AF Blakemore signs up to MealTrak consumer tracking programme

MealTrak, the food-to-go and out-of-home tracking programme, has signed up AF Blakemore & Son as a new client.

AF Blakemore is the largest SPAR wholesaler in the UK and owns 263 SPAR stores across England and Wales, as well as supporting its independent SPAR estate through Blakemore Trade Partners.

MealTrak surveys 36,500 consumers a year about their food-to-go/out-of-home eating occasions from the previous day. This enables subscribers to the service to quantify the out-of-home market, track performance over time, and understand the consumer and the reasons for market changes.

David Cook, group commercial director at AF Blakemore & Son, said: “Our partnership with MealTrak will help us accelerate our journey to blur the lines of convenience store and food-to-go retailing. Our most recent SPAR store launch at Brindley Place, Birmingham, is testament to this, with the introduction of Philpott’s food-to-go concept. We are now better servicing our customers with delicious ‘food for now’ and ‘food for later’ solutions, and seeing a significant uplift in our like-for-like sales since go-live.”

Tom Fender, development director at TWC – MealTrak’s data partner, added: “MealTrak is one of the most established sources of market intelligence and insight on food-to-go, an area of huge strategic importance to AF Blakemore. As experts in the wholesale route-to-market as well as data partner to MealTrak, the opportunity to work with the Blakemore team is a perfect fit for us.”