New research commissioned by McCain and Family Fund, a charity providing grants for essential items for families raising disabled and seriously ill children, reveals that 56 per cent of adults are not related to someone disabled or disabled themselves, with 77 per cent of those rarely or never interacting with anyone who is disabled.
Meanwhile, only 12 per cent of families supported by Family Fund are able to take part in all the social activities they’d like to and leaving 83 per cent of families feeling sad, left out and frustrated.
With two thirds of Brits (64 per cent) admitting they have little to no understanding of the day-to-day life of people who are disabled, 72 per cent strongly believe that more awareness is needed on what life is like for disabled people including the daily challenges they face, and 48 per cent would like to boost their own confidence around spending time with disabled people.
And when they do interact with someone disabled, over half (57 per cent) are afraid of saying the wrong thing while 44 per cent feel self-conscious of their behaviour.
McCain and Family Fund, the UK’s largest grant-making charity for families raising disabled or seriously ill children, have joined forces with comedian and Last Leg presenter Alex Brooker to raise better public awareness of the daily challenges families with a disabled or seriously ill child face on a day to day basis, and to promote inclusive social occasions. McCain is donating £1m to Family Fund to support the charity’s goal of providing 150,000 essential grants and services to the families they support.
As part of this campaign, 2,500 limited-edition scoop bowls are now available to order free-of-charge from the McCain website. The bowl features a playful design – a feature often overlooked when producing adapted products, an anti-slip suction base and a raised, curved side to help children eat independently, whether they’re having meals inside or outside of the home.
"This bowl is something I wished I had growing up; it’s a great design and I think it will really help children feel more independent at mealtimes and give parents confidence to socialize more at social occasions,” said Presenter and comedian Alex Brooker who has experience of the challenges faced at mealtimes by children with a disability.
Research also revealed that two thirds (64 per cent) believe that October half term is a particularly difficult time for families raising a disabled or seriously ill child, who could be less likely to be invited to social occasions like playdates and meals at friends’ houses.
A third of respondents (31 per cent) were also parents, and three in 10 have children who have a disabled friend. Of these, 74 per cent would feel confident hosting a disabled child at their home for a playdate or an event, however, 23 per cent would be nervous having them over for dinner, with 38 per cent not thinking they’re equipped to host a mealtime.
Three quarters of parents and carers supported by Family Fund felt that friends and family avoid inviting their child along to social occasions because they don’t know how to act around them. Moreover, 67 per cent of these respondents said they had experienced friends and family being embarrassed to ask about any possible adaptations required so that their disabled or seriously ill child could attend an event. However, 63 per cent per cent of Family Fund’s families reported that asking about their child’s needs and preferences in advance would alleviate any need for concern ahead of a social occasion.
Families supported by charity Family Fund give their advice on how people can make get-togethers more inclusive:
Don’t be afraid to ask families with disabled or seriously ill children over for meet-ups. Think inclusive, wherever possible, so no one is left out. Playdates can be just as important for parents- to reduce loneliness and isolation.
Don’t worry about asking families questions about a child’s disability or condition and any adaptations we need, including what foods kids will eat, as diets can be restrictive.
Talk with your kids about the fact that a disabled or seriously ill child might eat with their hands, need adaptions to eat or eat different types of food - the greater the awareness in other children, the more it prevents families feeling embarrassed or stared at, at get-togethers.
Running through what will happen at get-togethers and what food you’re planning, in advance with families, means they can prepare children and don’t need to be embarrassed about asking questions whilst there.
Be aware of individual sensory needs and think about the physical layout and safety of a party or playdate. Creating a quiet area or den, with low lighting and music, means children can take a break, within social gatherings, or eat meals in a separate space.
Mark Hodge, Vice President, Marketing at McCain Foods UK&I said: “Mealtimes are a crucial moment for friends and family to come together. This new data offers an important insight into why families raising a disabled or seriously ill child can feel excluded from such social occasions due to a lack of awareness of their child’s needs, or embarrassment to ask for support for these needs. At McCain, we want to make everyday meals more inclusive for everyone, so we’re delighted to have created this specially designed scoop bowl to ensure that families can better enjoy mealtimes together.
Cheryl Ward, Chief Executive of Family Fund, said, “Families raising a disabled or seriously ill child experience many barriers to participating in activities and events, due to the daily routines and equipment children need, continuous high costs and a lack of affordable inclusive opportunities. Creating inclusive mealtime moments in communities, and being aware of the challenges families face, can make a big difference to people’s lives- with Alex shining a spotlight on this. Thanks to McCain we are now providing even more essential mealtime grants to families who need them most.”
