Nisa’s Managing Director Peter Batt – End of year message 2023
Season’s greetings to everyone!
The past 12 months has been extremely tough for everyone in the market with inflation, the cost-of living crisis, and the worst summer on record for a number of years. Shopper behaviour has totally changed, and own brand has become more and more prominent which has been great news for us because our Co-op own brand range is a fantastic proposition. Over 90% of our retailers and partners are investing in Co-op own brand and we’re looking forward to some brand-new products and even better availability in 2024.
There is also an opportunity for smarter digital opportunities with shoppers now looking at home delivery options or looking at how they can shop in a different way. We are excited because we’ve got great partnerships, including a new agreement with Just Eat, to give us the platform to look in a more progressive way at how we interact with both our shoppers and our customers.
Another important issue to address from 2023 is retail crime and I’m very proud that the Co-op and Nisa have been at the front of this campaign. We’ve been highlighting to the Government and all MPs just how important colleague and customer safety is and you’ll see the differences we are going to make in 2024.
From a Nisa perspective in 2023, price investment has been at the forefront of our thinking, and we’ve made a significant number of investments in several key categories including beers, wines and spirits, tobacco, and confectionery. We will continue to do that to ensure we have market leading prices. The feedback we receive from our customers is vital and that is telling us we are going in the right direction, but we still have work to do.
We are also relaunching our Fresh Rewards rebate scheme at the start of next year. We’ve listened to our customer feedback and the main request was for simplicity. Hopefully we have delivered that with the change to a spend based rebate having listened to the feedback from the trial.
I was amazed at how good the Nisa Expo event was this year. This is my second year in role, and it was even better and brighter than the first. I had so many people come up to me to tell me how delighted they were with the event, meeting new customers, meeting our colleagues, and getting a sense of travel for the Co-op and Nisa. The Expo remains a key part of the Nisa calendar, providing many benefits and engagement opportunities for all involved and we’re looking at how we can deliver an even better experience for our customers and bring the most benefit to us all. We’ve been speaking with our retailers and have taken on board their feedback and will therefore be resetting the timing of our next Nisa Expo, which will fall in spring, as it did pre-pandemic. Many retailers find it difficult to take time away from their stores in the busy trading period leading up to Christmas. Whilst this does mean that there will be no Nisa Expo in 2024, it will allow us to return to a date earlier in the year and relaunch in spring 2025.
I’m never prouder than when I attend awards ceremonies and see Nisa retailers and partners winning and it seems we’ve had an entourage of winners this year across many different awards. It has been a pleasure to attend so many of them and congratulations one final time to all the Nisa winners in 2023.
As we close 2023, our Making a Difference Locally charity is now at £17 million donated. What a fantastic charity it is! The amount of work we do every year together with our retailers and their local
communities is brilliant and will go on and on as we continue through 2024.
As we go into 2024, I’m proud to start working with a brand-new senior leadership team and we’ve got a new long-term strategy which we will be gradually communicating to show our direction of travel towards 2030. We are going to become even more customer obsessed and I want to see all our colleagues out in stores and making decisions based on what they see and hear first-hand from our customers. We’re also going to be working with retailers and governing bodies to continue our work on retail crime and colleague safety. We know we still have a lot of work to do to make sure our colleagues, customers and shoppers all feel safe in 2024.
Thank you to everyone for their support in 2023 and thank you for your feedback. I look forward to seeing many of you over Christmas, the New Year and in 2024.
I wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
Peter
Watch the full video message here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5h0ySCYMek