Availability rates highest for five years

Nisa’s independent retailers are enjoying the greatest availability rates since 2014 with an average of almost 98% so far this year.

A focus on availability for the past 12 months has given the best service to Nisa partners for more than five years, generating an additional £40million in annualised sales.

Operations director at Nisa, Jon Stowe, said: “We have taken a very proactive approach with our suppliers in terms of forward planning, better understanding their constraints and working together to maximise supply.

 “If we take the first six months of this year versus the same period last year, we have seen noticeable uplift within beers, wines and spirits at +5% and +4% in grocery availability.”

Further to this, investment has been made in supply chain systems to make data more accurate and intuitive and a small, specialised team of supply planners has been established to maximise the sales out of Nisa’s warehouses and ensure that wherever possible, all stock ordered by retailers gets to their shelves.

Jon added: “We are working closely with colleagues at the Co-op in Manchester to share best practice and with availability now at its highest level since 2014, we are giving partners maximum confidence that if they order from us the products they want will soon be on their store shelf.”