Store manager: Daniel Daly
Store: Morrisons Brentford Waterside
Opened: 2023
Size: 15,000 sq ft
Market share: 2.9%
Population: 553,698
Grocery spend: £39,793,617
Spend by household: £186.89
Competitors: NA
Nearest rivals: Aldi 0.3 miles, Asda 0.5 miles, Co-op 0.1 miles, Iceland 0.1 miles, Lidl 2.8 miles, Morrisons 10.7 miles, Sainsbury’s 8.3 miles, Waitrose 0.1 miles
Source: CACI. For more info visit www.caci.co.uk/contact. Notes: Shopper profiling is measured using Grocery Acorn shopper segmentation. Store catchment data (market share, population, expenditure, spend by household, competition) is within a five-mile radius.
For CACI’s shopper segmentation of the other stores we visited this week see the online report at www.thegrocer.co.uk/stores/the-grocer-33
How long have you been with Morrisons? I’ve been with the company four years this month, and this is my third store management role. I managed the previous Brentford store during the pandemic, then moved to a store in Acton a couple of miles away, before moving back for this project. Prior to that, the majority of my retail career was with Tesco, where I started as a Saturday boy.
This is a brand new store, isn’t it? Yes, we closed one branch and then opened this new one the following day. It’s 200 metres down the road as part of a new development. It feels like a much more modern shopping environment compared to the previous site. We have a Market Kitchen at the front, which is a completely new concept for us. The fish and meat counters have been extended and the food-to-go range is now a lot bigger in terms of the offer, among other things. The other big difference is that we have new bakery equipment, which has received great feedback from customers in terms of how it looks and what it can offer.
Did the old store team move across? Everybody from the old store had the opportunity to come over to the new shop, and 95% of the existing team did. We recruited an additional 40 new colleagues locally. The team have done a great job. It’s all about the work they have put in – it’s difficult opening a shop and closing a shop at the same time.
What is your local community like? Brentford is a very diverse community. There are the people who live locally, but also lots of tradesman come in as there’s a lot of building work going on. We have Brentford FC just down the road so we’re very busy on match days. We have a great relationship with the club and the local community.
Did being a new store make Christmas challenging? We had less time to prepare than we would traditionally. But we had great support from head office in terms of supply chain. Plus, we have a very experienced team who have all done Christmas before with Morrisons. We just needed to react quicker to things than we would have, had we already been open. Sometimes London stores can be quieter around Christmas as people tend to go away, but we didn’t experience that here. Being the size we are, we can often be used as a top-up shop, but I was very pleased with the trolley size and the basket spend. It did feel like customers were coming to do their main shop.
How have customers reacted to the latest round of price cuts in January? They’ve reacted very well. We’ve just completed the January reset, so visually the shop looks very sharp with new PoS, signs and ceiling banners highlighting those products. It’s driving sales on those lines.
What is your immediate focus going into the new year? As a store we have our first stock take this weekend. January is a great time to do it, as we’ve already cleared everything as part of the reset and everything is straight and aligned. I’m optimistic for a good result. Being a London store, we’re very strong on product protection. For example, with alcohol and spirits we have ‘Buzz for Booze’ where if a customer needs a product, they can ring a colleague who will get the bottle they require. After that we’ll get going for Valentine’s Day and Easter.
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