Morrisons is planning to close 100 convenience store sites over the coming months, saying the affected shops have been loss-making for years and were hit by higher costs. The closures will affect Morrisons Daily outlets across the UK, and the company said more staff are now at risk of redundancy.
The supermarket group said the stores were acquired through its McColls purchase in 2022 and had been challenged for a number of years despite remedial action. It said the moves would be followed by a consultation starting shortly. Morrisons has around 1,700 Morrisons Daily convenience stores, and the planned closures come after it said last year it was shutting 52 cafes and 17 convenience stores. Last month, the company said about 200 jobs were at risk at its Bradford headquarters.
The decision lands as retailers continue to complain about a fresh wave of cost pressure since April last year, when they said higher employer National Insurance contributions and minimum wages added to their bills. Morrisons specifically pointed to rises in the national living wage and National Insurance, saying the difficulties at the convenience stores had been made worse by government policy choices. Food and drink companies are also now paying the cost to councils of recycling packaging from some products under the government's Extended Producer Responsibility programme.
The timing matters because grocery inflation is still running hot. Annual food price inflation was 3% in April, while overall inflation was 2.8% in April. Against that backdrop, Morrisons said the stores it plans to close have remained loss-making even after attempts to fix them, and that the closures form part of a wider effort to reshape the business.
There is a contradiction inside that message. Morrisons is pulling back from 100 convenience store sites, but it also says it has a robust expansion plan for 2026 and sees room to open hundreds more franchise stores in the years ahead. The company opened more than 120 franchise stores last year, suggesting it is not retreating from convenience retail so much as pruning the parts it says no longer work.
A government spokesperson said the closures were a commercial decision for Morrisons and said a broad range of support is available for those affected. The spokesperson also said Acas can provide employees and employers with free, impartial advice on workplace rights, rules and best practice. For workers facing another round of cuts, that will not soften the blow, but it does show how quickly the pressure on the high street has moved from warning signs to job losses.
The question now is not whether Morrisons wants to remain in convenience retail. It does. The question is how many of its remaining Daily shops can survive the squeeze that has already shut 100 sites and put more jobs on the line.
