Changes on the High Street

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Near our Rutland house, we've got a crappy Tesco, a shit Co-op (both 30Ksq ft stores); a usual Aldi and a usual Lidl - both highly downmarket for food..

Thank goodness for Waitrose in nearby Stamford.

You might find that some of the Aldi and Lidl produce is as good as Waitrose if not better.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by papa smurf

Oh Tarquin you poor thing,have an avocado and a glass of bolly

Indeed - those items are available at all four local supermarkets. But for real food .....

Oh - and there's Otters Deli in Oakham. Top stuff.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Indeed - those items are available at all four local supermarkets. But for real food .....

Oh - and there's Otters Deli in Oakham. Top stuff.

Mmm, see you could pay more tax, better the NHS than Otters Deli..

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Indeed - those items are available at all four local supermarkets. But for real food .....

Oh - and there's Otters Deli in Oakham. Top stuff.

Loved Rutland when I was posted there (2 x training courses @ RAF North Luffenham (near Edith Weston), with side jaunts to Bletchley Park) - Oakham and Stamford had some cracking pubs.

Got to visit it when I was a civvy in the 80s, as one of my brothers-in-law lived in Harringworth - the local pub had lovely pints of Pedigree and Ruddles County, and there were often "lock ins" for the locals (and their guests) as it was in the middle of nowhere, so unlikely that passing plod would interrupt.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Indeed - those items are available at all four local supermarkets. But for real food .....

Oh - and there's Otters Deli in Oakham. Top stuff.

A lot of Aldi and Lidl produce is the same as Waitrose.

In that it's literally the same food with different stickers, from the same warehouses.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Stephen

A lot of Aldi and Lidl produce is the same as Waitrose.

In that it's literally the same food with different stickers, from the same warehouses.

Indeed Waitrose just sell it at a premium price.

[denphone]

Shopping centre owner Intu expected to go into administration.

https://www.theguardian.com/business...administration

Intu Properties said on Friday it was likely to go into administration after the shopping centre owner failed to secure an agreement with its creditors.

The company, whose centres include Lakeside in Essex and the Trafford Centre in Manchester, has debts of more than £4.5bn and said it had been unable to persuade lenders to grant a debt repayment holiday before Friday night’s deadline. The company owns a total of 17 shopping centres across the UK.

Originally Posted by Stephen

A lot of Aldi and Lidl produce is the same as Waitrose.

In that it's literally the same food with different stickers, from the same warehouses.

Not sure it's that simple - they may be produced in the same factory, but often to different specifications.

Found this on another site

A lot of the supermarkets have the same suppliers, for example Noon foods produces almost all the curry ready meals for every supermarket. What does differ though is the specification of the product.

The supermarkets product technologists design and trial the product, then the specification is given to the supplier to manufacture.
Lots of own label products are made by big companies like nestle and unilever that also produce their own brands.

Just because the products come from the same supplier doesn't mean the specification is the same though. The ingredients, product sourcing, pack size etc... are all variables.

A good example is fig biscuits, they are all made by jacobs for all the supermarkets own brand version but each supermarket has a different fig content and sugar content.

Supermarket label squash is another good example, Tesco squash is sweetened with aspartame, an artificial sweetner, Sainsbury's squash is sweetened with sucralose, a natural sweetner but they are both produced by the same supplier.

[Carth]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Not sure it's that simple - they may be produced in the same factory, but often to different specifications.

Where I work, we make our own product, and also many supermarket branded products. The 'main' ingredient is the same, but other specs vary according to customer (supermarket) requirements.

[heero_yuy]

Quote from The Sun:

The owner of Lakeside and the Trafford Centre shopping centres has collapsed into administration after failed talks with lenders.

But Intu Properties says its shopping centres will stay open for the time being despite admitting earlier today that some could close if crunch talks failed.

The group owns 17 shopping centres in the UK, including the Victoria Centre in Nottingham and Intu Watford, as well as three in Spain.

It employs about 3,000 staff across the UK, while a further 102,000 work for the shops within its shopping centres.

The Sun has asked Intu how many jobs are at risk as a result of the administration and whether any shopping centres could be shut in future, and we'll update this article once we hear back.

Intu had been desperately trying to secure breathing space from repaying debts in a bid to keep the business going.

Not quite the high street but a sign of the times when shopping malls are going broke as well.

£4.5bn of debt was always going to bite them on the bum eventually. Malls have an advantage over the high street in that they have parking and are usually covered, so they’re still a day out even when the weather’s awful (not a small consideration for the likes of Braehead on a winter day in Glasgow). But some analysts are saying that the growth of online shopping, that would have affected even profitable malls perhaps 5 years from now, has accelerated due to Covid19.

Some of Intu’s portfolio is good and will survive - I can’t see any reason for the likes of Braehead, Trafford or Lakeside malls to be broken up for scrap. I don’t know enough about the others though.

[Sephiroth]

Intu Watford and Victoria Centre Nottingham (particularly the former) are sited on high streets. They are a boon to the rest of the high street.

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Intu Watford and Victoria Centre Nottingham (particularly the former) are sited on high streets. They are a boon to the rest of the high street.

Ah yes I was forgetting Watford - formerly known as the Harlequin Centre back when I lived in that neck of the woods. There’s a John Lewis in the Watford site and as you say, it’s attached to the high street. It’ll be fine.

[1andrew1]

Most seem pretty good sites to me https://www.intugroup.co.uk/en/our-centres/

There was a commentator on Radio 4 earlier - she made the point that indoor sites which were at a premium in the past to high street locations (think British weather) are reversed now, due to higher Covid-19 risks.

Based on the quality of the sites, I reckon the administrators won't have a problem shifting most of them, albeit at a hefty discount from what they were worth back in March. I can see longer-term investors like the Duke of Westminster's Grosvenor Estates being interested.

[Taf]

Not quite the High St., but I visited a well-know DIY store a couple of days ago. No queue to get in, but a 40 minute queue to get out! And near the checkouts were piles of stuff that people had dumped before walking out. It was at that point in the store that a small sign declared "card sales only".