ACS Summit19, Fairtrade Easter & USDAW’s Save our Shops Campaign

This week I attended the Association for Convenience Stores, the voice of local shops, Summit19 in Birmingham. Summit19 is the ACS flagship event, bringing together expert opinions from retailers and speakers from across the industry. There were two sessions, the first focussed on how products are going to reach the consumer in the future. It investigated the trends and developments changing the retail supply chain and how consumers purchase products. The second focussed on the product offer of the future and looked at what convenience stores could be selling, and how these products and services will make the sector even more relevant to the lives of consumers. For more information click here.

With Easter fast approaching many of you will be buying Easter eggs for friends and family. This year is the 25^th anniversary of the Fairtrade Federation so by choosing Fairtrade chocolate you can support this important cause by helping poor farmers and workers around the world. Our Coop Irresistible range includes many different Fairtrade eggs to crack open this Easter so there is something to satisfy each of the chocoholics in your life. My favourite is the new Co-op Irresistible Single Origin Ecuadorian Milk Chocolate Cocoa Pod. It not only looks fantastic but was voted best milk chocolate egg in a blind tasting challenge by Good Housekeeping. With its bronzed pod design and accompanying milk chocolate truffles, it is sure to impress!

Easter is also a time when we think of others so please also consider contributing to one of our food banks. If you don’t know where to find your local food bank please talk to your Regional Ambassador.

Many of you will have heard me talk about providing Clarity, Unity and Intensity in everything that we do across the Society.  With this in mind, the Executive introduced the concept of Leader Principles; 10 ways of working and behaviours that colleagues should demonstrate in their everyday work.

In the spirit of involving others, a number of colleagues around the business were involved in bringing the principles to life via a dedicated infographic here. This is to help all colleagues understand the principles and help embed them into the culture of Midcounties. The first leader principles is “Are clear about what is for today and what is for the future” which is about the Societies common strategic approach framework, which can be found here. I encourage you to familiarise yourselves with these principles.

Since the launch of the One Change campaign, we have received over 500 pledges from colleagues and members across the Society. As of today, I have made my pledge and I encourage everyone to do the same as a small change in our behaviour can make a big difference. By acting locally, we can make an impact globally. Click here to make your pledge today.

I also attended a Colleague Council meeting this week where our representative for USDAW, the retail union, brought my attention to an important petition campaigning for the Government to take urgent action to ‘Save Our Shops’. Retailers are finding it increasingly difficult to trade on the high street, due to unsustainable property costs, such as rent, rates and parking charges. Three million people are employed directly in the retail sector, and another 1.5 million jobs rely on the success of shops. USDAW are calling for:

• Economic measures to create a more level playing field between the High Street and online retailing.

• Fair pay and job security for retail workers.

• Government action to protect jobs in the retail sector.

If you would like to sign their petition please click here and help ‘Save Our Shops’.

That’s all for this week and I look forward to sharing more with you in the next blog, feel free to leave your comments below!