KP Snacks has revealed its HFSS brand reformulation strategy, ahead of the introduction of government HFSS legislation in October. Tyrrells, popchips, Hula Hoops Puft, and Penn State are being reformulated, with non-HFSS products rolling out over the coming months.
For the premium and popular sharing brand, Tyrrells, the Lightly Sea Salted flavour which is the number one SKU in the range is being reformulated, and will be available as non-HFSS in both sharing, multipack and singles formats from May. This follows Tyrrells Mediterranean Herb being launched in January this year.
popchips will be reformulated across the entire range. This will be a phased roll-out with the full range reformulated ahead of October. The range is worth £40m RSV and is growing in value at +32.5 per cent. Growing ahead of the Healthier crisps and snacks category, popchips has contributed 58 per cent of the growth in the segment.
The non-HFSS Hula Hoops Puft range, consisting of Beef, Salt and Salt & Vinegar flavours, will be rolled out by the end of June. At under 75 calories per pack, it is already one of the lowest calorie snacks in the market.
Popular Penn State flavour Sour Cream & Chive Pretzels will be non-HFSS by May, joining a new non-HFSS Roasted Chilli Pretzels variant which launches this month and offers a tasty and more permissible snack with a hint of spice.
At the same time, the snacks manufacturer will be focussing on building its KP brand, worth £83.8M RSV and growing +7.3 per cent YTD, ahead of the nuts segment at 2 per cent. Nuts have been recognised for their natural credentials and are therefore excluded from the proposed legislation, offering a significant opportunity for growth.
By the time the new legislation is introduced, over 100 SKUs and a quarter of the KP Snacks portfolio will be non-HFSS, making it one of the most comprehensive non-HFSS ranges available within the Crisps, Nuts and Snacks category. This broad range will be extremely important to retailers as it will be excluded from any promotion and location restrictions that the legislation stipulates.
“At KP Snacks, we are here to help retailers navigate and adjust to the new legislation. We are ready to embrace the changes that the HFSS legislation will bring and will ensure that we work in partnership with our retailers to continue driving category growth," said Sales Director, Andy Riddle.
As a part of its "Taste for Good" commitment, KP Snacks has been working on improving the health credentials of its products for a number of years. As a result, 80 per cent of KP Snacks’ product portfolio currently contains less than 4g of saturated fat per 100g, 69 per cent of the portfolio contains less than 5g of sugar per 100g, and since the 2018 pledge, there has been a 2.72 per cent salt reduction across the total range. The company has also continued to remove artificial flavours, sweeteners and colours from all of its products.
Calling the new Crime and Policing Bill a "step in the right direction", the Federation of Independent Retailers (Fed) has welcomed new measures to tackle assaults and theft in shops, saying they were long overdue.
The Crime and Policing Bill, which was put before Parliament on Tuesday (25) is at the heart of what the government calls its "Safer Streets” plan, and ministers want it to become law by the end of the year.
The bill includes the introduction of a standalone offence of assaulting a shopworker and scrapping a 2014 law that classified shoplifting of items worth under £200 as less serious than other retail theft - making them less of a priority for the police.
The Fed’s National President Mo Razzaq said, “For far too long, the failure to protect retailers and shop staff has undermined confidence in both the police and the criminal justice system.
“The refusal to attend incidents that are deemed as low value or to have measured insufficient ‘threat’ levels have left retailers frustrated, as repeat offenders seem to steal and threaten with impunity.
“This new bill is a step in the right direction. What we need to see now is real action to stem the rising tide of crime against retailers and their staff.
“The Fed has met with and written to police and crime commissioners across England and Wales urging them to work with the police to ensure frontline neighbourhood police teams take this seriously.”
The Home Office says the bill's aims will be delivered by recruiting 13,000 additional neighbourhood officers by 2029 - and the department has pledged £200m specifically towards this goal.
Announcing the latest measures to tackle retail crime, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said, “The new Crime and Policing Bill is about taking back our streets and town centres, restoring respect for law and order, and giving the police and local communities the support and tools they need to tackle local crime."
Welcoming the Bill’s introduction to Parliament, Helen Dickinson, Chief Executive of the BRC, emphasized the urgency of addressing retail crime.
“With our latest survey showing retail crime spiraling out of control, urgent action is needed to protect our retail colleagues from harm and tackle the surge in theft," she said.
Dickinson highlighted that making violence against retail staff a standalone offence will increase visibility, allowing police to allocate resources appropriately and deter offenders.
Snacking heavyweight Pladis has announced the departure of its CEO Salman Amin with immediate effect.
In a brief statement, the McVitie’s biscuits manufacturer, owned by Turkish conglomerate Yildiz Holding, said Amin has left for “personal reasons”.
“We can confirm Sridhar Ramamurthy, chief financial officer, and Tim Brett, managing director Europe and developing markets, have assumed temporary oversight of Pladis," the statement added.
Ramamurthy and Brett have assumed temporary oversight of the business until a new CEO is appointed.
