Morrisons Convenience Store Closures: 100 Daily Stores to Shut
Morrisons convenience store closures will shut around 100 company-owned Morrisons Daily stores over the next few months, with hundreds of jobs affected. The supermarket began consulting affected colleagues today and said it will try to place people elsewhere in its supermarkets or manufacturing business where possible.
The stores due to close are the most challenged in Morrisons’ convenience estate and were loss-making. All of them are former McColl’s stores acquired in 2022, making this a sharp reset of a part of the business that had been built up as a growth engine.
Baitiéh’s convenience reset
Rami Baitiéh has set the aim of opening hundreds of Morrisons Daily stores over the next few years, and Morrisons said the closures do not change that convenience growth strategy. The company said the vast majority of new openings will be franchise stores, while it is also looking to sell some company-owned stores to franchisees.
That leaves Morrisons trying to expand one side of the format while shrinking another. The company-owned estate is the weaker slice, and the cuts fall on the former McColl’s sites that have been hardest to make work under Morrisons’ ownership.
Three months of changes
February brought the departure of convenience director Matt Heslop after less than a year in the role, followed by a major restructure of the convenience buying team. Morrisons Daily commercial and support functions were merged with the supermarket buying team under group trading director Andrew Staniland, and the move effectively removed the Morrisons Daily trading team with the loss of around 100 jobs.
Martin Dawson now oversees Morrisons Daily stores, while April brought another cut at Hilmore House HQ of around 8% as Morrisons said its use of AI across the business was increasing. Those moves show how the convenience closures fit into a wider cost push that is moving through the company at the same time as the estate is being reshaped.
Debt and cost pressure
46% is how far Morrisons said its debt has come down since the start of Baitiéh’s turnaround plan, leaving £3.1bn still on the balance sheet. The company said the Iran war fallout has put further pressure on him to cut costs, and the closures are the latest major change to the convenience business in the space of three months.
For colleagues, the practical next step is the consultation now under way and the search for alternative roles inside the business. For shoppers, the immediate effect is clear: around 100 Morrisons Daily locations will disappear over the next few months, and the company-owned corner of the format is being pared back while franchise growth takes priority.
