War Supermarket Shopping Secrets

Britain's supermarket landscape has been turned on its head.

Over the last few years,

how and where we shop has changed beyond recognition.

The discounters, Lidl and Aldi, are the rising stars, and the

traditional supermarkets have had to raise their game to compete.

We have more choice than ever before,

and the days of loyalty to one store are gone.

But what does this intense competition actually mean

for the food in our trolleys?

'We're going behind the scenes

'with the country's leading supermarkets...'

Yeah!

'..to find out how they're using the latest technology and science

'to stay ahead of the competition...'

Shop!

'..and keep up with our rapidly changing demands.'

I'm Gregg Wallace. I've worked in the food industry all my life.

I want to investigate the hidden ways supermarkets produce

our everyday foods.

And I'm Babita Sharma,

a news journalist who grew up behind the counter of a corner shop.

I want to know the tricks of the trade being used to win our cash.

We're looking at the latest tactics in the supermarket wars.

This time, it's the hidden science the supermarkets are using

to get one up on their rivals.

'Whether it's the top dogs going to world record beating extremes...'

If I can't ever taste properly again on MasterChef, I'm suing!

'..the innovators getting hi-tech on our fruit and veg...'

Hard and soft avocados make different noises?

That's exactly true, that's correct.

'..the science behind our favourite fizz...'

Oh, you're supposed to spit! I drank it. Sorry!

..'or the underdogs scrapping for a piece of the market..

Unless you change, you die.

We're going to get the inside track on how the supermarkets bring us

the food we buy, and what we find may change the way you shop.

We're in the midst of the fiercest supermarket war in history.

In recent years, Tesco have reported their biggest ever losses,

and Sainsbury's and Asda have seen declining sales.

Meanwhile, Aldi and Lidl have doubled their market share.

We've all heard about the supermarket wars,

and we've benefited from a string of price cuts, but this is a war

fought on many, many levels, and now, more than ever,

they need some very clever tactics.

To win in the supermarket wars,

the stores have to get our favourite products right.

And today, one of the biggest battle grounds is over a piece of fruit

that last year saw the fastest growing sales of any food

in British supermarkets.

When I was young, an avocado was an exotic treat.

It was something that my mum brought out at dinner parties when she was

trying to be posh, but today the avocado has gone mainstream.

Last year, sales of avocados went up by over 25%.

That means that we now spend more on avocados than we do oranges.

As boom times roll in avocados,

all the supermarkets think the way to win the battle for our cash

is to solve the ripeness problem.

Who can honestly say that they haven't had a cheeky squeeze

in the supermarket aisle?

You know what it's like, you either get one that's rock hard, or it's

all black and mushy. You never seem to get one that's perfectly ripe.

But now, Asda has found an answer to this problem that they hope

will give them the edge.

They've got a kind of traffic light system.

Look - a green one means it's ripe and ready to eat now.

An amber one means it will be ready in a couple of days.

And the reddy-pinky one means it will be ready in about five days.

But how can they be absolutely sure how ripe every single avocado is?

How much do I owe you, sausage?

Asda's avocados have arrived at London Gateway Port

after a four-week journey from South America.

Their next stop is a hi-tech ripening centre.

Damien Gray is Asda's avocado buyer.

It's his job to implement their traffic light system.

It's gone crazy. Our sales have tripled in four years.

That's unbelievable, isn't it?

'And he's under pressure to deliver.'

What's the cost of not getting it right?

You disappoint your customers. No-one wants a bad avocado, do they?

What happens to a disappointed customer?

Well, they won't come back.

'But working out how ripe an avocado is presents a unique challenge.

'The trees fruit for so long that even two avocados

'from the same branch can be at very different stages of ripeness.

'So Damien is relying on his supplier, Mark Everett,

'for a solution.'

This is a lot of avocados, mate.

There's about 1.5 million avocados in the store.

Yeah, I'm not surprised.

'To identify the exact ripeness of every single avocado,

'they've brought in the big guns.

'The very latest in avocado technology.'

So, is this what you're pinning all your hopes on?

Your whole traffic light system depends on this big red machine,

-is that it?

-Absolutely, yeah.

We can check thousands of avocados a day through this machine.

And did it come in other colours, or did you want it like this?

We asked for it in red!

'This grading system costs £350,000.

'First, the machine spots any problem avocados

'using infrared technology.'

The infrared light penetrates the fruits and we can use it to see

whether there's any cavity defect within the fruit,

and then grade it out on that basis.

'Once the infrared has got rid of any fruit with holes,

'it checks the ripeness in a rather unusual way...

'..by listening to the avocados.'

For ripeness, we have two tappers or sensors. One is measuring impact,

and the second is measuring the resonance.

So we tap it, and with a small microphone we listen for

the resonance, and it tells us if it's hard or soft.

Let me get this absolutely right -

hard and soft avocados make different noises?

That's exactly true, that's correct.

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!

Let's put a banana through and see what happens to it.

'After listening to the avocados, the machine divides them up.'

So this is it in action, this is now grading them

and sorting them out into the three different types, yeah?

