Palmer & Harvey wholesale MD Martyn Ward has hailed the success of its fledging agreement with Morrisons and forecourt operator Rontec.
The wholesaler is acting as the distributor to the new sites, which trade as Morrisons Daily on the Rontec-owned forecourts.
The first stores opened in December and there are currently 12 Rontec-owned Morrisons Daily outlets up and running across England from Chelmsford in Essex to Blackburn in Lancashire.
“These are rolling out at a rate of knots. It started just before Christmas and is gathering pace very quickly,” said Ward. “They look first class and are trading exceptionally well. There is obviously the link with Rontec, Gerald Ronson’s business, and where he has put Morrisons Daily in, it is outperforming any other fascia it has.”
Rontec currently operates 240 forecourt sites in the UK and has three other main fascias - its own Shop’n Drive offer, Spar, which it partnered with in 2015, and Booker’s Family Shopper brand.
“What we are finding is that the power of the Morrisons brand on the petrol forecourt is immense and generating really good sales for our customers that have gone the route of Morrisons Daily,” added Ward.
Morrisons is also currently trialling the Daily concept with another forecourt operator, Motor Fuel Group.
This week, The Grocer published the findings of a mystery shopping test of forecourt stores owned by the major multiples. As well as Morrisons Daily, we visited a Co-op, Sainsbury’s Local, Tesco Express, Little Waitrose and a BP M&S Simply Food.
The Motor Fuel Group-owned Morrisons Daily forecourt in Eltham, London, offered the cheapest unleaded petrol of any of the retailers, though the total cost of our shopping basket was higher than Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose and represented a 27% mark-up compared with the price for the same items at a regular Morrisons supermarket.
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