Morrisons - Fresh growth from relaunch-through-recession

Sandya Piyasena and Anna Hancock

After integrating Safeways in 2007, Morrisons’ market share had fallen. Morrisons’ biggest challenge was getting the public to reappraise their food quality at both relaunch and throughout the recession.

Morrisons – Fresh growth from relaunch-through-recession

Principal Authors: Sandya Piyasena – DLKW; Anna Hancock – MEC

Contributing Authors: Sarah Heyworth – MEC; Richard Burgess – Morrisons

INTRODUCTION

This is the story of how a national supermarket, stereotyped as ‘pie-eating Northerners’, became an unlikely champion of fresh food quality and catapulted into growth. Equally surprising was their counter-intuitive commitment to fresh food quality throughout the recession.

After the troubled takeover of Safeway, Morrisons’ ‘fresh’ re-launch in September 2007 rocket-launched them into recovery and reversed their market share decline. Having overcome one tough test, Morrisons were about to experience another. Just as...

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