The launch of the scoop bowl celebrates McCain and Family Fund’s partnership and the national charity’s 50th year. To date, Family Fund has delivered over 1.5 million grants and services to families on a low income raising disabled or seriously ill children since 1973, with more people than ever before now coming to the charity for support. McCain is a proud partner to Family Fund and continues to support their overarching goal of providing essential grants and services to 150,000 families. And, as times are even tougher right now, McCain has doubled their donation this year to offer extra support.
A shopper gazes at empty shelves that contained bottled water in a supermarket in Falls Church, VA, as a severe snowstorm hits the Washington D.C. area February 5, 2010.
Big-name retailers such as Walmart are increasingly using analytics to blunt the impact of one of the most unpredictable performance variables of shopping: weather.
Weather data, once used strictly for inventory planning, is now helping retailers localise advertising and decide when to discount seasonal items such as sweaters.
Walmart, whose inventory planning with artificial-intelligence software incorporates weather analysis, reduced sunscreen prices a couple weeks earlier than usual this year in parts of the US. Weather data forecasting a wetter-than-usual autumn in some US regions was a factor in its decision, whereas several years ago, it likely would not have been, said Kirby Doyle, a skin-care category replenishment adviser to the world's biggest retailer.
"In the beginning, (weather data) was just a forecast model for high-level planning," said Doyle, who works for Beiersdorf, which makes personal-care products. "Now we’re infusing it into pre-season planning and throughout the season to diagnose the impact of weather, and for things like scheduling promotions.”
A niche group of weather consultants — from Germany's Meteonomiqs to US firms Planalytics and Weather Trends International — is using breakthroughs such as cloud computing to process once-unimaginable amounts of data.
Demand for such data is growing amid heightened weather volatility due to climate change. The National Retail Federation in the US, which is chaired by a Walmart executive, issued a report with Planalytics in July, recommending retailers pay more attention to weather analysis.
New weather-data tools, centred on pricing, may soon be hitting the market. Planalytics and BearingPoint, a management consultancy, are partnering to build software retailers can integrate into their analytical models for setting prices.
“Weather is something you can’t control,” BearingPoint managing consultant Ryan Orabone said at an industry workshop last month to unveil the new initiative. “But you can control the analytics. And pricing, you absolutely control.”
It is natural for a warm October, like this year's in the US, to cause retailers to sweat ahead of the holidays. "It needs to get cold for our business to really perform well in Q4,” Tractor Supply CEO Hal Lawton said last month on a quarterly call.
The company, which uses weather analytics, sells cold-weather products like heating pellets and outerwear.
Weather analytics can help companies like Tractor Supply decide whether to discount winter items, said Planalytics CEO Fred Fox, whose clients include Dick's Sporting Goods and Ross Stores.
If November temperatures in the US drop below 2023 levels - which forecasts suggest is likely - a discount now could mean a missed opportunity later, Fox said.
As intuitive as that may seem to a retailer, they do not always get it right.
In August, Lowe's chief financial officer Brandon Sink cited cold, wet weather in May as the reason for weaker sales in the prior quarter.
But that description is inaccurate, said Bill Kirk, founder of Weather Trends, whose clients include Target, Gap, and Tractor Supply.
May was indeed wet, Kirk's data shows, but not cold. It was the hottest May in six years for the US, he said, and third-hottest in four decades. "Welcome to the world of retail excuses not based on facts," he said.
Rising temps, rising demand
About every three weeks in the US, a natural disaster causes $1 billion or more in damages, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, up from once every three months in the 1980s.
Planalytics, which uses computer models to help retailers understand how weather affects sales, is on pace to provide clients with twice as many models in 2024 as it did last year, said Evan Gold, the company’s executive vice president of partnerships. Since 2019, that figure has shot up ninefold.
Retailers typically see weather's impact in foot traffic and sales, said Stefan Bornemann, head of Meteonomiqs, whose clients include retailers using the e-commerce platform Shopify. "The impact could get bigger, given more severe weather patterns,” he said.
Kirk has analysed how sales for a given product rise or fall with each degree of temperature change. Sales of horse blankets rise 7 per cent per degree colder and Starbucks coffee sales climb 2 per cent, he said.
Some clients use Kirk's data for so-called dynamic pricing, the practice of adjusting prices to demand. If a sales season looks particularly weak, clients may implement small markdowns early, rather than be forced to impose larger ones later to clear excess inventory, Kirk said.
The days of retailers using weather as an excuse for a poor earnings season should be over, he added.
“Wall Street hates that excuse,” Kirk said. “What you’re saying to your investors is, ’We can’t control our business.’”
Supermarket Sainsbury’s has become the first grocer to extend its Aldi price-match campaign to its 800 local convenience store outlets.
In a bold move by its boss to win back market share from the German discounter, Britain’s second-largest supermarket chain today (4) has added price matches on 200 daily staples — including milk, chicken, bread and vegetable oil — in its local convenience stores.
