Morrisons is planning to shut about 100 lossmaking convenience stores as the supermarket faces cost pressures it says have been worsened by “Government policy”.
The shops set for closure have been unprofitable for years and were former McColl’s shops which the chain rescued in 2022, it said.
The proposals will see stores closed in the next few months and hundreds of shop workers are understood to be at risk of redundancy.
A spokesman for Morrisons said: “The performance of all company owned stores across our convenience business is subject to continuous review.
“This process has identified a number of stores, which were part of the McColl’s acquisition, whose performance has been challenged for a number of years and which are loss making, despite remedial action.
“This situation has been exacerbated in more recent years by significant cost increases resulting from Government policy choices, which have made returning these stores to profitability even more difficult.
“Having completed the review, we are now proposing to take the tough but necessary decision to close a number of these stores over the next few months.”
The particular Government policy choices were also not detailed, but it comes at a time when many retailers have faced rising business costs including higher minimum wages and last year’s national insurance rate hike.
Morrisons has around 1,700 convenience shops as well as about 500 supermarkets, and employs some 95,000 staff.
But alongside the fresh closure plans, Morrisons stressed that it was still spotting opportunities to open hundreds more franchise convenience stores in the years ahead.
It also insisted that the planned closures and the targeting of new shops will be “improving the quality of our convenience estate and making it stronger overall”.
Last month, Morrisons told staff it was launching a consultation over job cuts at its head office in Bradford, impacting less than 10% of jobs at the site.
The retailer has also recently shut some of its cafes, convenience stores, florists and fresh food counters as part of a shake-up which led to the loss of hundreds of jobs.
