Stewart Samuel on GrocerTalk Podcast: deals, robotics and people moves

GrocerTalk's Ben Miller and Stewart Samuel cut through the headlines to explore the trends, tensions and shifts redefining grocery retail.

IGD’s Stewart Samuel joins GrocerTalk to explore how scale, automation and operational execution are reshaping grocery retail.

The discussion begins with Ahold Delhaize’s acquisition of Tesco’s businesses in Czechia and Slovakia. Stewart considers how the deal strengthens Ahold Delhaize against Europe’s leading discounters, why Tesco is continuing its international retrenchment and what the transaction reveals about the changing value of geographic scale in grocery.

Stewart also examines Walmart’s $6 billion automation commitment with Symbotic, Amazon’s introduction of text-based shopping through Alexa for Shopping and the return of resilience and redundancy as priorities for connected retailers. The episode concludes with David Potts’ appointment at Asda and the opportunity to turn improving availability, value and store execution into sustained customer and market share growth.