Simon Roberts, chief executive, told The Times that he had decided to roll out the campaign because customers had told him that they “really love the convenience of Sainsbury’s Local, but would really like to see value on the products we buy most often.
“What we’re seeing from customers is that they want to be sure they’re getting the best value.
“UK grocery is one of the most, if not the most competitive markets in the world,” Roberts said. “What we’ve seen is lots of new, smaller supermarkets grow in the UK, and so we have to be competitive on everyday products that customers buy, in order for them to be confident in our value.”
He added that matching with Aldi prices “gives customers real confidence”, particularly when shoppers’ budgets are squeezed.
The Aldi price-match scheme will replace Sainsbury’s “pocket friendly prices” campaign, which launched last year to help customers find cheaper items in its Local shops more easily.
Sainsbury’s is targeting between 20 and 25 new Local stores each year, as part of its ongoing expansion plan, which includes opening more larger-format supermarkets. It will open a new convenience shop at Edinburgh Airport in December, in a unit previously occupied by Marks & Spencer. It will be Sainsbury’s first airport store.
“Whether on the way to work, or travelling from a station, local stores play such an important role in people’s lives," Roberts said.
Waitrose is to open 100 new convenience shops over the next five years as part of a £1 billion investment, while Marks & Spencer unveiled plans to open ten new convenience stores this year and renew up to 50. Morrisons plans to open 400 more of its Morrisons Daily convenience stores, with a wider goal of hitting 2,000 smaller stores in 2025.
A convenience store owner in Glasgow has retired and handed over the keys after serving the community for 44 years.
The retiring shopkeeper couple, Abdul Haq and his wife Hameedah, have run Disqu Blu convenience store in Glasgow since 1980.
Speaking to a local media, Haq explained how for past 44 years, he have been working from 6am each morning, seven days a week, - equating to nearly 200,000 hours in the shop.
He said his favourite part of the job has always been the interactions with customers who he will miss chatting to.
“I always speak to all my customers,” he said. “I’m that kind of person. I love people, and I enjoy speaking to everyone that comes in. I’ve got customers who have moved away, but when they come back to Glasgow they always pop in to see me. I love that kind of thing. It’s very personal.
“The people around here are lovely. I’ll miss them very much.”
“It was always going to be time to retire at some stage,” he said. “I probably should have retired years ago! But I just love being here. I’ve met so many nice people. I’ve got a lot of good memories from this place.”
The couple has run Disqu Blu since 1980. Though Haq will no longer be working in the shop - which was originally a tobacconist stocking Disque Bleu cigarettes, hence the distinctive name - he won’t be settling down into a dressing gown and slippers anytime soon.
“I’m not going to sit in the house all day,” he said. “I think I’ll do some charity work. I want to learn Arabic as well. I can read it but I can’t really speak it. So I’ll learn that, then I can travel around the Middle East. And I’d like to see more of Scotland. I’ve never been around the country much, working in here all the time, but I’d love to explore more of it.”
Haq's daughter Farah was only a year old when her parents took the shop.
“It’s more than just a business,” she said. “They’ve been here so long that customers have grown old with them, and become family and friends. We’ll miss it, because it’s been such a big part of all our lives. We’ve all grown up in here and done our bit in the shop, so it’s been very much a family business.
“It’s an emotional time. But I think it's the right moment for them to retire now. It’s a whole new chapter.
"I’ve really lucked out with my parents. They’re amazing role models. They’re so hardworking, and they’ve really given back to the local community. I look up to them a lot. Everyone knows them around here, they all call my dad Chiefy and my mum Mrs Chiefy. It’s a real community feel, which you don’t really get these days with supermarkets.”
innocent drinks, Europe’s leading healthy drinks company, is announcing a new partnership with Alexandra Rose Charity as it advances its mission to help people live well through the delicious goodness of fruits and vegetables.
Government statistics reveal that just one third of adults, and 12 per cent of 11–18-year-olds, are managing to get the recommended “Five a Day”. This is even starker for lower-income families, with the most deprived fifth of adults consuming 37 per cent less fruit and veg than the least deprived, and their children 29 per cent.
innocent is launching its partnership with Alexandra Rose Charity by teaming up with Co-op, to help donate a portion of fruit & veg for every smoothie bought in stores. The charity helps families in need to buy and eat more fresh fruit & veg. Until 19th November 2024, innocent will donate the cost of a portion of fruit and veg (£0.24) to the Alexandra Rose Charity for every “Mango & Passionfruit” and “Strawberry & Banana” smoothie sold in UK Co-op stores.
innocent’s partnership with Alexandra Rose Charity will see a total of 520,000 portions of fruit & veg donated by the end of the year through the charity’s Rose Vouchers for Fruit & Veg Project. Rose Vouchers are given out to families every week, helping them to afford fresh fruit and veg from local markets for them and their children.
