Big refresh pays off for Progressive supermarket chain

By SIMON HENDERY

The oversized singing and waving nursery rhyme characters are gone and the tills are ringing.

Supermarket group Progressive Enterprises is cashing in on its decision to scrap the Big Fresh brand and its novel decor - designed to keep kids amused while their parents shopped.

"The Big Fresh stores [of which there were about nine] were unproductive and going backwards," Trevor Coates, group managing director of Progressive's Australian parent company, Foodland Associated, said yesterday.

"Since we've refurbished some of those we have more than doubled the turnover by converting them to Countdown and investing in the portfolio."

Foodland inherited the Big Fresh brand when it bought the Woolworths NZ group in 2002, merging it into Progressive.

The Big Fresh concept was targeted for the chop early on. Progressive managing director Ted van Arkle said soon after the acquisition: "It takes a lot of space and has a lot of gimmickry with it. That was fine in the early '80s but consumers have moved on."

Releasing its second-quarter sales figures yesterday, Foodland said its discount Countdown brand, expanded by the conversion of some of the Big Fresh stores, had been its strongest performer in New Zealand over the past three months.

Overall, the group's 150 New Zealand supermarkets - under the Countdown, Foodtown, Woolworths and Price Chopper chains - produced a 5.1 per cent increase in sales from $954 million to $1.003 billion.

Across all its ongoing operations in New Zealand and Australia, Foodland's sales were up 3.5 per cent in Australian dollar terms compared with the same quarter last year.

Coates said the increase in sales was encouraging, considering lower inflation in both countries and a competitive trading environment.

"The strong performance from the respective supermarket divisions reflects the improvements being seen from the ongoing rebranding and refurbishment programme under way in Queensland and New Zealand," he said.

During the quarter, Progressive completed the refurbishment of three former Big Fresh stores, turning them into Countdown Henderson, Woolworths Pukekohe and Woolworths Nelson.

It closed two loss-making stores - Foodtown Henderson and Woolworths Sydenham - and opened a new Countdown at Bethlehem, near Tauranga. Construction of a new Auckland City Foodtown continues.

The company

Auckland-based Progressive Enterprises owns:

* 67 Woolworths stores.

* 28 Foodtown stores.

* 17 Price Chopper stores.

* 40 Countdown stores.

* 26 Woolworths Quickstop and Micro stores.

Perth-based Foodland Associated owns:

* Progressive Enterprises.

* 80 Action stores in Australia.