Check out the Darrell Lea Australia Day floor display unit on show at my local Woolworths supermarket yesterday.
I like the striking design of the unit, excellent for visual cut-through and perfect for placement next to the Australia Day display as it was. I also like the pitch: AUSSIE, AUSSIE, AUSSIE! YUM, YUM, YUM! Very nice.
The Proudly Australian owned and operated pitch is also a strong message.
I’d be interested to know if newsagents selling darrell Lea have this display unit or were offered it.
They have dumped newsagencies for woollies Coles and iga supermarkets, and Big W. No reps anymore the only communication from them is a fax with a new product. And when you do an order only half of it arrives. Not very Australian in my opinion but that’s the way retail is going. Give me Haighs any day, that’s chocolate!
Do agree display is good.
I saw Darrell Lea Rocklea at 7/11 this morning
The only contact I have had from anybody is from DL dect collectors. Never recieved the last statement and was left wondering what was happening. No contact at all from DL and then BANG…..a debt collectors letter.
Darrel is now supporting supermarkets and Campbells where some lines where on special recently with IGA selling some lines almost cheaper than I pay for it (a matter of cents). Darrel Lea appears not to care or want its network of Licensees and sub agents. None of these special deals and promo support stands have been offered to Sub Agents.
Some of the stunts pulled by Dickson the appointed distributor are in my view unethical.
Some Darrell Lea Licensees had sourced choclates from other sources and these other sources where then promptly signed up Darrell Lea and Dickson to distribute only through them to Darrell Lea Licensees. There was also a significant cut in Margins for these products as a result.
Darrell Lea will I suspect be gone from my shop if this does not change.
Gone forever is the point of difference for us as Newsagents in my view.
Easter in particular is one I was very proud of when it came to me versus the local Woolies.
I appreciate that a lot of the Easter lines that made Darrell Lea a popular choice are now gone but selling out to supermarkets and convenience stores in my view has de-valued the product. I have to question why I would keep this line on the margins available to us.
A sad outcome but I’m sure the new owners have an opposite view.
We weren’t offered the stand. Sales for the Banana and Lime Rocklea Road were so poor nationally that a lot of accounts are now receiving a free box of the product to sample with customers to help boost sales.
We used to have the large format store-in-store concept, but as of April will no longer stock Darrell Lea because of a number of exceptionally poor decisions by the new owners and distributors.
No stand offered to us. Local IGA puts their cardboard Darrell Lea stand , at the back of the shop in a corner .
Our local woolies does not stock the range but DO have this stand. On the stand is printed Exclusive to Woolworths. They have liquorice and the new flavour Rocky Road in it. Right next to the express checkout queue. An opportunistic sales ploy – hardly a huge commitment to DL I would say.
Best descission we made was to get rid of DL 2 years ago after poor sevice and quality issues. We now carry another choc line and has been a better seller than DL ever was.
According to last week’s Woolworths catalogue, the banana and lime rock lea road and the pineapple and lime liquorice are Woolworths exclusives.
It’s interesting Danielle. The display units I have seen don;t say this.
Hi Gregg,
We keep the DL for last 8 yrs, however lately we are not getting any service and communication is also very poor. can you please advise the name of your new chocolate supplier.
Hi Bhagwat,
The company is Origin8 Fine Foods
Also in Australia Post, Dicksons being the distributor for those also. (A few different types of licorice bags)
It’s a limited range in AP at the moment SBG of only 4 different bags however the pricing and offer looks good. When I showed a couple of my staff what I’d ordered both they and a customer commented how much they liked the DL licorice and thought it would be great to have here. Sounds like a winner to me.
Just saw DL soft eating licquorice in our local post office – use by date is October 2013! What’s it got in it now that’s changed date from 3 or 4 weeks to nine months?