The ONS reported this week that food inflation hit 5.1% in August and has now outstripped wage growth. What continues to drive prices up?
The four main contributing factors are rising costs in wholesale, supply, labour and EPR legislation effects. The latter two are driven by legislation, with increases to the minimum wage, increases in employer NI inflating labour costs and new EPR obligations affecting both retailers and suppliers.
Continuing inflation is straining retailer – supplier relationships, creating tension over price increases and resulting in CPI discussions becoming heated. There is also the dilemma of how suppliers can recover the ongoing burden of costs they are experiencing.
For relationships to improve, there is a growing need for trust and commercial empathy. How can this be achieved? To maintain trust during these pressured times, you need to ensure that your sales teams are well trained and highly motivated. One of the key areas where your teams could benefit from training is in GSCOP regulation as this is designed to ensure fair and lawful trading with the UK’s largest grocery retailers.
Have your teams received training? If they have previously received training are they in need of refresher training?
The British Brands Group provides a range of functional training to help you ensure that your customer teams are prepared for the conversations that will result from current pricing pressures. Courses cover Competition law and compliance, GSCOP and Trading with Amazon. All feature a strong commercial bias, being about both understanding and application in the trading world. This training is available as either face-to-face or online offerings.
The British Brands Group is also very open to discuss your specific needs, should you want to run an in-house course exclusively for your team. Feel free to contact us.