Our Store Investments

Firstly, a thank you to my Guest Blogger, Donna Hunter, Store Manager at Botley for the fantastic Q&A blog last week. It was great to read your journey over the last 25 years with the Society and based on the comments it’s clear that both the store and the blog has been well received, well done. If you missed the blog read it here.

The Botley store performed brilliantly over its first week of trading achieving sales of £141,000, which is ahead of budget and reflective of all the hard work and positive comments from the customers and members.

 

Bidford-on-Avon store launch

July is a big month for store developments for us and following the launch of Botley, yesterday we opened the doors on the final Budgens conversion in Bidford-on-Avon, Warwickshire which reopened as a Food Market. 

This is the third store this month following the recent openings at Moreton-in-Marsh and Botley and represents a further investment of £350,000 - making a total of £2.3 million.

The Bidford-on-Avon store is a 6,245 sq. ft store, and as part of our Food Markets offers a large range of locally sourced produce including Food Glorious Food winner, Cinderhill Farm sausage rolls. It also offers Jess’s Ladies organic milk and the in-season craft beer from Hillside Brewery. In addition, it will only sell compostable carrier bags as part of our 1Change pledge to limit the use of single-use plastics.

Thank you to everyone involved in delivering this latest addition to our Food Markets, a fantastic effort and good luck to store manager Jack Cross and the team.

 

Face Coverings government guideline

 

 

Today sees the Government guidelines of wearing face coverings in shops and supermarkets come into effect in England. Thank you for your feedback on this subject. Yesterday I communicated our approach on this issue to members as detailed below.

Our approach on this issue will mean that customers in our Food stores, Funeral homes, Travel branches, Pharmacies and Post Offices will now need to wear a face covering in line with Government guidelines. 

From today, posters containing clear messages will be displayed at the entrance to every Midcounties site informing customers of that requirement. 

The Society’s commitment to these guidelines is further reflected in our decision that every customer-facing colleague should also wear a face covering to ensure that we provide both our colleagues and customers with the maximum protection. The Society has provided suitable face coverings for all applicable colleagues for use in the working environment.

Our colleagues will be encouraged to politely prompt non-compliant customers by referring them to the notices in-store. 

Under the Government guidelines, the latest rules for shops will be enforced by the police, with anyone disregarding them at risk of a fine of up to £100. Our colleagues will not be required to challenge or enforce compliance.  

In addition to the wearing of facial coverings, social distancing remains at 2 metres where possible in all our sites, we will maintain protective screens for the foreseeable future and we will continue with other measures including limiting the number of people at busy times, directing the flow of customers, and encouraging the use of hand sanitiser. 

These are all actions that remain key to controlling the spread of the virus.

 

Little Pioneers Leamington Spa on BBC Breakfast

On Monday, our Leamington Spa Little Pioneers nursery was chosen to appear on BBC Breakfast to talk about the innovative ways that have been implemented to keep children and colleagues safe. This coincided with new guidance which meant that nurseries no longer have to keep to ‘bubbles’ of 16 children per room. I tuned into the early broadcast and I thought that Leanne, the Nursery Manager did a brilliant job, coming across really well and deserves the honorary title of media star of the week, very proud! If you missed it, watch it here.

 

We have reached the financial Half-year

This weekend is the financial half-year for the Society and who could have anticipated the events that have unfolded! The full impact of these events will not be known until later in the year, however, what is clear is that during this time people have looked to shop locally and this is reflected in the latest grocery market share figures from Kantar which saw total Co-ops achieve a share of 7.2% during the past 12 weeks, as sales increased by 30.6% year on year, significantly outperforming Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi and Lidl. 

During this time, within all Co-ops, our convenience stores have seen the strongest performance and our larger stores have performed consistently well too. This is reflective of the actions taken and the measures put in place to give customers and members the confidence to shop with us. It’s also as a result of how we have adapted and innovated to meet the changing needs of the communities that we serve including our incredible home deliveries. Thank you to everyone who has been working tirelessly to achieve this.  

 

As always, let me have your thoughts by commenting below.