Yeah, this is the end process of the grading,

where we've got fruit going into the traffic light system.

So you've done this for a reason. How competitive is your business?

Well, it's a really tough, competitive market.

And everybody's looking for an edge, but you have to, don't you?

You've got to do something to make you different to the competition.

You've got to innovate in this market, absolutely.

'They've used some clever kit here to guarantee ripeness,

'but has it worked?'

I've got to be honest, this one feels a little hard to me.

It's perfectly ripe.

These people go to incredible lengths to guarantee that these

avocados actually match their traffic light system.

A new battlefield is being created by the discounters, Lidl and Aldi,

and it's not just low prices.

With award-winning champagnes and lobster,

they revealed a lucrative arena - luxury on a budget.

Everybody loves a bargain, especially if we think we're

going to get something a little special for our cash.

Now, the discounters manage to lure the middle classes down their aisles

with high-end goodies, and now everybody wants a slice

of the luxury market, and I mean everybody.

Iceland are best known for cheap and cheerful frozen food.

They only hold 2% of the grocery market,

but they're hoping a bit of luxury could help them punch above

their weight, and they have a new product in mind.

There is one front where these guys really outperform.

When mums come to Iceland, they come for desserts,

and this supermarket is hoping that that will prove a powerful weapon.

The time they plan to launch their new attack is Christmas,

the most competitive time in the supermarket calendar,

and when shoppers most want luxury products.

The supermarkets start developing their new Christmas treats

more than a year in advance,

and by July, they're unveiling their weapons of war to the press.

So, this is our Wow Hero dessert for this Christmas.

Iceland see Christmas as a chance to potentially steal around a quarter

of the frozen dessert market, if they have the right product.

'Rebecca Stanton is in charge of desserts at Iceland,

'and has brought me to see the inspiration behind the pudding

'she's taking into combat.'

Oh!

Could I have an intense chocolate, please?

Forgive me, but this isn't the sort of patisserie I would expect to find

-in Iceland.

-No, but that's what this is all about. We're trying to change

the way we are, we're really trying to go upmarket.

So posh people like me would go shopping there?

'And Rebecca has her eye on a big prize.'

I'm trying to be the number one in frozen desserts this Christmas.

We had a slightly rough time of it last year, so this year,

it's all about making sure that we are in that number one spot.

'Rebecca has an early design of the dessert she's hoping

'will help win Christmas.

'This five layer igloo made of mousse and chocolate has a twist.'

It's actually all handmade.

You're kidding me. Really?

-"Tesco, watch out," right?

-Yeah.

'Doing handmade luxury on a mass scale

'will be a huge technical challenge.

'So, to find the patisserie skills Rebecca needs,

'Iceland have come to France.'

Hello, Rebecca.

'Rebecca and dessert technologist, Kirsten Rogerson,

'are here to oversee the igloo's first production run.'

This is the first time we're going to be making our actual products

-that are going onto our shelves.

-Did you sleep all right last night?

No, I never really sleep before a first production.

There's so much riding on it, there's so much riding on it,

and we're making sure that the quality off that line is perfect.

'There are 8,000 igloos in this first production run, so if there

'are any problems, they could affect £80,000 worth of sales.'

'Gilles is leading the team of trained patissiers

'who are making the igloos.'

How many people does it take to make this cake?

-50 people today.

-50 people?!

It must be more expensive to make the cake by hand than it would be

-to make it with a machine?

-Yeah, it definitely is more expensive.

But you get something completely unique, and the quality is there.

'At a tenner a pop,

'this will be the most expensive dessert Iceland have ever sold.

'And for now, it's in Kirsten's hands,

'as Rebecca is heavily pregnant, so isn't allowed on the factory floor.'

I'll see you out in the packing area.

'Each igloo is made up of different layers of mousse, cream,

'and chocolate, sitting on a biscuit base.'

Is it a buttery biscuit base?

It's a buttery biscuit base, Gregg.

Fabulous! You have no idea what that means.

No, no, I don't catch on your jokes.

'The big challenge is holding the layers together without them all

'sinking into each other, so the secret is in the freezing.'

In order to get those perfect layers,

we use the freezer to ensure that everything is cold,

frozen, and not going to move, ready for the next stage.

'But this is no ordinary freezer.

'To speed up production, they're using liquid nitrogen.'

So, just imagine, you have a conveyor belt,

and a sprayer of nitrogen liquid at -80 degrees.

So you will cool the top of the product,

then you put it upside down, and it goes through another tunnel.

'Liquid nitrogen freezes the igloo in minutes rather than hours.

'And the fast freezing creates tiny ice crystals,

'which help maintain the smooth texture of the mousse.

'But even fast freezing feels like a slow process to Rebecca,

'who's waiting to see the first of her finished igloos.'

So, here's a finished product.

Immediate reaction?

I'm happy.

Yeah, really, really happy.

It does look amazing.

-I know.

-It looks absolutely superb.

A couple of watch-outs I'm going to ask the factory to be

-careful of here...

-What?

-..is the penguin here looks like

he's floating a little bit, and I'm going to ask the factory

to have a look at making sure he's down on the base.

