Morrisons to open 'not hundreds, but thousands' Daily stores

Supermarket Morrisons is planning to open "not hundreds, but thousands" of Morrisons Daily stores across the UK despite facing a setback in the supermarkets ranking.

Morrisons currently has 486 stores and is also on track to open its 500th supermarket by 2023.

Morrisons wholesale director Paul Dobson reportedly said recently that the firm plans to open more of its convenience and forecourt sites.

“Ultimately our ambition is to have store numbers in the thousands, not the hundreds, in the future and by adding more high-quality retailers, we will build those numbers,” reports quoted Dobson as saying.

“Across Great Britain, 35 percent of the population are now within a 10-minute drive from a Morrisons Daily, which we think is good progress since starting off in 2017.”

In May, Morrisons bought convenience store chain McColl’s for £190.1million - saving the firm from administration. McColl's has more than 1,100 outlets across England, Scotland and Wales, employing around 16,000 staff, or roughly 6,000 full-time.

“It’s going to create more investment in this channel of the business. It’s going to mean more collateral that our partners can use, like planograms, access to EPoS systems, new supply chain facilities, or bigger buying of concessions, as well as more format development.”

“We’re very excited, and we’re so lucky to have bought the McColl’s business, but there’s lots of hard work ahead of us.”

Over 200 McColl stores had been converted to Morrison’s Daily stores by July of this year, with the retailer aiming to hit 450 by November. Apart from McColl's stores, Morrisons also runs Martin's newsagents.

Overall, the firm has 755 McColl's stores, 270 called Morrisons Daily, 116 Martin's and eight called RS McColl, the latter all in Scotland. It has Post Office counters in a third of its 1,100 branches.

Dobson’s announcement comes a week after it was reported that trade body Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) has begun an investigation into Morrisons acquisition of McColl’s which found potential competition concerns at 35 sites.