The Co-op is already the leading retail supporter of the Fairtrade movement, with a wide range of its own label products, including all its chocolate and coffee, already sold under the Fairtrade Mark. It has used Fairtrade Fortnight, which ends today, to announce a major expansion of its ethical product range.
The Co-op is pledging to double the size of its own brand range of Fairtrade products by the end of the year, which is the 10th anniversary of the Fairtrade Mark.
Following the creation of Britain's fourth largest grocery group, Morrisons has said it will retain the Safeway name at smaller stores, to be rebranded Safeway Compact and pitched in direct competition against the Tesco Express and Sainsbury Local formats.
It had been expected that Morrisons would sell the smaller outlets, but Sir Ken Morrison, announcing the Compact format for 138 Safeway stores under 1,390 square metres, said there were no immediate plans to sell.
Ken Morrison has indicated that it will take two years to complete the merger of the two companies.
Morrisons has also announced immediate price cuts on more than 300 basic goods at the larger Safeway stores.
A tough action plan to tackle obesity and unhealthy children's diets has been agreed by the Food Standards Agency (FSA).
The plan includes new labelling to identify amounts of fat, salt and sugar in products specifically aimed at children. From March 2005 the FSA will test foods and name those not meeting guidelines.
FSA chairman Sir John Krebs said: "Children are bombarded with messages that promote food high in fat, salt and sugar. The evidence shows that these messages do influence children Everyone has a responsibility to act."
Wal-Mart has announced it is purchasing the Brazilian supermarket chain Bompreço from Dutch retailers Ahold for $300 million. The purchase of Bompreço will take Wal-Mart from the fifth biggest retailer in Brazil with 25 stores, to third biggest, with 118 stores.
The worlds largest retailer entered Brazil with a single Sams Club store in São Paulo in May 1995. It is hoped that the purchase of Bompreço, which last year had unaudited net sales of approximately $1bn, will improve Wal-Marts position in South America.
The Office of Fair Trading has announced the clearance of the anticipated acquisition by Tesco plc of 45 smaller grocery stores in the London area from Adminstore Ltd.
Friends of the Earth has criticised the OFT's decision not to refer the takeover to the Competition Commission. The environmental organisation is calling for a moratorium on any further mergers by the UK's largest retailer, warning that consumers will be left with little choice of where to shop if its aggressive takeover plan is not stopped.
