Asda boss criticises supermarket food

Andy Clarke, Asda

British supermarket giant Asda recently made headlines when it saw sales dip for the first time in four years, but the chain's chief executive, Andy Clarke, believes he knows the reason behind the slump - the quality of food.

Speaking to The Daily Mail, Clark said: "Food quality is something Asda hadn't been as focused on in the past as it should have been.

"Last year at Christmas we talked about our premium range but hadn't done enough work on the product to allow us the credibility to shout about it."

Clarke took over as chief executive in May and said that improving food quality has been at the top of his to-do list. The Wal-Mart owned company said sales had deteriorated in the three months to 30 June, with like-for-like sales down 0.4 percent.

However in May, Asda said underlying sales had fallen 0.3 percent in the first quarter, the first such decline since 2006.

That's low Asda price

Clarke blamed his predecessor Andy Bond for this saying, "some of the things we were doing at the start of year were not right for customers" and that the supermarket hadn't done a good enough job acquiring new stores last year as well as distancing itself from an increasingly promotional grocery market.

As such, Clarke said when he took the position he slashed the number of offers in store by a third.

"We lost site of our core price proposition," he said. "There were far too many two for one promotions where the combined price was good but prices for individual products were just not low enough. What we are now focused on is every day low pricing on staples like milk, bread, eggs and sugar."

"It's easy to use promotional money to bolster sales, but we're using the money to invest in individual commodities."

Clarke added that over the next 18 months, the supermarket would be faced with a number of challenges if it was to turn around its sales slump. As such, he has frozen all promotions and said the future priority of the company is on dropping prices.

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