| Nature of Enquiry | H&B is seen as a normal shop as it is a large high steret brand so whilst many vegans may seek out their local wholefood shops a lot of meat reducers and vegetarians may no longer get to try the Frys range any more. My thoughts why H&B might be doing this are:- H&B have never seemed to give the food side of the business much love, presumably their pills and potions have a much higher markup (wholefoods are notoriously low profit). My local branch regularly has fridges and freezers out of service for weeks or even months on end and I've also seen this at other branches. Most of the range seems 10 or 20 years behind the times with the notable exception of Frys and Redwoods- H&B have never engaged or reached out to the vegan community, they don't seem to have any passion for finding the latest products and AFAIK have never attended any vegan events. I doubt they will care that they are dropping vegan products. - When I was chatting to Beanies at a vegan festival they seemed unhappy that the twice yearly H&B buy one get one half price events are funded by the wholesalers not H&B. If other vegans are like me and massively stock up on Frys during these promos it must seriously dent the profit margins for Beanys. - H&B like most high st brands dictate margins and payment terms and if the price doesn't fit will just find someone else. It is easy to see how much of a discount supermarkets get on products such as Swedish Glace which can be 50% cheaper in Tesco compared to an independent wholefood shop. H&B were probably squeezing margins yet wholesale overheads are going up. Beanys stopped importing the wonderful B Nice Rice Cream as they couldn't keep it at a sensible price, they probably don't have the power to lock in pricing from Frys especially as they'll be at the mercy of exchange rate fluctuations. What will the future be for H&B? Perhaps more Linda McCartney as they killed off the RealEat brand and wholefood independents are saying they can't get LM products at a price to compete against the multiples. Alternatively they could look at doing an exclusive with Redwoods as H&B must be a large chunk of their market already, perhaps Redwoods could look to fill the gaps left by Frys with an exclusive H&B range? |