Tesco Lotus chief executive Jeff Adams shows Tesco house brand products with the new ‘nutritional signposts’.

The move will lead to tougher competition between Tesco Lotus' own products and name brand rivals on its stores' shelves. It wants to placate shoppers, who faced with rising prices, are hunting for bargains.

Tesco Lotus, which is based in the UK, currently offers about 2,200 house brand products in 700 categories in its Thai stores.

"We expect to achieve sales of more than Bt10 billion from our house brand products this year," said chief executive Jeff Adams.

"We also expect the contribution made by house brand products to our total sales to increase from the current level of 9-10 per cent to more than 13 per cent by the end of this year."

He said Tesco carried between 7,000 and 10,000 house brand products in its UK stores.

"There is a possibility that Thailand will equal the UK level for house brand products," he said. "It depends on the acceptance of Thai consumers."

Adams said the key difference between Tesco Lotus' house brand products and other products was price.

"Our house brand products will be cheaper [than other products] by up to 20 per cent, depending on the category of goods," he said. "However, we will focus on quality, which will be as good as other brands."

Adams said there were about 70 people in his company's house brand team, and they will inspect all factories [making the house brand products under sub-contract agreements] to make sure the quality is right.

Meanwhile, Tesco Lotus claimed yesterday to be the first retailer in Thailand to include new "nutritional signposts" on its Tesco and Khumkha house brand products to allow shoppers to make informed choices about the products they buy.

The products now display on their packaging nutritional information, including calories per serving, fat and sugar content and sodium levels. Cholesterol and calcium content is also listed. The notices are intended to complement the detailed information already required by the Food and Drug Administration.

"Thai consumers are becoming health conscious," Adams said. "We know it is important to have accurate nutritional information on all food and drink products. But we also know how difficult it can be to read the fine print on a label. So, we've come up with a new labelling format to give our customers simpler and clearer information about the nutritional value of the food and drinks they buy."

He said that only four house brand products currently had the signposts, but this number will increase to more than 1,000 items by the end of next year.

The notices were introduced on products in Tesco stores in the UK about two and a half years ago and were well received by shoppers, he said. A similar response is expected in Thailand.

Kwanchai

Rungfapaisarn

The Nation