'I'm not totally convinced that a penguin says high-end patisserie

'to me, but Rebecca's hoping it widens the appeal.'

It is a luxury product.

What this is is luxury for everyone.

Kids are going to love the penguin.

I've never seen a grown woman so happy over a penguin cake!

'But before they leave the factory,

'the team have to test one more thing -

'the proof of this pudding is in the eating.'

When you actually eat all that together, the difference between

those two textures actually really works together.

I think you've done jolly well, and I think that is absolutely divine.

My only word of caution is that the strength of the chocolate

is stronger, much stronger, than the white chocolate mousse.

With ten weeks till Christmas, the work ahead is snowballing.

To be number one in desserts, Rebecca needs to sell out of igloos.

And there's the small matter of having a baby.

They'll be pushing them out, and so will I!

We'll be back later, to see if Rebecca's igloo is

a Christmas turkey or a Christmas cracker.

These days, we shop around like never before.

So one of the biggest challenges in the supermarket wars

is how to retain our loyalty. But there are certain products

that the supermarkets know will keep luring us back,

and one of the biggest is our favourite fizz.

Prosecco - it might mean light, fizzy, and fun to you and me,

but to the supermarkets, it is a serious business.

Unlike Champagne with its big-name labels,

Prosecco is dominated by own brands.

And data shows that people who find a Prosecco they like

will come back for more.

At Tesco and Lidl, cheap comes out top.

Their best-sellers are between £5 and £7. But at Sainsbury's,

it's their premium £10 bottle that's number one.

Once the supermarkets have a product that brings the customers in,

they have to keep getting it right,

and with each Prosecco harvest, that means a fresh challenge.

So, how do they do it?

It's the annual harvest in northern Italy,

and a stressful time for Lisa Rogerson,

Sainsbury's technical manager for wine.

What is the biggest challenge that you face?

Our challenge is, every year,

even though you are making a new wine from a new harvest of grapes,

we want our customers almost not to notice that the vintage has changed,

and for it to taste exactly the same as it did when they bought it before

and liked it.

'But that consistency relies on the quality of this year's grapes,

'and harvesting can be an unpredictable business.'

So, they're harvesting in this vineyard today,

they've already started on some other areas earlier last week,

so we should be able to get an indication of how

the quality's looking, but, of course, it's still very early days.

So, a little bit nerve-racking.

'Prosecco traditionally always came from a designated area of hilly land

'less than 70km squared.

'But, to satisfy growing demand,

'the vineyards have now expanded into the flatlands below.

'Prosecco from the original area is regarded as higher quality,

'so for her premium fizz, Lisa sources from the hills.'

When you have the steeper slopes,

that's where it gets more sunshine to ripen the grapes,

-so you get better quality grapes.

-So steeper is better?

The steeper the better, for the grapes, not so much for the legs.

Not so much for our legs!

-Good exercise!

-Absolutely!

'Winemaker, Gabriele Cescon, keeps a close eye on quality

'throughout the harvest.'

Ciao, Gabriele. Come stai?

-Bene.

-Ciao, come stai?

-This is Babita.

-Mi chiamo Babita.

-Gabriele.

So, how's the harvest going?

"Molto, molto bella," so it's going well.

That's good!

'But if these grapes are to match last year's,

'they need to have the right sugar levels,

'so they're immediately taken to the winery,

'and a sample of the juice is tested.

'All alcoholic drinks begin with fermenting sugar into alcohol.

'The more sugar, the more alcohol in the final Prosecco,

'and Lisa needs a specific amount.'

So, the number that you get coming out on this screen needs to be

-over nine.

-Pressure!

Is it going to make it?

-Oh! 13.3!

-Mm-hm.

-Thumbs up?

-Yep, yep, that's good.

-So...

-Does that mean, then, that it...?

I mean, you said nine was a magic number.

-Mm-hm.

-13 - is that too high?

That's a good medium point.

Not all of that sugar will ferment to alcohol,

so the final wine is around about 10.5%.

'These grapes make the grade, so are crushed,

'and have their stalks and skins mechanically removed.

'It's then a slow wait for grape juice to ferment.

'It's six weeks later, and for Lisa, a critical time.

'She's here to find out whether this year's Prosecco will satisfy

'loyal customers by matching last year's taste.'

So, each one of these will make about a quarter of a million

-bottles of Prosecco.

-That's incredible. Each one?

Yes, and there's 35 of them.

'Each of these tanks holds still wine

'from different hilltop vineyards.

'To reach as close a match as possible,

'Gabriele and his team blend those wines together,

'before the fizz is added.'

So what he will do is taste

all of those individual batches of still wine, and decide

which of those he thinks will blend best together,

which is quite tricky, because if you taste the still wine on its own,

it doesn't taste of Prosecco, because at that stage it's very dry,

it can be quite acidic.

So it's quite a talent to be able to taste that wine,

and then know how it will taste once it's sparkling.

'Now it's down to Lisa to decide

'if her customers will notice a difference.'

This is the 2015 vintage, which is what is currently on the shelves,

but there's no more of this left to be bottled.

