FDBusiness.com

Asda, the UK’s second biggest-supermarket group, has relaunched its entire range of more than 3,500 own label food products and invested over £100m in a concerted drive to improve product quality across its stores, without impacting on prices for customers. Asda’s ‘Chosen By You’ range accounts for annual sales of between £8b and £9bn. The move is believed to be largest, single, own brand relaunch in UK retailing history.

The relaunch follows an intense nine months period of quality benchmarking and independent taste-testing. Some 3,500 individual products were independently tested by Cambridge Market Research in just nine months, while more than 40,000 consumers have taken part in 200,000 blind taste tests across the UK.

The Chosen By You range is made up of more than 3,500 own brand food products, 500 of which are entirely new and another 1,000 of which have been reformulated.

“When it comes to our food, we’ve taken a long, hard look at our products, done a lot of listening to our customers, and invested a significant amount of time, effort and money,” explains Andy Clarke, president and chief executive of Asda. “No other retailer has moved so aggressively to seek not just the counsel, but the consent of the very people who buy and eat their products.”

He adds: “We’re sending a clear message that Asda will now drive as hard on quality as it does on price.” Despite improvements in quality, the Asda Chosen By You range will continue to be up to 20% cheaper than the equivalent leading brand, according to the UK grocery retailer.