Irish retailer Musgrave Group, which operates the Centra and SuperValu banners, plans to source more product from mainland Europe, in an attempt to counter the potential impact of Brexit, according to reports.
Speaking to the Sunday Independent, Musgrave chief executive Chris Martin said that the group wants to avoid higher prices due to potential tariffs.
"The reality of it is the UK being outside of Europe will mean that there are tariffs. It will mean that a product that's imported into Ireland from the UK will have a range of tariffs, ranging from zero to whatever," he told the paper.
"Our philosophy is very much to make sure that we have the product, that we absolutely protect the consumer from that level of inflation.”
Pricing Structure
Martin added that in seeking to ensure its pricing structure is "properly managed", the group has made decisions about where it needs to source its products from.
"So rather than taking it from the UK, we are maybe taking it from Europe."
In May of this year, Musgrave Group announced €2.7 billion worth of sales in full-year 2017, which was a new record high for the business.
Online sales at the group were also up 23% last year.
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
