Asda Christmas Preview
Retail Insider’s visit to the Asda Christmas range preview in central London this week highlighted several key trends that the retailer is betting will deliver during its peak trading this year.
The ranges on view adhered to the over-arching strategy of the group of stripping out some of the products and instead focusing on more of a core line-up and holding back temporarily on some innovation.
Chatting to the product developers on each stand the word ‘gingerbread’ was on everyone’s lips. Not the thick, dark, treacly kind eaten in the home of gingerbread Germany but a much lighter biscuit-type version where the ginger is a faint warming to the back of the throat.
It appears in all the obvious places but is also incorporated in the new range of hot chocolate powders – which also includes a Blackforest Gateau version, gingerbread man-shaped-crumpets and a gingerbread tear-and-share Christmas tree dessert.
The interactive element of Christmas continues strongly, whether it be decorating gingerbread biscuits with the children or pouring the heated sauce that cracks a chocolate shell on the new melt-and-reveal deluxe profiterole pudding. The product developer assures us that it never fails to crack! But the company is beginning to move away slightly from the traditional Christmas pudding as fewer people eat it now and Retail Insider’s eye was even caught by a dramatic twist on the usual heavy chocolate Yule log made out of a red velvet cake. Mince pies have also had a makeover and now feature Florentine and frangipane versions for those less keen on the full mincemeat.
Having said all that, what is Christmas without nostalgia? Key to this year’s range and advertising is the fact that the grocer celebrates its 60 year anniversary in 2025 and has brought back various things such as Asda price. And Allan Leighton has returned as CEO. It now appears clear that even those not born last century hark back to earlier, more certain times (someone in marketing really needs to invent a word for this) and sausage rolls and Stilton are not going out of fashion any time soon. There are around eight different kinds of sausage roll including a foot-long version and more than one million will be sold over the festive period.
In terms of party food some of the best-selling food-to-go has been turned into miniature versions for the mid-tier range while over at the premium Exceptional line the 14 key SKUs of last year has been reduced to six including tiger prawn tempura, mini pie selections and brie wedges. One staff member told us that this was overall a year of consolidation, of retrenching towards the proven best sellers that people want at Christmas rather than a full on innovation fest.
At the main event table, for example, there is a ready-done box available which feeds six people a Christmas lunch. This, Retail Insider was told, reflects the fact that there is a lot more entertaining done in the run-up to Christmas nowadays. Intergenerational family gatherings, entertaining with friends and while the hosts may be pulling out all the stops for the 25th December they also want to produce something festive all through December without too much effort.
So customers can start loading their Christmas-tree shaped Yorkshire puddings all through the period to making meals feel Christmassy much earlier. For vegetarians the main trend is towards actual vegetables – which is not as daft as it sounds. The move is away from meat-substitutes such as soy or mycoproteins and instead using the inherent qualities of the different veg itself.
Back in the land of nostalgia, the fondue has returned to Asda in a big way albeit without the boiling oil/cheese and the long sticks. The baked cheese variety is the new norm and the Exceptional range this year features several fondue kits with the buyer stressing how important the current passion for hot honey (Asda variously uses Spanish forest, orange blossom and acacia honeys) has been in terms of glazes but also dressing cold cheese platters. Hot honey is also integral in the smoked salmon category.
Trends within wine centre around feel-good and known brands – beware the store, which runs out of Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry – but also the breaking of wine rules with lighter reds now being more of a choice with the turkey. Asda’s own brand of bubbles is Asquith Gardens, produced in southern England, which sells decently but it is the sub-£6 Prosecco that is the biggest single SKU across wine here reflecting the core Asda customer who may have less money to play with during the year but has all the more reason to really go for it in December.
The grocer has also been able to incorporate some forward-thinking moves into the Christmas range. With the World Cup in the US next year and US-style fire-pit meat cooking also expected to be very popular there are a host of products with that country’s favoured sweet-and-salty taste mash-up. Ranging from the munch mix of popcorn, chocolate buttons, salty pretzels/nuts and cola sweets in the shape of gingerbread men to maple syrup and bacon infused meats/fish it’s all about brunching American style. Although even the Asda spokeswoman admitted that the gravy and marshmallows idea she had seen in action was currently a bit too radical!
Glynn Davis, editor, Retail Insider