Amin joined Pladis as Chief Executive in February 2019.
He previously held senior roles at PepsiCo and SC Johnson and served as a non-executive director at ITV. His temporary successors bring extensive experience, with Ramamurthy having previously worked at Unilever and Brett at The Coca-Cola Company.
At Pladis, Amin was accountable for all the categories and geographies of the company, including Europe, the US and the Far East.
Amin’s departure follows a shake-up of the Pladis leadership team earlier this year in a bid for further growth.
Prior to Jan 1, the snacking giant operated with a Turkey, Eastern Europe & Central Asia (TREECA) division (its largest business) and a Western Europe & emerging markets division.
From Jan 1, the boundaries were redrawn with Turkey and Central Asian business merging with Europe and emerging markets business. Another division was dedicated to account for Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as Australia and New Zealand.
While announcing the same, pladis stated that this change would better align “the geographic and economic synergies of Pladis’ European markets that operate within the EU trading bloc, bringing further scale and momentum to the region’s operations".
Amin has been credited for revitalising the company, formed in 2016 through the merger of several established businesses.
He undertook a bold transformation plan, called ‘Compete to Win’, and since 2019, pladis has achieved a 50 per cent increase in revenue, while profits doubled, making it one of the fastest-growing snacking companies in the world.
Amin has also led efforts to increase the diversity at the company, establishing pladis’ first-ever Global Inclusion, Diversity and Equity Board in 2021, with external experts.
He is the winner of the CEO of the Year award at the 2022 GG2 Leadership Awards.
Convenience retail media can “supercharge” brand recall by four times compared to campaigns in larger stores due to shopper frequency and the uniqueness of the format, a recent study has found, highlighting that advertising in a convenience retail is more impactful as compared to traditional media.
According to an analysis by the Co-op’s retail media network in partnership with Lumen Research, due to smaller store sizes, formats and high shopper frequency, advertising messages within convenience stores would be seen and recalled by more people, more often.
Furthermore, in a convenience store, the presence of mixed-category aisles leads to customers encountering a wide variety of advertisements within the same space.
The study aims to explore the recall power of advertising in a convenience retail setting.
The Lumen Research methodology involved shoppers navigating either a small or large Co-op store on a BBQ shopping mission, engaging with a mixture of categories from protein, produce, frozen, ambient and BWS while wearing eye-tracking glasses.
These devices monitored what the shoppers were viewing, the duration of their gaze and retinal movements.
It also assessed viewability and opportunities to see, indicating instances where advertisements could have been seen without direct focus. Upon leaving the stores, shoppers were tested on brand recall and completed brand choice surveys.
Results indicated that larger, supermarket-sized stores do generate brand-building with shoppers. However, when comparing smaller Co-op stores to larger-format outlets, attention and recall was found to be significantly enhanced in the convenience setting.
The data revealed that a shopper who walks into a convenience store has twice the visibility of the advertising, triple the attention and quadruple brand recall compared to a large store.
“Traditionally, in-store advertising has been viewed by media buyers as a pure sales activation tool that was great for last-minute promotions but not for brand-building.
"However, this groundbreaking evidence now spotlights retail media, especially in a convenience setting, as one of the most powerful brand recall tools,” said Kenyatte Nelson, Chief Membership & Customer Officer at Co-op.
“The results from the Lumen Research study showcase the unmatched impact of Co-op’s small-format convenience stores, and the findings position in-store advertising as a dual-purpose channel, driving both short-term sales and long-term brand growth.”
Mike Follett, CEO of Lumen Research, added, “Our research with Co-op confirms what we already knew – attention drives action. In small stores, shoppers revisit aisles multiple times and so encounter the same ads and messages multiple times, creating a higher frequency of exposure.
"That builds memories through aggregate attention, which drives memory-based outcomes such as awareness, consideration and intent.”
Leading retailers have expressed relief and support for Labour’s proposed Crime and Policing Bill, which aims to combat the surge in shop theft and protect retail workers.
The legislation will introduce a standalone offence for abuse or violence towards retail staff and eliminate the £200 prosecution threshold for shoplifters—a long-standing demand from for businesses.
Interim figures from Usdaw’s latest annual survey of over 4,000 retail staff showed that seven in 10 respondents said that incidents of violence, threats and abuse they’d experienced were triggered by theft or armed robbery.
Similar picture is presented by British Retail Consortium’s latest annual crime report which shows that retail violence and abuse increased over 50 per cent to more than 2,000 incidents a day in 2024, losses from customer theft reached a record £2.2 billion in 2023-24 and record crime levels were reached despite retailers spending £1.8 billion on prevention.
Katie Secretan, Retail and Sales Director at Nisa, described the Bill as a “hard-fought victory for retail workers’ safety and respect.”
"It has been shocking to witness the rising levels of abuse, threats, and violence that independent retailers and their teams endure simply for doing their jobs.
