About Us

Nisa-Today’s is the UK’s leading member-owned organisation, providing benefits to independent retailers and wholesalers in food and drink markets. Nisa-Today’s achieved a turnover, for the year ending March 2010, of £1.4 billion and represents retail stores and wholesale depots across the UK (including Northern Ireland), the Channel Islands and the Republic of Ireland.

Our commercial objective is to negotiate the lowest cost price of products and provide the most efficient supply chain for its member companies, by strategically using their combined turnover powerbase.

Nisa-Today’s is the power behind the independent sector. It is owned by its members - independent retailers and wholesalers supplying local shops. Each member holds up to 100 shares in the company. At launch, these were valued at £1 each (£100 for total shareholding) and are now valued at £162 each (£16,200 for total maximum shareholding). Retail members belong to "Nisa" and Wholesale members to "Today’s". No member has more than 100 shares regardless of their size, and therefore each member has equal voting rights.

Most people have visited a Nisa-Today’s retail member store without realising it – Costcutter, Tuffins and Mills stores to name but a few are members of the buying group.

In the buying group there are presently 765 Nisa retail members operating over 5,000 stores and 228 Today’s wholesale companies with 270 depots, making it possibly Europe’s biggest independent buying group.

Nisa-Today’s currently employs 217 staff at its Member Support Centre at Normanby Enterprise Park in Scunthorpe. In addition, over 1,200 staff are directly employed on Nisa-Today’s logistics by our distribution partners Bibby and DHL Europe at our distribution centres at Scunthorpe, Stoke and Harlow. The Scunthorpe warehouse is 625,000 sq. ft. in size and represents a £30million investment for Nisa-Today’s when it opened in 2005. The group’s distribution service was awarded the Ian MacLaurin Award for Supply Chain Excellence at the IGD Food Industry Awards in 2004.

The group is also experiencing great success through the rollout of its two branded fascias – "Nisa" for retailers and "Today’s" for the retail stores of wholesalers - both displaying the strong new imagery. The Nisa Symbol Group was awarded the "Symbol/Fascia Group of the Year" at the 2007 Retail Industry Awards. There are currently over 600 Nisa-branded retail stores nationwide. These participating retailers benefit from a nationally recognised image, store-layout and merchandising formats, providing consumers with a consistently high standard of products, range and service. There are currently in excess of 50 Today’s - branded stores nationwide.

Nisa-Today’s also provides its members with the most competitive and wide ranging own label portfolio in the sector that compares with that available from the national multiples. From the Nisa Heritage Select fresh ranges, the main Nisa-Today’s Heritage range, to the "value for money" Nisa-Today’s Value products - all consumer sectors are fully catered for.

Other major areas of assistance include a comprehensive support package covering retail store development and consumer marketing campaigns. Five million personalised consumer leaflets are distributed door-to-door every three weeks throughout the UK and have been a major factor in the resurgence of the group’s part of the independent sector, against the growing domination of the multiples.

The company is a organisation entirely owned by its trading members – retailer and wholesalers - and as such is run solely for the benefit of its retail and wholesale members, surplus profits are reinvested back into the company and any remainder may be returned to member companies annually. Nisa-Today’s has a unique model made possible by unprecedented levels of collaboration between independent businesses and by customers support of their local, independent, stores.