Morrisons reports rising sales as it hikes cost-savings target to £1bn
Morrisons has reported rising sales in the three months to January as the supermarket increased its cost-savings target to £1bn.
Morrisons revealed that total sales were up by 2.4 per cent to £4.0bn in the 13 weeks ending January 26 2025.
The company also said it made £56m in savings during the period and increased its medium term savings target from £700m to £1bn.
Rami Baitiéh, Chief Executive, said: “Despite a challenging environment, Morrisons has made exceptional progress in a very short time and that is entirely down to the hard work, positivity, talent and customer focus of the colleagues in our stores, in our foodmaking sites and in our operations across the country.
“As I outlined in January, the cyber attack on Blue Yonder caused a far reaching period of disruption across the businesses, affecting our stock accuracy, availability, waste and forecasting. Despite this I am very pleased that we are reporting an increase in like-for-like sales in the quarter of +2.1 per cent.
“In the quarter we delivered a further £56m of cost savings and we expect to deliver the remainder of our £700m target ahead of schedule in the second quarter.
"We are today increasing our target to £1bn which will help us offset cost headwinds, invest for customers and remain competitive in a fast changing market.”
Morrisons said its management team had been further strengthened with a number of new senior hires including: Andrew Staniland as Group Trading Director, Food; Matt Heslop as Director of Convenience and Wholesale and Matt McLellan as Group Data and Media Director.
Earlier this week, Morrisons revealed that 365 jobs are at risk of redundancy because of plans to close some of its cafes, convenience stores, florists and fresh food counters.
The closures will see it shut down 52 cafes, all 18 market kitchens, 17 Morrisons Daily convenience stores, 13 florists, 35 meat counters, 35 fish counters and four pharmacies.
The majority of staff members affected by the changes, which will be made over the next few months, are expected to be deployed to roles elsewhere in the business, Morrisons said.
But there will be a total of around 365 employees at risk of redundancy.
Speaking earlier this week, Mr Baitieh, said the changes were a “necessary part of our plans to renew and reinvigorate” the chain and invest in areas that “customers really value”.
In most locations, the Morrisons cafe has a “bright future”, but a small number have specific local challenges which made closures “the only sensible option”, Mr Baitieh said.
The chief executive said Morrisons was committed to the Market Street model – which offers fresh meals such as pizza, pies and rotisserie chicken for takeaway in some shops – but that parts of it were “simply uneconomic”.
Some fresh food counters or cafes in shops could be replaced with specialist offers from third-party companies.
“Although these changes are relatively small in the context of the overall scale of the Morrisons business, we do not take lightly the disruption and uncertainty they will cause to some of our colleagues,” he said.
He added: “We will of course take particular care to look after all of them well through the coming changes.”