a review of

the performance of its

existing estate. The stores

to close are Crawley, Ince

near Wigan, Shirley in

Solihull and Swindon

Regent Circus.

Morrisons said it had

begun a consultation

process. “As we con-

tinue to focus on build-

ing a broader, stronger

Morrisons, we are con-

stantly reviewing oppor-

tunities for new stores

and the performance of

our existing estate,” a

spokesman said.

“We are planning to

invest in four new stores

this year and we are

regrettably proposing to

close four. We will now

be going through a con-

sultation process at the

stores and will be dis-

cussing how to reduce

redundancies and, where

possible, redeploy our

highly valued colleagues

within the business.”

It is believed the deci-

sion to close the stores

was taken because of

poor local sales figures.

Morrisons was the

worst performer among

the big four in the latest

set of Kantar results on

Tue s d ay, w it h it s m a r-

ket share falling to 10.1%

during the past 12 weeks,

down 2.7%.

Bruno Monteyne, sen-

ior analyst at Bernstein,

said there had been a

“marked difference” to its

performance compared

with the start of the year

when it “tussled to be the

best performer among

the big four”.

House broker and

Shore Capital analyst

Clive Black has said

Morrisons could be vul-

nerable to a takeover

attempt, thanks to its

share price drop of 30%-

plus over the past year,

combined with its strong

freehold property port-

folio and low debt level.

“We believe the Greene

King offer is not irrele-

vant to Morrisons’ invest-

ment thesis and other

asset-backed, cash-gen-

erative British compa-

nies,” he added.