Morrisons St Andrews: Grocer 33 store of the week

How long have you worked for Morrisons? About a year-and-a-half. I started off working for Asda but I then moved into fashion retail, working for Matalan and then in Arcadia and BHS. When BHS went pear-shaped I thought I’d get back into food retail.

What’s the biggest difference between fashion and food retail? In my last job I would occasionally have to speak to Philip Green about how the stores were performing, which was character building. But while that was fast-paced, food retail takes it to a whole different level. There’s no respite, it’s an adrenalin rush.

How is availability in store? There’s been a bit of flak flying about on social media. I’ve seen some of the things that have been written in the media down south but we don’t have a problem. Recently we’ve invested more hours into our stocking system team. Whenever we do have any availability issues we do a full investigation.

How important is regional Scottish produce at the store? Very important. I think a good example is looking at the amount of regional cheese we sell. There’s nothing like a bit of Orkney cheese on toast, with a bit of Worcester sauce. But if you want to go a bit more upmarket we sell a wonderful Caboc, which I’d serve with a handful of oatcakes and grapes.

Do you get a student effect from being in St Andrews? It’s probably the most seasonal place I’ve ever encountered. The great thing is that when all the students leave we get a whole different set of customers come in because it’s such a tourist place.

Do you have ranges for students and tourists? We sell a huge amount of octopus to students from all over the world. But we also launched an American range as we have a lot of US visitors, because of the university and the golf courses. I recommend the Marshmallow Fluff. A little dip of that in chocolate is great stuff.