False dawn

In the toughest grocery retail conditions for a generation, it’s not scale so much as fleetness of foot that counts, reveals the latest OC&C Top 150.

If the UK’s food and drink producers did not realise they had been experiencing a momentary calm before the storm, they are now in little doubt a category five hurricane is upon them.

Pressure is intensifying not so much due to fundamentals (the economy is, after all improving) but as a result of seismic structural change wihin the grocery retail industry. As prices are slashed, shares crash, and senior execs are hastened to the exit, supermarket margins have reached their lowest level for almost 30 years.