John Taylor, General Manager for UK & Ireland, innocent Drinks commented,“At innocent, we’re on a mission to help make sure everyone can access the delicious goodness of fruit and veg - its why our drinks are crammed full of the stuff. Eating a wide variety of fruit and vegetables is key to a healthy and nutritious diet, but we know that lots of us aren’t getting enough of it. Lower-income families face significant barriers to ensuring they can give their children the nutrition they need.
"Our partnership with Alexandra Rose Charity, and campaign with Co-op marks an ongoing commitment to helping improve access for everyone so they can unlock the health benefits of a balanced diet.”
Jonathan Pauling, Chief Executive at Alexandra Rose Charity, commented, “We are thrilled to be working with innocent Drinks and the Co-op to raise awareness of the challenges that families up and down the country are facing in affording to put healthy food on the table for them and their children. Food related ill-health costs the UK 98 billion a year, to the NHS, the economy and society.
"The long-term consequences of a lack of access to healthy food has a detrimental effect on health, wellbeing, and life chances. Through the funds raised from this promotion, we will be able to help families in need to make sure they can give their children the best possible start with a diet rich in fresh fruit & veg.”
Sinead Bell, Co-op’s Commercial Director, commented,“Supporting campaigns that address the issue of food poverty and access to food is important to us and the millions of Co-op member owners, and we are proud to be partnering with innocent on this fantastic initiative across our stores.”innocent drinks and Co-op team up to donate portions of fruit and veg
As the final key retail season of the year approaches, Nisa retailer NP Group is gearing up for Christmas with a renewed focus on store activation and point-of-sale (POS) strategy to drive sales following a successful Halloween.
With seasonal shopping trends in full swing, effective in-store activation and visibility are crucial for smaller retailers to capture customer attention and keep up with larger competitors. Data from Retail Economics shows that UK shoppers spent approximately £10 billion on seasonal products in 2023, with Halloween contributing £650 million alone, marking a steady increase in seasonal shopping over recent years.
POS and store activation remain pivotal in capturing these sales opportunities, as shoppers are more likely to make purchases when displays are both visually engaging and convenient to access.
Anthony Furnell, Head of Retail Operations at NP Group, which operates six stores, has significant experience in retailing. From his background with major retailers and suppliers, he understands that capitalising on seasonal periods is critical for convenience stores.
“Seasonal activation is really important. It’s a very competitive sector, and we’re not just competing with large supermarkets; we’re competing for convenience and ease for our customers. If a customer doesn’t see it, they don’t potentially buy it, so activation is key.”
NP Group’s Halloween strategy this year exemplifies how store activation can capture attention and improve sales. The Darwen store has allocated a dedicated Halloween space, complete with a hanging spider from the ceiling, vinyl window displays, and strategic POS items like floor stickers and overhead signs. This dynamic approach engages customers, driving incremental purchases and creating a one-stop shop for seasonal needs.
However, it’s not one-size-fits-all; each store location is tailored based on size, layout, and customer demographics.
“Our Menston store, for example, is our smallest, so we have to be selective about our seasonal range. Space is key—making sure the displays are in the right place is essential,” Anthony notes. “We’ve also have a group store WhatsApp to share best practices and ideas across locations, ensuring a cohesive yet unique seasonal activation for each store.”
Planning and evaluation are equally important in maximising seasonal sales. To meet the varying demands of each store, NP Group conducts pre-sales planning and end-of-season evaluations, which allows them to better anticipate the stock and POS materials required for future seasonal events.
“By evaluating what sold well and what didn’t, we can refine our approach and ensure we’re offering the right products in the right places for customers,” explains Anthony. “Seasonal displays and POS act as magnets that draw the eye and engage customers on a whole new level. In today’s fast-paced retail environment, it’s vital to have a captivating, well-organised space for seasonal items that entices shoppers, encourages browsing, and, ultimately, drives incremental sales.”
In addition to Halloween, Christmas activation is also underway, with stores gradually introducing festive products.
According to Anthony, “Christmas is another significant period where creative, well-placed POS and choice can create a festive in-store experience, encouraging customers to shop locally and find what they need without visiting larger stores.”
Both Halloween and Christmas offer strong opportunities for convenience retailers to increase footfall and improve basket spend. The rise in seasonal spending in convenience settings, combined with strategic activation, ensures that stores remain competitive and relevant for shoppers seeking both impulse buys and essential items.
For retailers, these activation strategies not only boost sales but also enhance customer satisfaction by creating an engaging shopping experience that keeps them coming back throughout the winter season.