Morrisons Preston Riversway: Andy Savage on winning Grocer 33 store of the week

What is your reaction to the appointment of former Tesco veteran David Potts as Morrisons new CEO? His reputation is second to none and if he puts stores first then my life will be easier. I’ll look forward to welcoming him here soon.

There are signs of improvement at Morrisons. How do you see it? Things are looking up. Customer numbers, footfall and like-for-like performance are all getting better. We are more competitive than we have been and I firmly believe we have what it takes to get it done. We have Mother’s Day coming up and the offer is just brilliant - as well as the usual plants and flowers, we have great deals on Prosecco and wine and some great Market Street bakery lines.

So are you feeling more confident? There is a good buzz about the business. We are addressing issues in stores and everything we do now is to be focused on the customer. It has come down from the new chairman and perhaps it’s something we lost sight of. It’s a challenging marketplace but I think we are now being given the tools we need to turn things round.

How competitive is it in your area? Very. When the store was first opened 30 years ago there was no else around here but this has changed dramatically. However because we’ve been here for 30 years we have a very loyal customer base. This is the best store I’ve managed and I have the most committed, hardest working team there is.

You scored 97% for availability. How big a focus is this in your store? It’s huge. I believe it is the route to good retailing. You can be as nice to the customer as you like but if you don’t have the product on shelf they won’t come back. We are a big volume store and availability is a key focus both formally and informally. We have a meeting every day at 11am on availability. The guys in the store are very competitive with each other and with other stores.