Oh, you're supposed to spit! I drank it. Sorry!

-It's good, it's very light.

-Yes, so it is that light, fresh style,

sort of floral, fruity aromas.

-So that's the one that we know worked for you.

-Yep.

-And now we're going to see how it compares to the latest blend.

-Yes.

-Are you feeling nervous, Gabriele?

-A little bit.

-Salute.

-Salute.

Cheers.

How do you feel?

Are you happy with the comparison between last year and now?

Yeah, I think the style and the quality is similar.

At the moment, they are very, very close, I think.

You can tell a little bit of a difference at this stage.

I think once it gets in the bottle and is bought by our customers,

hopefully it will be very consistent.

I think we've been quite lucky here, to get something that's so close.

-Well done!

-Thank you.

You can relax now. You can have the whole bottle!

'And her customers didn't seem to notice the change in vintage.

'On the 23rd of December 2016,

'Sainsbury's sold the equivalent of two bottles of prosecco a second.

'And the week between Christmas and New Year,

'it was their biggest-selling product across the country.'

There's a lot of effort that goes into creating a bottle of fizz.

Get it wrong, and your customers will just end up going to

a completely different supermarket. And with a high ticket item

like prosecco, that would be a huge mistake.

With unparalleled competition between the supermarkets,

our biggest retailers have had a wake-up call.

In a new world of small, budget stores,

the giant of the supermarket scene, Tesco, is under pressure from below.

It's not that long ago that one in every eight pounds spent

in British shops was spent in Tesco.

Over the last few years, the crown has well and truly slipped.

In 2015, Tesco reported the biggest losses in British retail history.

Meanwhile, in the last decade, Aldi has shot up from tenth place

to become our fifth-biggest supermarket.

The supermarket giant needed a new strategy, and it seemed like

their discount rivals had one.

So, if you can't beat them, join them.

'When trouble-shooter, Jason Tarry, became commercial boss,

'Tesco's strategy seemed to be, "Bigger is better".'

We always wanted to have a comprehensive range for customers.

We wanted them to not feel the need to go and shop anywhere else,

like a one-stop shop, that was the idea.

'To stop customers going to the competition,

'Tesco stocked an incredible 90,000 products, but that was a problem.'

I just think we ended up taking it a bit too far, and we weren't

competitive versus the other supermarkets in the marketplace.

'The discounters use the opposite strategy.

'Instead of tens of thousands of products,

'they only stock a few thousand.'

You could see the difference if you take something like ketchup.

At its peak, Tesco had 28 types. Aldi had one.

And coffee - Tesco had 283 kinds. Lidl had 24.

'Aldi and Lidl have a smaller range because it saves money.

'More products mean bigger distribution centres,

'complex logistics, and more staff stocking shelves.

'So Tesco have started cutting back on what they stock.

'But, it is a gamble. Tesco shoppers are used to a massive range.

'The discounters' customers are not.

Of course it was risky. I mean, you always worry when you

take stuff away, rather than add things, for sure.

We tried to minimise the risk, but there's no doubt about it,

it was something that did come with some risk.

'So, do we respond better to more or less choice?

'To find out, I'm meeting consumer psychologist Paul Marsden.'

-Paul.

-Gregg, good to meet you.

Good to meet you. What are we doing here this morning?

We're going to do a psychological experiment on choice, whether

people like more choice or less choice when they're out shopping.

That's quite obvious, isn't it? They want more choice, don't they?

Well, we're going to find out.

Oooh!

'Grace Crump runs a jam stall at Greenwich market,

'offering a range of 24 different flavours of jam.'

Grace, can I ask you why so many?

I kind of feel that people like choice.

And so having a wide range might, you know, encourage people to buy.

'First, we're going to see how much jam Grace sells in 90 minutes

'with all 24 flavours on offer.

'Then we'll limit the options.'

We're going to reduce the number of flavours of jam out there to

just six, and see whether that has any impact on how many she sells.

My husband has always said to me, "You have far too many flavours".

-Interesting.

-So maybe this is

the ideal opportunity to maybe prove him wrong.

'First up, the large selection of jams.'

So I've got mulberry with crab-apple,

and there's some traditional marmalades.

'24 flavours seem to be attracting a bit of attention.'

-Have you ever tried mulberry jam?

-No, I haven't.

OK, have a good day.

-No jam sale there, mate.

-No.

-See, they must have

been interested, otherwise they wouldn't have stopped.

I've got this strawberry with rose petal...

'And it looks like we've got a sale.'

Was it easy to make a choice?

Oh...

Actually not, but it's better to have a choice.

'Or is it?

'It's time to reduce Grace's range of jams to just six flavours.'

-Well, thanks a lot.

-Did you buy some jam?

-Yes, I did.

-Wouldn't you have rather had more choice?

I think there's a lot of choice there.

What about if we offered you 22, 23 different choices,

Wouldn't you prefer that?

Well, then I'd be standing here all day reading them, wouldn't I?!

'After a morning on the market, Grace has sold 50% more jams

'when she had less on offer. And it's a result that echoes

'the findings of similar large-scale experiments.'