"This legislation is a vital step in recognising the seriousness of these crimes and ensuring a stronger police response to protect those on the frontline," Secretan said.
However, Secretan stressed the need for fair and consistent enforcement across all retail sectors, warning that independent stores must not be overlooked.
“Too often, independent retailers struggle with a lack of police response and support, despite being at the heart of their communities. Thanks to tireless campaigning—led by our Co-op—progress is being made. But there is still more to do, from preventing reoffending to supporting shop workers in every way possible.”
Welcoming the Bill’s introduction to Parliament, Helen Dickinson, Chief Executive of the BRC, emphasized the urgency of addressing retail crime.
“With our latest survey showing retail crime spiraling out of control, urgent action is needed to protect our retail colleagues from harm and tackle the surge in theft," she said.
Dickinson highlighted that making violence against retail staff a standalone offence will increase visibility, allowing police to allocate resources appropriately and deter offenders.
However, she warned that protection must extend beyond shop workers to include delivery drivers, who also face threats, physical violence, and even attacks with weapons.
“Retailers are now equipping their drivers with personal safety devices and DNA spit-testing kits. As the Bill progresses through Parliament, we hope these concerns will be addressed," Dickinson said.
Retail trade union Usdaw General Secretary Paddy Lillis welcomed the Bill, calling it a long-overdue response to retail crime.
“Retail workers enforce age-restricted sales laws and deserve additional legal protection. We are pleased the Government has listened and is introducing these vital measures.”
Usdaw is particularly encouraged by provisions of abolishing of the £200 prosecution threshold, increase in funding for uniformed police patrols in shopping areas and introduction of ‘Respect Orders’ for offenders, designed to curb repeat offences.
Lillis stressed that retail crime is not a victimless act and it jeopardises store viability, community safety, and staff well-being.
“Retail crime has become an epidemic. Stores are being targeted by organised crime gangs, with weapons and violence used to intimidate staff. The impact extends beyond theft itself—employees face anxiety, fear, and even physical harm.
“The Crime and Policing Bill presents a real opportunity to improve retail workers’ lives, strengthen store security, and restore safety in communities," Lillis added.
Between rising employer National Insurance Contributions, higher wage costs, and incoming employment regulations, up to 160,000 part-time retail jobs in Britain are at risk of being lost over the next three years, a retailer body has warned, calling on the government to find ways of mitigating the costs and protect the jobs.
The British Retail Consortium (BRC), which represents most of the UK's biggest retailers, said that rising employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) and a 6.7% jump in the national minimum wage will add 5 billion pounds ($6.3 billion) to retailers’ labour costs in 2025 alone, increasing pressure on the industry to reduce staffing levels.
BRC stated today (26) that one in ten of these jobs could be at risk of being lost over the next three years as a result of the rising costs of employment, driven by measures announced at the last Budget.
Retail remains a vital source of employment right across the country; it is the largest private sector employer and the industry and its supply chains account for over a third of local jobs in 20 per cent of parliamentary constituencies.
There are currently over 1.5 million part-time jobs in retail, a little over half of all retail jobs. This includes students making extra money during their studies, parents working around childcare, and seasonal workers providing vital support during the peak trading periods.
Part-time roles are particularly susceptible to the changes in the employer NICs, the BRC said. Retailers will be taxed for any employee earning more than £5,000, down from the current threshold of 9,100 pounds, making it significantly more expensive to hire part-time workers.
These effects would be compounded by some of the proposed changes under the Employment Rights Bill, which could force firms to reduce the number of local, flexible jobs. This would have the biggest impact on part-time workers, including seasonal and student jobs.
Almost one fifth of retail colleagues are under the age of 25, making the industry a vital first step on the career ladder for hundreds of thousands of young people. However, with up to one in ten part-time jobs at risk, in addition to many entry-level roles, many young people could miss out on these opportunities.
This call to protect part-time jobs comes as the British Retail Consortium launches its 2025 Manifesto for Retail, which outlines a path for the retail industry to help kickstart investment in growth, people, and sustainability across the UK.
Helen Dickinson, Chief Executive at the British Retail Consortium, said, “Retail is a key source of employment right across the economy.
"The industry and its supply chains account for a third of jobs in one-fifth of UK constituencies and retail plays a vital role in upskilling the workforce and boosting productivity growth, currently spending £4 billion a year on training.
"Retail has long offered the first rung of the career ladder to hundreds of thousands of young people, playing a vital role in communities up and down the country.
"However, between rising employer National Insurance Contributions, higher NLW costs, and incoming employment regulations, the government may be kicking away the ladder for the next generation. One in ten part-time retail roles are now at risk of being lost.
“Retailers face a mountain of costs from the Budget and while they continue to absorb costs where they can, higher prices and job losses are inevitable.
"If the government can find ways of mitigating the £7bn of costs facing the industry this year, as well as ensuring a pragmatic approach to the Employment Rights Bill that focuses on tackling unscrupulous employers, protecting employees while supporting employment, then many jobs would be saved.”