Morrisons champions 
idea to keep shelves 
stocked at Christmas

A team of six “availability champions” will operate in Morrisons’ 313 larger stores and the staff will be responsible for maintaining stock levels on the store floor and in the back room.

Morrisons’ group retail director Martyn Fletcher said: “We listen to our customers. After price, product availability is their second biggest driver for selecting a supermarket and it has the greatest effect on customer satisfaction.”

“Stores with a team of ‘availability champions’ are already taking significantly less time to identify, address and record gaps on their shelves.”

The initiative is part of Bradford-based Morrisons overhaul of its back room infrastructure, which includes the move towards automatic ordering to increase efficiency and reduce food waste.

“As you might expect, we see huge spikes in sales for certain products around this time of year – 786,000 jars of cranberry sauce leave our shelves in December and our manufacturing sites produce more than 1.2 million cocktail sausages,” said Mr Fletcher.

“We want to ensure that our integrated supply chain continues to meet the demands of our customers, especially at Christmas.”

Aldi has made a complaint about Morrisons’ new loyalty scheme Match & More to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

The ASA has received 15 complaints about the campaign, with 14 from members of the public.

The ASA said that Aldi’s complaint states that the “terms and conditions of the scheme were not clear”.

It said it is investigating and will publish its findings.