You did sell more with a smaller range.

Do you think your husband might have been right, then,

-that you had too many?

-Yes. Begrudgingly, yes!

'Psychology tells us that we buy more when there is less on offer.'

There is a theory in psychology called ego depletion,

that the brain is a bit like a battery, and it runs out.

You've basically got only a certain amount of decisions you can make

during the day, and after that time, you tend to make bad decisions.

So the idea is that we actually try and conserve our decisions for

things that matter, and sometimes jam... Well, jam's just jam,

so people don't want to be forced into using their

precious decision-making capacity to choose jam.

The less is more approach is already working for Tesco.

They haven't reduced their range to the extremes of the discounters,

but have taken nearly 20% of products off the shelf.

And they've seen their market share

rise for the first time in five years.

In the supermarket war,

sometimes stealing your rivals' strategy is the way to succeed.

It's October, and for Rebecca Stanton and the Iceland desserts team,

Christmas has come early.

Stand by.

So, today, the TV filming is going on for all of the adverts.

In particular, now they're focusing on desserts, which is quite exciting.

There is a lot of people here making this food look amazing.

Rebecca is hoping this handmade igloo will help land her

a Christmas number one in frozen desserts.

And action!

There's a lot of pressure on this penguin.

Iceland boss Malcolm Walker is hoping their luxury on a budget

strategy will give the supermarket a much-needed boost.

It's 46 years since we started the company,

and we've increased our sales and profits every single year,

until the last couple of years, when the marketplace has just got so tough.

Everybody's eating away at our market share, so it's a nightmare.

To survive in this supermarket war,

Iceland need to crack the luxury market and add to their customer base.

Last year, yeah, we cocked up over Christmas.

What we've had to do is reinvent ourselves.

Everybody's upping the game, so we have to as well.

Upping the game in what way?

We've got to do better quality, better products,

better value and all that translates into lower margin for us.

But what happens if you don't do that?

We go out of business. Unless you change, you die.

With eight shopping days till Christmas, the igloo is finally in store.

-TV:

-Who doesn't love a penguin, eh?

Pure magic, man!

But the festive food fight is hotting up.

So Rebecca and new baby Matilda are sussing out the opposition.

It's absolutely imperative that you are on top of what your competitors

are doing, you cannot drop anything.

So we go in and we take quite a few photographs.

Sometimes you do get caught doing that and you're not supposed to do it,

but we do really need to and we know that our competitors do that with us as well.

By looking at rival products, Iceland get a sense of how they compare.

So in Sainsbury's today,

there are quite a few interesting and exciting products.

Also today, I've nipped into the local Aldi.

There are a couple of products that we'll be trying over the next couple of days,

but nothing really that exciting.

As Christmas approaches...

Ho-ho-ho!

..supermarkets receive sales data as often as every two hours,

so they can see if they need to take action with their marketing.

You could change TV slots,

if there's a particular product that needs some extra support,

or you could change a price.

Price is the quickest lever that you've got to pull,

but it is a last resort,

because you do know that that rush and that real Christmas sales spike

will just be a couple of days before Christmas.

You have to wait, because those sales will come.

'It's the New Year and I'm at Iceland HQ,

'where Rebecca is about to find out if she's won the Christmas war.'

-Hello.

-Hello, nice to see you again.

Very good to see you again.

'After a year of development and production,

'it all comes down to four weeks of sales.

'Independent analyst Kantar compiled December's sales results to show which

'supermarket won the biggest slice of the frozen dessert market.'

-This is the moment of truth then, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-You're going to find out.

-Yeah.

OK.

So, we are the number one in frozen desserts over the Christmas period.

-No way!

-We got 22.4% market share.

We are number one in the frozen desserts category.

That is fantastic news.

I can't actually get across how happy I am to see those numbers.

Do you know? Looking at that, it's only really you and Tesco in the fight, isn't it?

Yeah, that's correct. And don't forget,

Tesco are ten times bigger than Iceland.

So if you put that into context, that is an amazing result.

What have you learned from the igloo this year?

So we've learned that we can sell products that are of a slightly higher

price point, and I am pleased to say that the igloo sold out and performed

really well for Iceland.

Will you be continuing the igloo next year?

So, I think the important thing is

with food retail, is you've always got to be developing and, you know,

we have to keep moving our ranges forward and redeveloping.

After all of this, you're dumping the igloo?

The likelihood is that the igloo won't form part of the range next year

and we'll be looking for the next biggest and best thing.

Oh, take a day off!

Pat yourself on the back.

Retail doesn't work like that. You do have to constantly develop.

Well, after all her hard work, Rebecca looks pretty pleased with herself.

But the marketplace is so competitive,

if she wants to stay ahead of Tesco, she's now got to drop the igloo and

come up with a brand-new dessert for next Christmas.

Whatever new strategies the supermarkets have up their sleeves,

sometimes the oldest tactic is the most powerful.

Price is the biggest weapon in the supermarket wars,

so every few months, there's a new wave of assault.

Last summer, Morrisons fired the first shot in the latest price war,

slashing an average of 18% off 1,000 items.

