Sainsbury’s has moved quickly to quash speculation it may reduce its commitment to English-grown top-fruit after its latest round of supplier rationalisation left Worldwide Fruit out in the cold.
The UK’s third largest supermarket chain is widely reported as having almost totally removed WWF as a top-fruit category supplier - other than for some organic fruit - and shared the business among its two other category suppliers Chingford Fruit and OrchardWorld.
While no precise details of the new structure were made available to the Journal, it is believed that WWF’s business with Sainsbury’s was worth in the region of £25 million and the marketing desk was responsible for as much as 50 per cent of Sainsbury’s English top-fruit volume.
The chain has traditionally over-indexed on English apples and pears and denies that this decision will alter that position. There is an appeals procedure to go through, but should the decision taken last week stand, the procurement of English top-fruit will be in the hands of the two remaining suppliers.
Sainsbury’s top-fruit buyer Neil Gibson told the Journal: "What I cannot do is comment on the outcome of our supply base restructure as that has not been finalised.
“However I would like to confirm that we're committed in our support of British top-fruit and that will continue. I am determined to increase our share going forward.
“Whatever the outcome of the restructuring, it won't change our stance on buying British wherever possible to drive our share of the UK top-fruit market and our support for the growers.
“Year on year, our volume of Cox has shown a 16 per cent rise in the last five weeks. We aim to continue this performance and continue to seek out new and unusual varieties and support the growth of things like UK Braeburn."
WWF chairman Robert Balicki said: “While we totally respect the business decision made by Sainsbury’s, we are obviously extremely disappointed by it. I believe this is not due to anything that WWF has done wrong and it is purely part of the ongoing PICO process at Sainsbury’s. Over time, I think we will prove that this is the wrong decision.”
The desk still maintains business with Sainsbury’s in other categories and Balicki said, while this is a blow, WWF’s turnover remains at around £80m and the business will continue to be profitable.
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