Holland & Barrett has unveiled its 10,000 sq ft flagship store on Oxford Street with a focus on food to go, beauty and sports nutrition.

The retailer’s fourth concept store, which includes a vegan nail bar, cereals to go fixture and olive counter, follows pilot branches in Chester, York and Plymouth.

A similar format store is due to open in Manchester next month, and Holland & Barrett International CEO Peter Aldis revealed he would like open 20 or 30 more such branches in urban locations across the UK.

The Oxford Street store is split across a 6,000 sq ft ground floor and a 4,000 sq ft lower floor dedicated to sports nutrition, which includes a body composition consultation service that measures visceral fat and water levels.

The front of the branch focuses on to its food to go section, where customers can pick their own cereals and toppings to go in a takeaway bowl and choose from a selection of protein shake sachets in its ‘fuel on the move’ fixture.

Towards the back, there is a beauty section with make-your-own body scrubs, a vegan nail bar and a selection of “ethical” beauty brands such as Dr Organic and Burt’s Bees designed to attract a younger female consumer.

The pay point accepts Alipay, a Chinese online payment and loyalty service from the Alibaba Group, and has a click & collect point.

Aldis stressed it was important to offer customers an omnichannel experience. “Hopefully eventually we will have a reserve and collect service and an order in store function,” he said. “You’ve got to continue embracing technology.”

Holland & Barrett rolled out a click & collect service across all of its 760 stores last summer and also delivers to InPost lockers in locations such as Morrisons stores and Esso petrol stations. Click & collect now makes up 20% of its online orders, which generate around £60m in annual sales. This has helped drive its continued growth in sales, which passed the £420m mark last year.

But Aldis said the traditional retail environment would remain crucial to the business. “I think it’s so evident that more and more people do a lot of shopping online but I absolutely think bricks and mortar is here to stay,” he said. “I think it will change, I think people’s estates will change rapidly. But five or 10 years ago, people were saying retail is dead, long live the internet and that hasn’t really happened.”

Over the past five years, Holland & Barrett has opened about 50 new stores annually in the UK and Ireland as part of its strategy to increase its retail space. It is also pursuing overseas expansion and there are over 1,100 stores under the brand globally, of which more than 300 are located in external markets such as Kuwait, India, Singapore and China.

The brand hopes to become a £1bn business by 2020.

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