With Lidl becoming increasingly popular thanks to its no frills approach, a UK supermarket rival has announced big changes to try and appeal to customers. Morrisons is overhauling its loyalty and promo strategy whilst it scrambles to recover some of its £1bn losses.
The retailer is facing mourning pressure from a supermarket price war. Revenues slipped to £17billion in its latest financial year, falling from £18.3billion a year earlier. It marked the supermarket giant’s lowest annual revenues since its private equity takeover in 2021, piling pressure on Rami Baitiéh, the chief executive, who became CEO just over two years ago. This comes despite Mr Baitiéhto pledging to “reinvigorate” the supermarket. And now Lidl is slowly coming to take Morrison’s crown as the UK’s fifth largest supermarket by market share. Lidl was ahead of Morrisons in the 12 months to July in the food and drinks share.
However, it’s not all bad news for Morrisons as the chain, entered the year on the back of its strongest quarterly performance in four years.
Tasked with the aim of breathing new life into Morrisons is Andrew Staniland – who spent four years at Iceland as trading director and previously worked at fellow grocers Waitrose and Aldi.
Having previously worked as a buyer for Morrisons between 2012 to 2016, Staniland has created a new trading team – creating 10 jobs – with The Grocer understanding a number of Category Directors have left in recent weeks.
One strategy he has been focusing on has been dubbed ‘Icelandification’. The new product development programme has seen Staniland dust off some of the strategies he used for Iceland and apply them to Morrisons.
In total, the supermarket has created 500 new lines, including enhancing its world food offering and new dine in meal deals.
Morrisons is also preparing to transform hundreds of corner shops across the south of England in a bid to boost shopper numbers.
Based in Bradford, the northern chain is planning to open 250 new “Morrisons Daily” convenience stores by offering convenience shop owners the chance to convert their stores into Morrisons franchises.
The expansion aims to focus on areas where it is underrepresented – including cities in the South as well as the Midlands.
Mr Baitieh has championed the convenience store strategy after doing something similar at French supermarket Carrefour.
