Produce category director Steve Murrells made it a personal goal to win the award when he was appointed last year. "One of the most important things to me was to be seen within our industry to be leading," he said. "In previous years I think we have done ourselves an injustice by not demonstrating what we are doing. But this year the team put together an outstanding brochure and I see no reason why we should drop our standards going forward.
The judging panel for the awards run by Checkout magazine said Tesco had a strong strategy for the future based on developing clear policies to improve its overall results.
Murrells attributed a lot of Tesco's success to knowing what is important to customers. "We have very able and trained staff in store who understand the products," said Murrells. "We have achieved this by up-skilling staff in terms of their product knowledge through workshops and information booklets, for example."
Tesco has also worked hard on product availability and ease of access within store. "It is matter of having products in store at the right time all the time," said Murrells. "We have improved our fixtures and fittings with merchandisable units on wheels for bananas ñ our single biggest line ñ for example so that we can offer 30 per cent more bananas in the same shelf space. And we have re-launched our ways of working so that we can have 25 per cent more stock on the shop floor in the same space."
Coupled with this is the store's Essence signage featuring high-quality photo images to make it easier for shoppers to find what they are looking for in the produce section.
Judges also highlighted Tesco's Nature's Choice scheme as a recognised world-leading ethical procurement code. And Tesco has further plans for the code over the next 12 months. "Nature's Choice is in its 10th year, but we have never really shouted about it to customers," said Murrells. "This year we are going to start to communicate the message on packaging: when they buy at Tesco they are getting great prices with the addition of Nature's Choice."
Capespan helped sponsor the awards and the firm's Martin Dunnett was on the judging panel. "Tesco won because of its all-round performance," he told freshinfo. "The standards this year were incredibly high and it really was very close at the top, but Tesco came in just in front because of its performance across all the criteria: including training, ethical standards, quality and the delivery of new initiatives throughout its whole [fresh produce] business."
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