Within weeks, their rivals were following suit.

But undercutting your competitors is a dangerous game.

How do you cut costs without cutting into profits,

or compromising on quality?

For Morrisons' beef suppliers, the answer is to innovate.

So a group of farmers and scientists have come together to see if they

can create the most efficient meat-producing cattle in Britain.

The biggest cost in beef production is cattle feed.

It's where around 70% of the money goes.

So here in Yorkshire, scientist Dr Duncan Puller is collaborating

with Morrisons and their beef farmers

to try and find bulls that convert the minimum amount of food into the

maximum amount of meat.

Farmers can then use those bulls for breeding.

So, Duncan, what's so exciting about this project?

Well, for the first time in this country, what we're doing is using cutting-edge science

and technology to really help us pick out the most efficient

animals in the herd, which means they're going to be cheaper to keep.

The bulls come here for eight weeks of precision monitoring using some

very clever kit.

Step one is finding out exactly how much they eat.

The way it works is each bull has got an electronic tag in his ear and

then in the top of the bin is a device to register when the bull's

putting his head through the bin. So when he's done that,

the reader knows that it's that individual animal and in each box we've got

a scale that weighs the feed that's in there and as the bull eats a mouthful of feed,

the scale records what's disappeared.

So the technology is telling you everything you need to know.

As soon as the head goes in and he's munching away here,

all the data's being collected?

That's right. And that data is wirelessly sent down to the computer in the office.

Next, the team need to know how much of that feed

is being turned into beef.

So farm manager David Thirlwell runs a weekly weigh in.

So what can I do to help?

-Well, you can actually transfer some of the weights onto this file that we have.

-OK.

So every animal's got... If you can read his ear tag there in his ear.

So his ear tag, OK.

2-0-3-3-8-7...

-And then just transfer his weight across.

-So, 520.

That's what he was last week.

Is that what you expect to see?

Some will do very little one week

and then they'll gain a lot the next,

so it's quite irregular, really.

But it's not just the amount of weight that's important.

The team use ultrasound technology to get an accurate picture of the

quality of meat.

So, if you can imagine, that's how the sirloin would look on your plate.

At the top of the picture you've got the layer of fat that you'd see on

the steak, and then the little white flecks

are mostly the marbling fat that you see in the steak.

Marbling is the fat needed to cook a tender steak.

To keep the supermarkets happy,

the team are looking for around 6% marbling,

and this bull has hit the spot.

So, he's going to have a long and happy life as a breeding bull somewhere?

Hopefully, yes, yeah.

The team here have ranked over 1,000 animals in the last five years to find

the best bulls for breeding, and they're already seeing a difference.

The best produce the most meat with around two kilograms less feed a day.

So if you had 100 cows, you know,

that might be worth about £6,000 a year.

So that's a big difference for you and how much profit you make.

Yeah, I mean, it's very important.

You know, we have no say on what we're going to get at the marketplace,

but we have to try and become more efficient.

And what about the supermarkets? What do they get out of this?

For the supermarket, what we're trying to do is to make the animals

that meet all the right specifications, in terms of eating quality of the beef,

and then when you look back at the farmer,

then it's going to cost them less to produce, so they're more likely to be profitable,

and the supermarket has a nice guaranteed supply to get its beef in the future.

And the plan seems to be working.

Beef from this scheme is already on the shelves in Morrisons stores.

Price wars are the front line of the battle between the supermarkets and

we the consumers are not complaining,

but sometimes it does mean that we compromise on quality or welfare.

What's clever here is that they're bringing together farming and science

to produce beef more cheaply.

The supermarkets need to constantly evolve their strategies to target

big spenders, and right now the fastest-growing spenders in the grocery market

are 16 to 35-year-olds.

But how do you get them to choose your store?

The new weapon in the supermarket war is social media.

A whopping 90% of people under the age of 35 use either Instagram,

Twitter or Facebook.

That is millions of potential customers.

Marks & Spencer tweet to a bigger audience than any other supermarket,

while Lidl and Aldi reach more than 1.5 million people on Facebook.

So what if the supermarkets could find a product that got so much online attention,

it actually got young people off their phones and into the store?

Tesco are taking the supermarket wars online with some hot property.

So to find out more, I'm joining chilli buyer Easton Boyd.

Wahey!

I love chillies!

Well, I think you've come to the right place!

This is the UK's largest chilli farm.

They harvest 15 million chillies a year.

We'll be visiting Europe three or four times a season,

to come and check out quality, availability,

and just make sure everything is coming along nicely.

But Easton is checking up on no ordinary chilli.

Farmer Salvatore Genovese has a reputation for growing superhots.

It's the Ferrari of the range, it's the top end,

it's the flagship chilli that sort of stands out.

It's not for everybody.

The hotter the chilli, the hotter the attention online.

So after six years growing increasingly spicier varieties,

they're hoping Salvatore has reached the top.

This is the Guinness world record for the hottest chilli in the world, the Carolina Reaper.

Carolina Reaper?

Hottest chilli in the world.

That even looks dangerous, doesn't it?

It looks like Satan grew it.

