Mccoll's Regulatory News (MCLS)

McColl's opens 100th Morrisons Daily store ahead of schedule

12 October 2021 - McColl's Retail Group plc is pleased to announce it has reached the strategic milestone of opening its 100th Morrisons Daily store, two months ahead of schedule.

The rollout of Morrisons Daily stores is a key component of McColl's' strategic focus on food led convenience, driving incremental sales and sales-mix improvement across the store.

The conversion of the McColl's store at Ellesmere Port (6 Cromwell Road) marked the 100th opening, giving local customers a fantastic range of high quality fresh food and groceries, wider product choice and better value, through new lines and Morrisons own-label.

McColl's continues to roll out Morrisons Daily at pace, ahead of the targets set at its capital raise earlier this year, with a proven capability to implement six store conversions per week.

The Morrisons Daily conversions continue to deliver the strongest performance across the business, with 2-3 year payback on investment. McColl's expects to be operating 350 Morrisons Daily stores across its total estate of c.1,200 stores by November 2022.

Jonathan Miller, Chief Executive of McColl's, said: "We are extremely excited to reach the milestone of 100 Morrisons Daily stores, giving customers access to a wider range of products, greater value and a supermarket-quality fresh food and grocery offer. We are redefining neighbourhood retail in the communities we serve, putting us in the best possible position to meet customer demand in the future.

"Alongside an enhanced customer offer, we have a proven store conversion blueprint that offers a strong return on investment, delivering double-digit sales uplifts and rapid payback.

"A massive thank you to the teams of both businesses who have worked hard to deliver this number of store conversions in such a short period of time, as we combine our key neighbourhood store locations, strengths in convenience operations and expertise in services, with Morrisons core grocery proposition."

David Potts, Chief Executive of Morrisons, said: "We are pleased to have very quickly opened 100 Morrisons Daily stores with our long term partner, McColl's. The Morrisons Daily convenience format is proving popular with customers, and is a great way for us to broaden the reach of the Morrisons brand into more and more local communities.

"It's been a very impressive collective effort by the McColl's and Morrisons teams who have worked together so quickly and effectively. We look forward to hundreds more Morrisons Daily stores springing up across Britain."

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About McColl's

McColl's is a leading neighbourhood retailer, with an estate of over 1,200 managed convenience stores and newsagents. We operate McColl's and Morrisons Daily branded convenience stores as well as newsagents branded Martin's across the UK, except in Scotland where we operate under our heritage brand, RS McColl.