Natures Way Foods, the UK prepared salads specialist, has been signed up by Tesco to supply its soon-to-be-launched US stores.
The West Sussex supermarket supplier is reportedly about to build a new production site near Tesco’s proposed food processing and distribution centre, in Riverside, California.
This morning’s Financial Times names NWF, along with poultry supplier 2 Sisters Food Group, as Tesco’s first two confirmed UK supplier imports into the US.
FPJ has learned that a number of other home-based suppliers to the UK’s number one retailer have been in discussions about future collaboration, as Tesco prepares for its entrance into the US market with a tried and trusted supplier network.
No-one at NWF was available to comment to freshinfo this morning. Set up to serve Tesco with salads in 1994, it has never before operated outside of the UK. It has established Wild Rocket Foods in the US to recruit staff for the new venture.
Writing in the FT, Andrew Hills said: “…there are plenty of reasons why Tesco and other supermarkets need to be friendly [to their suppliers].”
He suggests that Tesco needs established suppliers to tackle the crucial prepared-meal sector in the US, that sharing of information and ideas will be vital in the efficiency battle with other big retail chains, and that “a reputation for exploiting suppliers would be poor politics as well as poor business”.
Hills concluded: “It would be no surprise if Tesco found more ways to bind itself closer to its trusted suppliers in the coming months.”
Elsewhere in the press, it is also reported that the construction of Tesco’s 88-acre Riverside centre is facing a lawsuit launched by local residents, although the retailer is confident its plans will not be altered.