All right, let's take something mild, like, let's say...jalapeno.

How does that compare to it?

You would say 400 jalapenos would equal one of those, so take your pick.

Do you want the mountain of 400 chillies, or do you just want one of those?

It's the same.

Use it sparingly.

-Not half!

-Just use a sprinkle, a small amount, when you're cooking.

It's all you need to do.

Thank you.

Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

No, no, no, no! I just licked my finger and my tongue is on fire!

Pffwahh! Oh-ho!

I just nibbled a tiny little bit off of there.

That is fire!

-Whoa!

-Are you OK, Salv?

-Yeah, great.

-Mate, it's done you, innit?

I am crying, hiccupping.

Yeah, way too much.

Listen, listen, he's in pain, my mouth's on fire,

is this what it takes to put Tesco ahead of the game?

I think it creates some sort of excitement within the category,

-which is really, really good.

-If I can't ever taste properly again on

MasterChef, I'm suing!

A Carolina Reaper grown in the United States has already broken records.

But to create a buzz online here,

Easton wants to claim he's selling the hottest chilli in Britain.

'Andrew Jukes from the Warwick Crop Centre is testing Salvatore's chilli

'to see just how hot it is.'

How do you, scientifically, measure the heat of a chilli?

What we're looking for is three compounds, basically.

They're collectively known as capsaicinoids and they all produce heat.

Capsaicinoids are the chemicals in a chilli

which are supposed to scare us mammals off of eating them.

The theory is if you stop mammals eating it, birds eat it,

the birds disperse the seeds further.

-So birds don't dislike the heat?

-Birds don't experience the heat.

The higher the concentration of capsaicinoids, the hotter the chilli.

So Andrew extracts them and measures their strength.

We're going to translate this onto what is known as the Scoville scale.

The Scoville scale is what the heat of all chillies are measured against.

A jalapeno will measure about 5,000 on the scale.

So, how hot is our Carolina Reaper?

We've tested it this morning,

and we've come in at 1.41 million.

Wow. That's a great result.

So that makes us the hottest chilli ever tested in the UK.

Are you excited by this? It's almost like a new find.

-Terrified.

-Are you?

-Yeah.

-Why?

-It's a chemical weapon.

For the Carolina Reaper to work as a weapon in the supermarket wars,

this chilli now needs to pack a punch online.

What are you trying to do online here, and why?

Just create excitement, so that that excitement translates

into people coming into our shops.

Within two weeks of the Carolina Reaper's launch...

-Bon appetit.

-..videos started to appear online.

-No!

-Wow!

-Don't do it!

Oh! OH!

That's ridiculous.

One of the areas that we under index in is young adults,

and we know that young adults are who are driving social media at the

moment. So a real presence on that is making a massive difference in

helping us win the battle. You know,

we've got so many different retailers that are out there now,

and everybody is trying their best to win customers from each other.

Do you know? Funnily enough, I get it.

I think, even though I've been involved in food all my life, I think,

like, the hottest chilli ever is newsworthy.

Absolutely. It's the first time in the UK market we've done something so big as this.

After one season on the shelves,

this chilli has won attention on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

And customers have been asking when the Carolina Reaper is coming back.

In the supermarket wars,

like any battle ground, intelligence is crucial.

The supermarkets spend a lot of time and money studying exactly what we

buy. They know that the more they understand about how we shop,

the more that they can sell.

Supermarkets have long been using

our loyalty card and credit card data to build up a picture of our spending.

But as technology changes,

it opens up whole new realms of intelligence-gathering tactics.

Tom Berry is a retail analyst working with some of our biggest stores.

So, now they're really looking at using your phones.

So, mobile phones, unless you turn the settings off,

they're permanently looking for Wi-Fi hotspots.

So, supermarkets can place a Wi-Fi hotspot in the shop

and that will immediately recognise when your phone pings to that.

From that, they'll be able to build up an idea, build up a heat map,

of how people travel through stores,

and to understand what kind of deals that are on will attract a consumer

there, by the movement of their phone.

And the future could be even more tailored.

Retailers are developing facial recognition technology,

which uses a camera and screen on the shelf,

to work out the age and gender of the face looking at it

and then show a relevant ad.

If they decided it's a teenage boy looking at a shelf,

they could target an advertising campaign to have, say,

Lionel Messi drinking a certain drink,

which is more likely to convert that sale.

Supermarkets can use this kind of tech to target shoppers in their own

stores, but sussing out how we spend our cash at the competition

is even more important.

So they rely on data-gathering companies like Nielsen,

who analyse receipts from a panel of thousands of shoppers across the country.

Analyst Mike Watkins helps them turn that data into strategy.

So, one of the most effective ways of growing your sales

is to have a better understanding how much your shoppers are spending

at your competitor, and that's where Nielsen come in.

For the products like wine, Nielsen can drill down to specific regions

and tell Tesco exactly what type of wine

we're nipping to Sainsbury's for, and what price we're paying.

So then they're able to, what,

say we'll start stocking the same selected line of wines?

