Farmfoods
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Farmfoods is the name of a supermarket chain in the United Kingdom. Farmfoods specialise in frozen food and also gain sales through an ever growing range of grocery items.
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[edit] History
Farmfoods is one of the most successful privately-owned businesses in the United Kingdom and has traded profitably for nearly 50 years.
From its roots as an Aberdeen-based meat manufacturing business, Farmfoods began to freeze products to enable a wider geographical distribution to catering outlets. Steadily, products were dispatched further afield, to major Scottish cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh and with growth, further lines such as McCain chips were introduced.
By 1975 the entire business had changed and focused on retail rather than wholesale supply. An experimental freezer centre was set up in Aberdeen and was very successful. A further 10 freezer centres were introduced and the modern Farmfoods was formed.
[edit] Acquisitions
Farmfoods operated 31 stores in 1988 and gained initial entry into England through the acquisition of 18 stores from Wallis Frozen Foods.
In the early 1990s, Farmfoods expanded further with the acquisition of Capital Freezer Centres.
As of April 2005, Farmfoods operates from over 300 specialist freezer centres stretching from Invergordon in the North of Scotland to London in the South of England.
Farmfoods stores are typically located in city and town centres, often in shopping centres.
[edit] Store format and trading style
Layouts vary from store to store but generally take the form of aisles with waist-height novum freezer cabinets running along each side. Shelving is commonly installed above the cabinets where grocery items are merchandised. Bulk stacks are often found in the centre or end of isles to stock large quantities of popular grocery items such as 5 for £1 cans of juice or toilet roll, which the company sells a lot off. These bulk displays are placed on top of plastic plinths to protect them from damage.
There are many exceptions to this generalisation. Some stores have sections with full hight shelving. These house groups of products such as pet food or the ever-growing selection of Toiletry/Household items. In the past the design of each shop had been tailored to the general layout of the store. Since many of the older stores were not built to be freezer centres they are often too small and awkwardly shaped making them hard to traverse. Recently the company has developed a standard wheelchair friendly layout which all the new and much larger stores, such as Cumbernauld, Cambuslang and Coatbridge, all conform too.
In 2005 Farmfoods changed the maximum height of shelving in all of its stores. This was a reaction to a number of staff related accidents related to staff either falling off cabinets or falling through the glass lids while attempting to stock the high shelves. At around this time a poster was placed on all staff notice boards highlighting the dangers of standing on freezer lids and stating this practice was strictly forbidden.
The number and size of the checkouts at each store also depends on store size. Smaller stores tend to have only two or three checkouts with only space for a customer to place a basket onto the checkout for the casher to empty out as they scan through each item. Larger stores are gradually having their checkouts replaced with new conveyor belt driven counters. These provide considerably more space to place scanned items and allow the checkout experience to be more streamlined for customers with trolleys as they are not still lifting their shopping from the trolley onto the counter white they are being served. All new stores opened by the company have these new checkouts.
Farmfoods stores typically have a small staff base and a large base of regular shoppers. Farmfoods caters to a wide variety of customers, especially pensioners and families with young children. Items are individually priced, and most have a multi-buy price (for example, 30p or four for £1).
[edit] Grocery Items
Although the company initially and still focuses on providing top quality frozen food it has developed a large range of grocery items in recent years. The grocery range originally consisted of only Farmfoods branded items but recently there has been shifts toward selling items from well know brands such as H. J. Heinz Company and Princes with most of the own branded items being discontinued.
[edit] Litigation
In March 2007 Farmfoods was fined more than £23,000 after being found guilty of selling food that was unfit for human consumption. This was a result of a mice infestation at its Kirkby store and led to a company wide initiative to deep clean all the stores especially behind cabinets and in back shop areas.[1]
[edit] Mission statement and training
All staff are required to learn the company's mission statement and be able to recite it on command.
- "Farmfoods, Britain's Frozen Food Specialists, sell top quality frozen foods and groceries at fantastic prices, in clean and tidy stores where the customer is the VIP, and the personal service is VERY SMILEY!"
This is printed on the front cover of each of the sections of the 'Know about Farmfoods' staff-training program, which new members of staff must complete within a few months of starting, to receive a ‘Know about Farmfoods’ certificate recognising their training.[2] The program covers a number of areas including health and safety, stocktaking, hygiene, tills, customer service and security.
[edit] References
- ^ "Mice infestation costs Farmfoods store more than £23,000", Knowsley Online. Article dated 2007-03-09, retrieved 2007-03-26.
- ^ Know about Farmfoods! Staff training programme. Publication: March 2007
[edit] External links
Major chains: ASDA • Marks & Spencer • Morrisons • Sainsbury's • Somerfield • Tesco • Waitrose
Convenience stores: Budgens • Co-op • Costcutter • Londis • SPAR
Discount chains: ALDI • Kwik Save • Lidl • Netto
Frozen foods: Farmfoods • Iceland
