Morrisons
Morrisons featured in our list of top news articles of the year, after analysts suggested in June that the firm was “between a rock and a hard place” after stepping up food manufacturing in recent years.
The Bradford-based supermarket now produces a fifth of its own products, operating facilities including the former Rathbones bakery, purchased in 2005, four abattoirs, and a fish factory in Grimsby, which it acquired in March.
Clive Black, from city analysts Shore Capital, said: “In good times, vertical integration gives you exclusivity and can be used to strategic and tactical advantage, as you can choose to promote a category when no-one else is. However, in an adverse climate it is a double negative.”
Julian Wild, food group director of legal firm Rollits, told FoodManufacture.co.uk the Morrisons strategy of vertical integration is pretty “hard to understand”.