Morrisons doubles up with Scottish delivery service

Supermarket major Morrisons is to double the coverage of its online food delivery service in Scotland just months after rolling it out north of the Border.

The group began to serve customers in Scotland last autumn, initially around Edinburgh and Glasgow. Picture: Chris Watt

The group began to serve customers in Scotland last autumn, initially around Edinburgh and Glasgow. It is now expanding to new locations including Dundee, Falkirk, Perth and Stirling.

Morrisons.com booking slots and the chain’s distinctive green and white vans will be seen across Stirlingshire, Clackmannanshire, Kinross-shire and Fife as well as parts of Perthshire and Angus.

Matt Kelleher, managing director of Morrisons.com, said: “We are committed to serving as much of Scotland as we can. Our customers want the opportunity to buy groceries from Morrisons.com and we’ll be investing in taking the service to them.”

The firm said that it was also committed to, wherever possible, provide food and drink items from Scottish producers. Morrisons-branded milk comes from Scottish dairy farmers and potatoes, swede and red and white cabbages are currently from local farms.

On the back of the expansion, Morrisons.com is creating 45 jobs this month as its operations expand to Falkirk and Dundee. Deliveries will be made seven days a week from 8am to 10pm.

Meanwhile, Morrisons is expected to ring up a hike in annual profits next week as its wholesale arm helps it weather the impact of a challenging consumer backdrop.

The UK’s fourth biggest supermarket business is tipped to reveal a 9 per cent hike in underlying pre-tax profits to some £407 million, up from £374m the previous year. Its results will be watched closely for the final fourth quarter sales out-turn, after it reported slowing retail sales growth for the first nine weeks covering the all-important Christmas season.

Like-for-like retail sales slowed to 0.6 per cent, down from 1.3 per cent in the previous three months.

But like-for-like sales overall rose 3.6 per cent thanks to a 3 per cent contribution from the wholesale division, which includes tie-ups with McColl’s and Amazon.

Retail experts at Barclays believe comparable sales will continue to rise 3.6 per cent in the fourth quarter as a whole, with retail sales growth edging up to 0.8 per cent and wholesale nudging lower to 2.8 per cent.

They are expecting the fillip from the wholesale side to continue to ease back, with sales growth from the operation peaking at 4.3 per cent in the third quarter.