Space of her own

Angela Mount has spent 10 years maximising the potential of Somerfield’s limited available space.  Even her German wines are bucking the trend. Robyn Lewis reports

THE KEY THING about Somerfield is that we have to be focused to provide a good range of wines in each store," explains Angela Mount, wine buyer for the supermarket chain.

"We’ve got over 600 branches but they are small to medium sized stores rather than superstores. Some are convenience and others more traditional supermarkets, but in all we face the problem of limited space," she explains.

When Mount says small to medium, she means it.  The average Somerfield has only 8,500 sq ft of sales area, compared with over 85,000 sq ft in the new ASDA Wal Mart supercentres, and nine out of 10 of its branches are on the high street or in city centres, as opposed to retail parks.

 This translates into limited floor space and a very varied customer base which, in turn, translates into a tight range of wines that covers a broad spectrum of appeal.  "We are looking to stock a range that goes from generic to fine wine in all our stores," says Mount.

 "We’ve put a selection of fine wines in 25 of our stores at the moment, for example, and that’s a range that goes from £10 to £20, so we haven’t broken that £20 barrier yet.  That’s been running for six months and we are monitoring it closely to see if it will roll-out across the rest of the store, but once you add in lower priced wines, then that’s obviously a very big range to cover in a limited space.

"Most of our wines are priced below £10 and we have a very strong growth in the £4 to £6 category, although we are finding that customers are buying a higher level of wines on promotion now.

That means, whereas a few years ago they were paying £3.49 for a wine, now they are more likely to go for the £4.99 wine on offer at £3.99."  It’s not a problem that is unique to Somerfield but given the profile of its customer base, Mount is rightly proud that despite the above tendency towards promotion, the average paid for a bottle of wine in the store is rising.

"We are beginning to break the £4 barrier, particularly with our own brand lines," she explains. But does she find it a problem these days balancing the need to create margin out of own brand wines, with the consumer demand for ever increasing quality? "I don’t think so.

The problem is that you can’t hide behind a few quality offerings in a small store – all your product has to be good," says Mount.

"This is especially important in terms of our own brand lines.  I’ve spent 10 years making sure that our own label wines are good quality. I do not want a customer picking up a Somerfield wine and thinking that it’s just OK.

I want them to come back and buy it again, and so I work hard with the producers to ensure a good product.  If I’m looking to get a wine to sell at £3.99, I’ll always aim to get a product quality that’s way above normal at this price level and I’ll work for weeks with wine makers to get exactly that."

And it’s not just what goes into the bottle, but the packaging and presentation that also matters.  Last year Mount initiated a redesign of the presentation for the own-label products. The German offer provides a clear indication of its success.

After the redesign sales in this sector alone rose by 16%, bucking the trend for a general decline in sales of German wine across the big supermarket chains.  "We spend a lot of our time and effort on the look as well as the quality of the own brand and the work is ongoing," emphasises Mount.

"What we try to do is create a look that is cohesive but that addresses the different consumers of each tier. For example, our South African range is presented at generic level in light-weight bottles with large, modern type; the next level is in traditional weight bottles with smaller, stylish labels and the top premium wines are in heavyweight bottles with a split label.

It’s a concept we’re working on and applying to all our ranges at the moment."  Differentiation in visual as well as vinous and price terms, is crucial for Mount. 

"The issues of packaging and the theatre of the aisle is an essential part of our work," she continues.  "Selecting wine and cutting a deal is only part of the job – all the shelf-talkers and merchandising is essential to encourage second buys.

This is an area that we have identified as being something we need to work harder at and we are now spending even more time and money perfecting it. In fact, I’ve just re-written 300 shelf-edge labels not just with tasting notes, but with specific food matches as well.

This is something I’m very excited about, actually, and something I’ve been working on for the past six to eight months."  According to Mount, while food and wine combinations sound like the most obvious aides to selling wine and hooking in the punters, it’s not an area in which Somerfield (or for that matter other retailers) has always been as strong as they should be.

"Wine with food is an area that we’ve identified as one that needs some work," she explains, with a determined tone to her voice. "People are very uncertain about buying wines to go with specific foods and we feel there is a need for more customer info.

Not just of the ‘red wine with pasta, white wine with fish’ variety – which is outdated – but good information that relates to the way we eat today. The popularity of ethnic and oriental foods has really grown, for example, but people don’t know what to match those foods with in terms of wine.

We need to point them to the right wine, to say ‘look at this lovely Riesling, that will go really well with something spicier.  ’" n essence, she explains, it’s almost impossible to be too obvious in this area.

"It’s all about capturing people’s attention and you have to work hard at that. Around 70% of wine in supermarkets is bought by women and women are less likely to browse than men because we are busier. I’ve been there myself, there’s either a husband waiting at home or screaming kids and you just want to get everything as fast as possible.

Women are also more likely to be buying wine to go with food and so we need to capture them and steer them in the right direction."  But anyone expecting a plethora of fancy Gordon Ramsay type suggestions to be wallpapered over the Somerfield wine department has another think coming.

"We want to keep it real so we will be suggesting wines that go with fish and chips and shepherds pie, not lobster thermador and steak tartare," says Mount, sounding exasperated by some of the more pretentious attempts that have been made in this area in the past.

She plans to kick the concept off with a whole new range of Australian wines, due to appear on the shelves this summer, all of which will be cross-matched with foods across the store.

 There will be highlighter cards in store pointing people to the matches, cross-line merchandising, pointof- sale information, shelf-edge tickets and a big feature in the Somerfield magazine to promote it. "

I am hoping that this will not only give people more confidence about what wines to choose with foods," says Mount enthusiastically, "but also encourage them to try something new."

Looking at the range of wines that lines the shelves at Somerfield, it’s easy to spot a New World bias.  Is this a deliberate policy for the store? "Well, historically Somerfield used to under-trade in the New World sector, but now we are very excited by the performance of our New World range, which has been significantly revamped," says Mount.

"However, we are keen to update our Old World selection.  It seems that everyone is focused on the New World right now, but there is some very good stuff coming out of Europe, particularly southern France and southern Italy."

Between new ranges, own label wines, shelf-talkers, highlighter cards, additional marketing campaigns and associated literature, it looks like the already limited shelf-space at Somerfield is set to get even more crowded.