Dobbies is to start selling food from Sainsbury’s, four years after the garden centres business was sold by Tesco.
Around 3,000 of Sainsbury’s own label products will be available in 66 of the group’s 68 sites. The range will include ambient, chilled, fresh and frozen produce as well as other grocery, household and toiletry products.
Graeme Jenkins, Dobbies’ Chief Executive, said: “The partnership between Dobbies and Sainsbury’s is an excellent fit, with a shared goal of offering the best to our customers.”
Dobbies’ Edinburgh outlet will be first to sell the Sainsbury’s range from later this month, adding to an existing food offer that includes products from Hotel Chocolat and ready meals firm Cook.
Dobbies was owned by Tesco for nine years until 2016 when it was sold to Midlothian Capital Partners for £217m. The company became the UK’s biggest garden centre operator last year after it acquired 37 sites from the now-defunct Wyevale operation. The deal more than doubled the size of the Dobbies estate and boosted its annual sales to over £300m.
Andrew Bracey, Dobbies’ Chairman, said: “This is an exciting step forward for Dobbies as we continue to grow the business and lead the future of garden centre retailing. Garden centres are increasingly popular, as people embrace the enjoyment of gardening.
“Our partnership with Sainsbury’s perfectly complements our strategy of offering the best possible ranges and convenience to customers.”
Sainsbury’s has been expanding its wholesale operations in the last couple of years as it looks for new avenues of growth after its plan to merge with Asda failed. It has been supplying products to WH Smith and Simply Fresh in the UK, and signed a deal at the end of last year to sell its own label groceries to Coles, Australia’s second-largest supermarket chain.
Mike Luck, Director of Business Development at Sainsbury’s, said: “This opportunity with Dobbies will bring a fantastic choice of food and grocery products to convenient locations for shoppers, helping them shop for what they need quickly and conveniently.”
NAM Implications:
- Every little helps.
- 2020+, a decade of new alliances…
- …any and every possible mixture…
- …to optimise store traffic.
- Time for suppliers to think big…?
