Supermarket chain Morrisons is to shut 52 cafes and 17 convenience stores, putting hundreds of jobs at risk. The retailer will also close a number of in-store services, including some meat and fish counters, pharmacies and all its market kitchens in an attempt to redirect cash to other parts of the business. It is expected the cuts will be rolled out over the next few months.
Ugh, since the first Covid lockdown, my local Sainsbury's closed their fish meat and deli counters, closely followed by Tesco, and now Morrison's is the only one left, apart from Waitrose, of course, but that's much more of a drive.
Are there independent butchers and fishmongers locally? Yes. But the butchers are halal and the fishmongers sell fish frozen and imported from Pakistan and what's more, you can smell them from the other end of the high street...
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, said Morrisons was going to have to make adjustments to be able to compete in a price-sensitive market. "The supermarket chain is closing services seen as nice-to-have, but not essential, and scaling back its convenience footprint as it readies for a round of cost-cutting from rivals," she said.
They are trying to compete with Aldi and Lidl, but none of those have fresh meat, fish or deli counters, so does it make sense to get rid of the very things that make them unique?
