Newshound

Plastic bag use nearly halved

        

The Government-backed Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) recently reported that the UK's largest supermarkets have almost halved the number of single-use plastic bags they hand out.

The number of plastic bags used has fallen from 870 million bags in 2006 to 420 million in May 2009. This means the number of bags has fallen by 48% in 24 months, WRAP said.


Asda, The Co-Op Group, Sainsbury's, Somerfield, Tesco and Waitrose are all participating in the agreement. British Retail Consortium director general Stephen Robertson described the reduction as a "spectacular achievement", especially given the 5% sales volume increase seen by participating retailers between 2006 and 2008.

"Changing customer habits on this scale, this quickly, isn't easy… These figures send a clear message: the voluntary approach is very successful and can lead to better informed customers and lasting change," he added.

Eastern brands set for global dominance

The world's next global brand is more likely to emerge from Asia, the Middle East or South America than the US or Europe as global economic wealth shifts.

In research prepared for the Financial Times, consultants Wolff Olins named the five food and drink brands from emerging markets that they predict are set to become global brands.

The brands are:

Juan Valdez Café - a Colombian coffee chain
Almarai - a Saudi dairy and fruit-juice company based in Riyadh
Patchi - a Lebanese boutique chocolate chain
ChangYu - China's biggest wine producer
United Spirits - India's largest liquor group

"It used to be possible to be a global brand by dominating the US market," said Melanie McShane, a strategist at Wolff Olins. "That's changing rapidly. Now you have to be number one in Asia."

The rise of the round pound

Are the days of the 99p deal numbered? The Grocer reported recently that the big four have increased the number of £1 promotional price tags by 150% over the past year. Tesco has designated a "pound shop" area in its stores and Asda features 7,000 £1 lines.

Dr David Lewis, director of research at Mindlab International suggests this could be to do with cost effectiveness as well as convenience: "You probably earn more money in the time it takes for your penny to be given to you," Dr Lewis says, calculating that someone would have to make less than £1.20 an hour to make it worth waiting even 30 seconds for a penny.

The 99-pence price tag was originally developed as a marketing tool to make items appear cheaper. "If you see something which is £3.99," says Dr Lewis, "you look at the first digit and your brain tells you that three is less than four." But these days customers are more savvy and the £1 price tag is a more honest pricing strategy.