JamieOliver.com

At the beginning of this year a farm shop in Norfolk made the news for waging a price war against their local Tesco and advertising the fact that their fruit and veg was considerably cheaper than their supermarket rival. I hope that several of us have learnt lessons this year on the way we price our goods. It has become an essential part of our jobs for some of us to regularly check the prices of goods in the supermarkets and ensure that we are not coming over as being too expensive. In fact we can do more than that!

It is a myth amongst consumers that supermarkets are cheap for all products and certainly far cheaper than any independent. This simply is often not the case for fresh produce, meat, fish, fruit and vegetables. And I believe we need to work harder to expose the lie that supermarkets are always cheaper. Yes they are for certain products and gourmet food suppliers will never get near them on price in some of these cases, but there we have an opportunity to emphasize our quality. I had the misfortune to buy some steak at a local supermarket the other day (whilst I was out price-checking some products) and despite being marketed as premium, it was absolutely terrible, and probably no more expensive than a better product at my local farm shop.

Loss leaders. This is something the supermarkets regularly do to get punters into the shop and spending money, but most independent shops don’t consider this as a marketing strategy. We don’t need to sell at a loss, but sell at cost and if it is a popular product, new customers will come in and make your margin elsewhere, whether that be more shopping or in the coffee shop. Let me know the products where you have tried this and it works.

Finally a story from my local Waitrose this week. Again I was out price-checking certain goods, and had bought a few token items. Standing in the basket check-out, the lady in front of me (aged 36) was buying a bottle of wine and was asked for proof of age – a very unnecessary question in view of her age! She didn’t have any, and as a result couldn’t buy the bottle of wine despite her protestations. As a favour, I whispered to her that I would buy the wine and give it to her outside. I grabbed the wine off the counter, was told by Waitrose staff that I couldn’t buy it. I said actually I can as I am a paying customer. I walked past the 36-year-old, saying that I would sort out the wine and money outside, went outside and waited – and nothing happened. After five minutes I gave up and went home with a bottle of wine I didn’t want! So much for being a good Samaritan!

Posted by Paul Hargreaves

Visit Specialty Bites for more posts related to gourmet food suppliers