East of England, Energy & Post Office

This week I’ve been busy; visiting stores at the East of England Co-operative, seeing colleagues from our Flow Energy acquisition and attending both a Post Office meeting and a Food Brexit conference.  

Before I begin the blog, I want to mention the action of Kellogg’s in the last week, who have launched a range of measures to help make its packaging greener. I welcome this type of initiative and it is very much in line with our own strides to improve recycling and reduce waste.

East of England Co-operative visit

The blog begins with my visit to the East of England Co-op where I saw a number of their stores. The East of England Co-op, based in Ipswich, has stores and services in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire. They are owned by over 281,000 members and operate in a wide variety of trading areas including: Food, Funeral, Travel, Optical, Pharmacy, Post Offices and operate a large Property portfolio.

As I have mentioned in a previous blog where I met with the CEO of the Channel Islands Co-op, it is always great to work alongside other Co-operatives and hear about what they are doing. The East of England Co-op have a very similar set of trading groups to us so it was interesting to discuss how we both operate and how we can work to overcome similar challenges.

The focus of my visit to East of England Co-op was to look at their security monitoring systems and a number of innovations they have introduced across their business for the improved protection of employees, buildings and stock. We will be exploring ways of working with them to introduce a number of these systems into our food stores and other trading operations. I was shown around their funeral operations by Roger Grosvenor, one of the Join Chief Executives, who is responsible for their diverse retail portfolio. As you can see below they have an impressive vintage hearse in operation. 

Flow Energy

Afterwards, Roger and I visited our own Flow energy business, as the East of England Co-op are looking at how they can promote our energy business to their members.

As many of you know, in May Co-op Energy completed its acquisition of Flow Energy. Flow have approximately 120,000 gas and electricity customers. Presently, the business continues to operate as Flow Energy with its own dedicated team and utilises a different IT and billing system to our Coop Energy business and we are currently working on how best to integrate the systems. Paul Robinson, who was instrumental in the success of taking on the GB energy business in 2016, is working with the Flow team in Ipswich to align processes and improve performance. The team at Flow were keen to show me where they have already made significant strides in areas such as customer retention, debt management and complaint handling. There is a great team spirit there and good support for their local community.

Post Office meeting

On Wednesday, I attended a Post Office Limited meeting in London at the Post Offices Head Office with Clare Downs, Head of Commercial Partnerships. We currently operate 81 Post Offices, which provide an important service to the communities in which we serve. In the past 3-4, the Post Office and Retail group have experienced a number of model changes including dedicated Post Office counters and Post Offices on the retail kiosk.

During the meeting, we spoke about integrating the Post Office till system, so that rather than having two separate till systems, we would have one combined till. Post Office Limited are currently trialling this and we will also be looking to trial this within some of our branches soon.

We also discussed looking at new Post Office formats for the future and how to remove some of the challenges that Post Office and Retail colleagues face when operating a Post Office, including simplifying the training that colleagues need. We spoke about streamlining products and services and automation models (Post Office Self Service Kiosks) that can support some of the smaller branches, like the one we are trialling in Summertown Post Office (pictured below). 

Customer needs are changing within Post Office, so it is important that we continue to work in partnership with Post Office Limited to help shape what Post Offices will look like in the future.  

Food Brexit Conference

My week ended with the Food Brexit conference at the Queen Elizabeth conference centre in Westminster. 

The delegates included people from all over the UK food industry including: academics, manufacturers, farmers, retailers, trade organisations and Government. I was on one of the panels giving a retail perspective. 

We discussed in detail the implications for food production and supply if a deal is not agreed for the withdrawal from the EU. In particular how this might affect product availability, prices and standards. There was agreement that continued uncertainty was not helpful, and although most speakers and delegates feel like an agreement will be reached, we continue to plan for all possible scenarios. I made mention of how important our British and local sourcing policies are, particularly in perishable foods and that we would continue to expand and develop this.

And finally, a huge well done to our colleagues who have supported our local charity partner in Warwick, Warwickshire Young Carers. First of all, to the Specialist Services Group who raised an impressive £697 by having a Quiz night and a ‘Bring and Buy’ sale. I’ve heard that great fun was had by all! 

Secondly to colleagues from our Leamington Travel Branch who dressed up and took part in a bake-off. The winner, as judged by Kevin Brown, Group General Manager of Specialist Services, was Beth Smith in Foreign Exchange. Congratulations to all colleagues who took part and raised over £50. A fantastic effort by all. 

Thank you all for reading this week’s blog. Make sure you leave me a comment if you want to hear me discuss anything else in future blogs and I’d really like to hear your thoughts on what I’ve been up to this week.