Following today’s news (Monday 2nd July) that Tesco has entered into a strategic partnership with Carrefour

Patrick O’Brien, UK Retail Research Director at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

‘‘Tesco is obviously concerned by the increased potential buying scale of a combined Sainsbury’s and Asda, and both it and Carrefour are worried by the idea of Amazon making more ambitious moves in European grocery retail. However, it should be noted that a key focus of the tie-up is to reduce prices on own-brand products, and this is more of a direct response to Aldi and Lidl, whose offers are heavily weighted towards own-brand. Tesco and Carrefour have both struggled to match the discounters on quality and price, and the alliance should help it compete.

For suppliers, this is another signal of battles ahead. Sainsbury’s and Asda have made it clear that it will target its largest suppliers for cost reductions by flexing their increased scale, and Tesco and Carrefour will look to do the same while reducing the number of branded products they sell as they increase their own-brand ranges.”