Morrisons revives convenience interest with 10-store petrol station trial

Just over a year after it sold its convenience store estate, Morrison Supermarkets has launched a 10-store convenience store pilot in a chain of petrol stations and revived the Safeway brand as a wholesale food brand for independent convenience retailers.

"These are two capital light ways of growing in the convenience food market," said chief executive David Potts.

"By working with well-established partners and reviving the Safeway brand, we are making our products more accessible to more customers."

The FTSE 100 supermarket group will open four Morrisons Daily shops in petrol station shops owned and managed by Rontec before Christmas, with a further six in January.

This pilot comes on top of another convenience offer being tested by Morrisons with forecourt operator Motor Fuel Group.

The Morrisons Daily pilot stores will sell branded and Morrisons own brand products be supplied by Morrisons via delivered wholesaler Palmer & Harvey.

Some 12 years after Morrisons acquired its struggling supermarket rival, the Safeway brand has been revived with hundreds of convenience products being developed for wholesale distribution to independent retailers from early next year.

With the UK convenience market still very diverse, with around three-quarters held by independent operators, Morrisons said the re-introduction of the Safeway brand will enable it "to leverage its sourcing and unique food maker skills to give independent retailers' customers access to great quality products".

In September last year, not many months after his arrival, Potts hurried through the sale of 140 convenience stores for £25m, retaining just five M Local stores, some of which were on petrol forecourts.

Potts said last year that while M Local was unable to scale up, he remained "open to other opportunities in convenience in the future".

Shares in the company were up 1.2% to 220.6p just before 1000 GMT on Tuesday.