BP has named David Pitron as the new trading director for its UK Convenience Retail division. Pitron succeeds Andy Davis, who recently took on the full
time post of European trading director.
The oil company said Pitron has been with BP for nearly five years, and for the last three and a half of those he had the role of convenience trading director in Australia and New Zealand.
Richard Harding, BP’s UK convenience retail director, said: “David brings a wealth of industry and BP experience to the role which will be invaluable in driving forward the delivery of our trading strategy in the UK.”
Before joining BP, Pitron started his career with five years at Marks and Spencer where he progressed through the graduate training schemes and then moved onto the Compass Group.
He will take up his new post on Monday.
Davis had previously been combining the position of European trading director with his role as UK convenience trading director. He joined BP five years ago from Alldays where he was director of buying for a network of more then 600 convenience stores. A BP spokesman said Davis had played an important role in driving the UK store profitability growth and the Marks & Spencer partnership in the last years.
Meanwhile, BP revealed that alcohol, confectionery and non food sales led the way over the Christmas trading period in its UK convenience stores.
It said that like for like sales were up five per cent for the three week period across Christmas and New Year for the 250 BP Connect and Express stores. The BP Connect sites, including the Marks and Spencer Simply Food insert, also performed strongly.
Harding said: “In terms of shop sales, we had a strong Christmas and New Year across all our store formats – in the light of the challenging trading environment we are delighted with the way things have gone in our stores.
“The success is driven by being convenient for customers, having a great range of products and services, and a really strong promotional programme. All of our categories did well, especially all of our impulse categories, with alcohol and confectionery the strongest performers.”
During the three week period, BP stores (ex M&S) recorded alcohol sales which were 13 per cent up on 2008, and confectionery sales, which were 11 per cent up on last year and soft drink sales 7 per cent up.
These were driven by key BOGOF (buy one get one free) promotions on Cadbury Roses and Heroes on confectionery, and very strong alcohol deals on key brands Fosters, Stella, Carling and Blossom Hill wine as well as strong soft drinks deals on coke.
In the non food category, DVDs proved to be another huge success, thanks largely to the sales of three key titles, Mama Mia, Hancock and The Dark Knight.
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