Supervalu’s CEO Jeff Noddle challenged US food retailers to renew the spirit of collaboration as he warned that the gains of the ECR (Efficient Consumer Response) initiative, launched in the US in the mid-80s, would be lost if companies fail to closely collaborate.

“There was a lot of initial enthusiasm [for ECR], but individual priorities among different trade segments took over and there were a lot of missed opportunities to take things one stage at a time. When I became FMI (Food Marketing Institute) chairman last year, I talked about the need to be more collaborative because if we keep doing the same things over and over again, how can we expect to get a different outcome?,” said Noddle during the annual convention of FMI. The ECR industry-wide initiative in the US aims to eliminate $30 billion in unnecessary costs from the distribution system. Noddle added that although much of the financial promise of ECR has probably been realised “there’s no method to determine what we actually saved.” Meanwhile, Noddle also named an eight-member executive board to oversee the combined operations of Supervalu and Albertsons, which are awaiting the closing of their merger.