Morrisons to convert 20 McColl’s stores in two months
Morrisons is to trial its Morrisons Daily fascia at a further 20 McColl’s convenience stores over January and February.
The move comes after it began a trial in February last year at 10 McColl’s stores in the North West, which also saw the stores sell Morrisons’ own-label products.
McColl’s signed a deal with Morrisons for the supermarket chain to supply its convenience stores in January 2018.
Morrisons is to trial its Morrisons Daily fascia at a further 20 McColl’s convenience stores over January and February.
The move comes after it began a trial in February last year at 10 McColl’s stores in the North West, which also saw the stores sell Morrisons’ own-label products.
McColl’s signed a deal with Morrisons for the supermarket chain to supply its convenience stores in January 2018.
This occurred after the convenience retailer was hit by its former supplier Palmer & Harvey falling into administration. As a result, it lost 700 stores and had to transition quickly to a new supply partner.
Morrisons said in a trading update this morning (7 January): “Sales at the first 10 conversions from McColl’s to Morrisons Daily convenience stores are strong, and together we plan to extend the trial to another circa 20 stores during January and February to further tailor and test the proposition as we begin to transition McColl’s remaining ex-Co-op stores to Morrisons wholesale supply.”
During the 22 weeks to 5 January, Morrisons said it opened four new stores (including two replacements), closed four underperforming stores and launched another 25 Fresh Look stores, bringing the total to 44 in 2019.
Morrisons chief executive David Potts said: “It was encouraging that during an unusually challenging period for sales, our execution was strong and our profitability robust, demonstrating the broad-based progress we have made during the turnaround… As always, we will take some learnings into the new year, and look forward to 2020 with a strong plan and solid foundations on which to continue to grow.”
Last month, Morrisons sold its Camden store and eight-acre surrounding site to Berkeley Group for £120m. Berkeley will pay £85m in stages over the years of the project, and will build a new Morrisons supermarket and convenience store on the site at a cost to Berkeley of around £35m. The developer is also exploring building 450 homes and 100,000 sq ft of offices.
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