Morrisons has commenced the closure of 100 Morrisons Daily convenience stores across the UK, with the shutting down of a branch in Woodley, Berkshire.

The supermarket chain announced plans to close the stores in May, citing “significant cost increases resulting from government policy choices”. These include increases in employee salaries and employer national insurance contributions.

Prior to the closures, Morrisons operated approximately 1,700 of its convenience stores across the UK. The affected stores are understood to include those onboarded to its estate following its acquisition of McColl’s in 2022 and the firm described them as “loss making, despite remedial action”.

Morrisons said it would offer affected staff roles at other stores where possible.

In June 2024 Morrisons announced ambitious expansion plans for Morrisons Daily, with a target to open 400 new sites by 2025.

But the past year has seen Morrisons shift its financial approach to weather what its chief executive, Rami Baitiéh, has called a “challenging macro environment”. In August 2025, it reported a pre-tax profit of £2.1 billion but reduced its workforce by more than 3,600.

Recent months have seen the supermarket scope out opportunities to supply rivals with products such as pies, eggs, and meat in a bid for improve its profitability, expand its parcel locker service, and seek to raise £600 million in a in a property-backed deal to push back against Lidl.

Morrisons has also targeted the modernisation of its operations through digital transformation initiatives such as digitising its store operations, adopting Google’s Gemini AI model for in-app searches, deploying a digital twin of its supply chain for modelling scenarios, and rolling out electronic shelf labels across its entire estate.

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