WHAT DO YOU THINK OF SOME OF THESE CHANGES BEING MADE IN OUR SUPERMARKETS?

Asda to cease baking in stores, with 1,200 jobs at risk

In future, Asda’s baked products, such as bread and pastries, will be made in a central bakery and then warmed in stores. It said the changes would provide a broader range of products baked fresh several times a day, compared to just once a day at present.

Asda said the proposal followed “a notable shift in customer buying behaviours” in recent years, with demand for speciality breads, wraps, bagels and pancakes outstripping traditional loaves.

The latest job cuts come less than two months after Asda said 5,000 jobs were at risk from the closures of two warehouses and elimination of thousands of back-office jobs.

The Leeds-based retailer said the changes were not related to the £6.8bn sale of the company to the petrol forecourt billionaires Mohsin and Zuber Issa and private equity group TDR Capital. That deal is yet to be cleared by the competition watchdog.

Derek Lawlor, the chief merchandising officer at Asda, said: “The current in-store bakery model has restricted our ability to respond to changing customer demands and offer them the speciality products and freshly baked goods they want to buy throughout the day.

The changes we are proposing will deliver a much better and more consistent bakery offering for customers across all our stores. We know these proposed changes will be unsettling for colleagues and our priority is to support them during this process.”

Asda, which employs more than 140,000 people, will now enter formal consultations with those potentially affected by the changes. It said the priority would be to move as many workers as possible into alternative roles within Asda, with redundancy the last option.

Aldi trials major change in UK store which could be rolled out across the country

ALDI has launched a trial which sees the supermarket selling its first ever packaging-free products. It's a huge change that Aldi hopes will be rolled out across the whole country to help customers shop more sustainably.

However, if successful, the supermarket hopes to introduce the change to other stores across the UK in the future.

The packaging-free products available now are four household staples: Basmati rice, brown rice, penne pasta, and wholewheat fusilli pasts.

Customers can buy these foods loose in store from a refill station.

Instead of coming already packed in plastic packaging, customers will fill paper bags with the foods of their choosing.

The paper bags are offered to shoppers for free and are later weighed.

Currently, the loose brown rice costs 75p per one kilogram, while the loose basmati rice costs £1.19 per one kilogram.

This move could remove more than 130 tonnes, or more than 21 million pieces, of plastic annually from Aldi stores.

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