As Christmas approaches and UK retailers gear up for peak trading, experienced food and drink brands still have valuable opportunities to strengthen their presence. IFE Manufacturing outlines five practical actions that manufacturers and brands can take in the final weeks of November and early December to maximise visibility, protect availability and build a stronger commercial position for the year ahead.

For experienced UK food and drink brands, the final weeks before Christmas are not the time to overhaul your seasonal strategy. Instead, they are an opportunity to sharpen execution, protect availability and improve the visibility you can still influence in grocery retail.

By late November, supermarket multiples have already confirmed listings, promotional plans and forecasted volumes. Even so, there is still a meaningful window for operators to strengthen their presence as peak trading approaches. Here are five ways established brands can make an impact during the final weeks of the season.

1. Double Down on Your Hero SKUs

At this point in the year, the most effective brands focus their energy behind the lines that reliably perform. Prioritising a small number of hero SKUs helps safeguard availability, reduce production pressure and give your commercial teams a clear message to reinforce with buyers and depot contacts. Redirecting late-season digital spend, shopper engagement and field activity towards these products can lift rate of sale in the critical days leading into Christmas.

2. Strengthen In-Season Collaboration with Retailers

Although core listings are fixed, retailers remain highly responsive to supplier performance during December. This is the right moment to share concise operational updates with buyers and supply chain teams, highlighting strong OTIF metrics, stable production and any positive stock positions. Reliable suppliers often gain incremental support in the form of improved shelf presence, secondary siting or additional in-aisle visibility, particularly when stores are looking to back high-velocity products during peak.

3. Optimise Shopper Touchpoints During Peak Trading

December is when execution makes the biggest difference. Brands can still refine digital campaigns to align with Christmas purchasing patterns and can use retailer media to support specific store groups or regions. Field sales teams should focus on on-shelf availability, correcting gaps and ensuring that seasonal SKUs are merchandised exactly as agreed. For brands in chilled, bakery or ambient categories, there are often opportunities for late cross-merchandising or feature space if you can demonstrate strong availability.

4. Review Packaging Performance to Inform 2026

Packaging artwork and formats are locked for this year, but the final production runs provide valuable insight. This is the ideal time to observe how festive packaging performs on lines, how it holds up during distribution and how it appears in store under peak conditions. Capturing issues such as colour consistency, case durability or merchandising visibility now will help your teams make stronger decisions in Q1 as you begin planning for Christmas 2026.

5. Treat December as a Real-Time Stress Test

The weeks leading up to Christmas reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your operations more clearly than any other period. Brands that monitor performance closely can identify where forecasting assumptions held up, which SKUs created bottlenecks and where suppliers needed additional support. These insights will become the backbone of next year’s seasonal planning. They also strengthen your commercial story when returning to buyers with range recommendations or capacity proposals for 2026.

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