Talking turkey with a festive Coles CEO

COLES chief executive Steven Cain is preparing for the biggest Christmas ever in Australia, fuelled by the end of lockdowns and more than $100bn in accumulated savings held by shoppers.

Early analysis points to Australian consumers, still unable to fly overseas, spending as much as $11bn this Christmas and unleashing an economyboosting wave of spending as life returns to normal.

Mr Cain is readying Coles to emerge as a winner from the spending spree. The retail giant is looking to employ 7500 supermarket workers, including 1400 at its liquor outlets, to support its holiday plans.

Its Christmas product range, launched on Wednesday, includes 150 new foods, drinks and goodies including its popular smoked crackling ham and for the first time the Turducken – a boneless chicken stuffed into a boneless duck, further stuffed into a boneless turkey.

Coles has also released its first range of plastic-free and recyclable festive crackers, cards and decorations.

“Most people are expecting this will be the biggest Christmas ever, and judging by what I have read there is more than $100bn saved by consumers during Covid and we are expecting that they will start spending as soon as they are able to,” Mr Cain said.

It is the perfect alignment of the stars for retailers following the disruption and pain caused by the pandemic, with major states NSW and Victoria emerging from lockdowns just in time for the run-up to Christmas.

The Australian Retailers Association tips consumers will spend as much as $11bn on Christmas this year.

“We are expecting a fair share of that will go on food, drink and gifts and so on and we will have an eye on value but I think the focus of our range is around easy entertaining, people will want to be talking to each other and sharing experiences and not necessarily pinned to the oven.”

According to Coles customer insights, October is when Australians start planning their Christmas entertaining, with the number of online searches for desserts and recipes on Taste.com.au surging more than three times the level seen in September.

Mr Cain said the pandemic saw a shift to cooking from scratch as people enjoyed preparing meals at home, but now as lockdowns end there was likely to be a move back to easier cooking options with packaged foods and meals.

“After another challenging year for so many Australians, we want to make this entertaining season as easy and affordable as possible,” he said.

“Premiumisation and entertaining are the big things this year.”

Mr Cain said early indications from the reopening of retail across NSW on Monday as that state exited lockdowns was positive with the further rollout of vaccines to support consumer confidence and demand.

The new festive products will be rolled out across coming months.

Christmas puddings, fruit mince pies and bakery treats are already available with Aussie hams and seafood in store in November and Hunter Valley turkeys and Turducken in midDecember.

The Coles teams at Liquorland, First Choice Liquor Market and Vintage Cellars have created Christmas drinks pairings that will make matching food and drink easier.

Most people are expecting this will be the biggest Christmas ever Steve Cain