So, they'll look at the range of data that Nielsen provides,

put that altogether, said, yeah,

I think there's an opportunity to sell more white wine,

and within white wine, more wines from South America, and within that,

what price, what promotions.

Tesco can start stocking similar wines at a competitive price

in the hope of winning back customers.

But what about us?

What do we get out of all this information collection?

Well, what shoppers get is the right range in the store to fit their

lifestyle, they get good prices, and what they want to buy is available.

I can see how getting the information

about how we shop is so valuable to the supermarkets, but I have to say,

it does make me feel a little bit uncomfortable

that they know so much about us.

I think the data gathering is less about benefiting us

and more about the supermarkets getting an edge on the competition.

In the fight for our custom,

the supermarkets are finding some unlikely battlegrounds

to try and win favour.

In the last year, the supermarkets have been taking a lot of flak over

Britain's food waste crisis.

They've been criticised for refusing to accept anything

but perfectly-shaped veg from their suppliers

and for not making enough use of their own waste,

and for selling us offers that make us chuck out too much food.

In 2016,

all the major supermarkets signed up to a government-approved strategy

to reduce waste.

But now, the fight is on to see who can best to solve this problem

and win customers' hearts.

The war on waste has actually become a war between the supermarkets and

what I suspect is a battle for brownie points.

The supermarkets seem to have turned angelic.

Asda and Tesco are selling us wonky veg at a discount

to stop it going to waste.

In Morrisons and Waitrose, they're giving old food to the homeless.

And at Sainsbury's, they've turned a whole town into a testing ground

for the latest technology in the fight against food waste.

Here in Swadlincote, Derbyshire,

Sainsbury's have launched a £1 million trial

to help the community reduce their rubbish.

Have a look on mummy's iPad.

Do we have any yogurts?

-Yeah.

-We've got some already, haven't we?

Shall we not get any today?

Lisa Edwards and her family are testing some hi-tech gadgets

-for Sainsbury's.

-Do we need any milk?

-No.

-No.

What are you doing with that iPad?

-Hello, son.

-I am having a look at what's in our fridge.

So I'm just checking to see if we need any yogurts, which we don't,

so I'm not going to buy any today.

Did you take a photo of your fridge?

It's from a camera that's inside our fridge

and connected to our internet.

Look at that!

If you don't need yogurts, what do you need?

I really need to get some cheese, actually,

so we're going to go there next.

-Have you just built a wall of yogurt?

-Yeah.

I don't think Sainsbury's are going to be very happy with you.

Quick, let's run away, let's go and get the cheese.

Every time Lisa's fridge door is open

it takes a picture and saves it

so that she can see the most up-to-date image of what's in there.

That way, she won't double up on shopping.

So, we've got two cameras, one here that takes a photo that side,

and there's one just here that takes a photo of what's in the door.

It's linked to the Wi-Fi in the house,

which is linked to my app on my iPad.

Lisa is also trialling a range of new food waste apps.

I've got an app.

Every time you've got some wasted food, you weigh it,

and you can input it into the app, which I'll show you.

For example, if I wasn't going to use this pepper, I weigh it.

0.07kg.

And I can record it on the app.

So it's a pepper. Input the weight, 0.07.

And it's calculated that that's worth 14p to me

of my weekly shopping.

'14p?! It hardly seems worth taking the time

'to weigh it out for that much.'

What was the most amount of waste you had?

I think one week we probably had about £8 or £9.

It all adds up, I suppose, over a year.

It's a lot of money.

Lisa says that by making her more aware of what she throws out,

the app's saved them around £10 a week.

That's £500 a year, which is pretty good going.

Sainsbury's are spending a year in Swadlincote

trialling a range of ideas

from fancy fridges to recipes that use up old food.

It's the brainchild of head of sustainability, Paul Crewe,

who's in town making a pudding with our most-wasted item -

bread.

But is all this any more than a PR stunt?

Can I help? Shall we divide the labour?

Yeah, you do strawberries, I'll do the butter and bread.

Right. So, socially it's absolutely right, but it's got to be right

from a business point of view as well, hasn't it?

Absolutely. It's a competitive market.

I don't think retailing has been ever as competitive as it is today.

And absolutely, by doing the right thing,

we'll hopefully make this a differentiation

between not only ourselves but the rest of our competition too.

Tell me the value of brownie points to be seen to be doing this.

I don't like brownie points.

Our customers told us the most important thing they want us

to help with is help them waste less and save more money at home.

Dead simple.

Sainsbury's don't yet have the results

of the waste trial in Swadlincote,

but they plan to spread what they've learned here nationwide.

I'll leave it up to you to decide.

Are they really trying to help us out,

or are they trying to earn more brownie points than their rivals

in what is a very competitive market?

Whatever their motivation, they are cutting down on food waste,

and that has got to be a step in the right direction.

Next time, the supermarkets scrap

over the biggest battlefield of all -

our health.

From delivering on the latest health trends...

You've got an army of courgette stabbers.

..bending the rules on food labels...

So, we're being duped, we're being fooled, are we?

Well, we're being manipulated.

..and even creating a hi-tech, healthy booze.

Now, that is straight out of Willy Wonka!