United Biscuits co-ordinates industry talks

United Biscuits is working with 12 leading independent retailers, including IAA award-winners and nominees, to discuss trends within the category.

Dubbed the retailer Ambassadors Club, the panel intends to convene on a quarterly basis to share feedback on the challenges faced by retailers and on UB’s initiatives.

Hena Chandarana, trade communications controller at United Biscuits, told Retail Express: “We’ve talked about rolling this out and making more of them. Our sales director wants this to be big. If we can prove this model works we could scale it up and go from there.”

United Biscuits is also in the early stages of creating a loyalty scheme for retailers that gives rewards for certain benchmarks.

Retailer view:

Serge Khunkhun, Premier Woodcross, Wolverhampton.

“Going forward we’ll be discussing what works within the category and giving UB feedback on promotions. One thing that works well for me is having £1.75 Chocolate Digestives PMPs on offer for £1 and I mentioned that. Because of our profile with Premier and with the IAA we had one of their reps came out to us first with the new merchandising changes so we are now ahead of the curve.”