Morrisons to close 100 convenience stores amid rising costs

Hundreds of jobs were placed at risk as Morrisons prepared to close about 100 Morrisons Daily convenience stores over the next few months, a move that will remove a nearby shopping option from some neighbourhoods and estates where small stores matter most. Staff were told on Thursday, May 21, and Morrisons said it would try to redeploy affected workers where possible.

The stores due to go are understood to be mostly former McColl’s sites acquired in 2022, and Morrisons said the business had been loss-making for years before the latest cost surge made a turnaround even harder. The company blamed “significant cost increases resulting from government policy choices”, language widely read as a criticism of Labour’s first Budget and the higher employer National Insurance contributions and National Living Wage that came with it.

That explanation lands on top of a store format that was already under pressure. Morrisons bought all of McColl’s 1,160 stores, including 270 Morrisons Daily-format outlets, after McColl’s entered administration in 2022. The Competition and Markets Authority later said the completed acquisition raised competition concerns in a number of local convenience-grocery areas, a reminder that small-format retail can be fragile even before costs rise.

The latest plan also extends a wider retrenchment inside the Bradford grocer. Earlier in 2025, Morrisons cut 17 convenience stores and 52 in-store cafés, showing a steady trimming of lower-margin parts of the business. The new round will hit the convenience arm again at a time when retailers are still facing pressure from higher labour costs and thin margins, leaving little room for stores that have been in the red for years.

Usdaw has said it will support affected members in one-to-one consultation talks after Morrisons announced earlier plans to close cafés, convenience stores, florists and fresh food counters, putting 365 jobs at risk. For Morrisons, the central question now is whether it can shrink its weakest stores without weakening the local presence that made the Morrisons Daily estate valuable in the first place.