Kirkstall – An ever moving feast – Part 2

To complete the Market Street review, it’s moving onward to the Butchery counter, this is another counter to benefit from a removal of ‘barriers’ to allow a greater view inside the butchery itself. The counter has also been extended which is a departure in itself as the competition have looked to cut back on service counters in recent years, interesting that Morrisons’ trial concept features more counter space rather than less.

 

 

 

 

The lines above are a simple method to drive margins as the cost to prepare won’t be significant if done in store, if there is a particularly good seller then the store can react to demand and produce more to drive sales.

 

Another line that has had good success is the instore produced sausage, the mix is sent in and the store produces the sausages themselves, the Butcher was telling me that sales have been very good, they sell out most days after producing a full counter of them.

 

 

The Butchery counter is another to lose the ‘effect’ of it being a butchers counter with a more standardised layout which is probably designed for a time and motion purpose – it takes 35 minutes to lay the counter out across the estate rather than varying times due to each butcher doing the counter slightly differently.

 

Products are displayed as per the meat so Pork is first, then Beef then Organic has it’s own section which again is designed to drive margins and premiumisation as Organic is a continuing area for growth – certainly within Morrisons where it’s never really been done properly.

 

 

Interestingly, the end of the counter displays ‘marble grain fed steaks’ which are a predominantly North American line according to the chef (who we saw earlier in the tour). He told me he’d work Michelin restaurants and the like and these steaks were as good as anything he’d tried.

 

He thinks they will really sell well and are price £1 more per kg than standard steaks.To further highlight the point of difference, the Cows are grain fed on a farm in Scotland exclusively for Morrisons.

 

Cows are fed grain exclusively for Morrisons on a farm in Scotland.

There continues to be a real focus on ‘freshness’ across the store, Morrisons generally have the best lead times within the industry for Fresh Meat taking advantage of their vertical integration capability. They’ve always been renowned for Fresh food but along with the 2 hour Chicken guarantee, there is also a pledge that any meat ‘cut today is gone today’ meaning no carryover.

The ‘freshness’ is stepped up a gear with the 1 day meat counter pledge.

It may well be that the meat from the counter is then wrapped up for sale on day 2, it’s still fresher than competitors meat that may have been packed, sat in a depot for a day before onward shipment to store after 3 days or so.

Dalton was speaking to the Telegraph at Christmas in a store discussing freshness and what a short lead time everything had, he said that his plans for Morrisons would broadly be ‘sticking to the knitting’ by focussing on Fresh and ‘killing everyone in Fresh Food, thrash them’.

With Morrisons already being strong in Fresh food due to vertical integration and instore preparation, the step up in Kirkstall by only keeping Chickens on sale for 2 hours and cutting counter meat each day shows a definite level of intent to keep pushing the Fresh angle.

Focus on freshness but also traceability all the way down the chain.

 Beers, Wine and Spirits

This the final ‘fulcrum’ of the store refresh which sees the Beers, Wines and Spirits section be overhauled and moved. It’s moved a few times since the inception of the lab and now rests in its final place just off Market Street near the Cake Shop.

What strikes you when you enter the Beers, Wines and Spirits section is the wooden ‘Wine Shop’ style display units with islands in the middle for beer and spirits. The section itself is split over two aisles with bulk box beers on the 2nd aisle with more display space given up at the bottom to aid productivity.

A noticeable difference with the new BWS department is that there are premium vintage bottles of wine retailing between £25 and £40 each, displayed in a glass case. Again this is driving premiumisation, margin and profitability and enticing in shoppers with disposable income who would otherwise go to Waitrose for their premium food – of course former Waitrose man Richard Hodgson is now Commercial Director for Morrisons, a lot of the new thinking is partly from him as well as Dalton.

New vintage lines on sale to drive premiumisation.

 

Bottled wine is sold by region.

With Boxed Wine at the end of the aisle.

The aisle features ‘Steve’s choice’ which is the BWS manager’s choice wine of the week.

It’s clear that after the marketing campaign last month to get people more aware of which wine is suitable for which food that this a key theme within the trial. Certainly with Fish & Meat forming a key part of the Market Street and wider Morrisons strategy, all products will provide good margin and driving complimentary purchases will drive profitability.

It’s another attempt at a point of difference for Morrisons as this ‘food hall’ theme effectively turns into a one stop shop for an evening meal or dinner party as the traditional location of the Wine department is near the tills primarily for security reasons whereas this store has wine near the top of Market Street.

 

Much more of a focus on which wine is suitable with which food to educate buyers.

Each wine is colour coded for the specific meal suitability (note the gap also!)

Driving complimentary purchases is what retail is all about and any attempt to get a customer to spend more whilst in store is a sure fire way to success. Indeed to drive Justin King’s sales growth when he set about recovering Sainsbury to former glory, staff were told if they could drive one extra purchase from a customer (legally, not just adding things to people’s baskets!) then this would set them on their way to achieving sales growth.

Morrisons have historically benchmarked sales per sq.ft as their key indicator of success and boasting a high sales per sq.ft thanks (in no large part) to the numerous shippers, dumpbins, stacks and the like within their stores. What’s interesting about Kirkstall is that there are no stacks or shippers to be found in the store, all dumpbins have been removed to allow for a clearer shopping experience (and to simplify inventory control as well no doubt).  This is the same situation at the Liberate lab in Shrewsbury where space has been created by cutting back on categories such as air fresheners for concessions that will drive footfall.

Some of the initial Liberate learning must have been put into action at Kirkstall due to the sheer amount of changes and the addition of the Peacocks clothing area that was doing a great trade when I visited. It only ranges the children clothes and is split across the power aisle which does at first glance make it look a little odd but it’s a valuable footfall driver.

First ‘half’ of the Peacocks concession.

Second ‘half’ of Peacocks concession.

That’s it for part 2! Next time out there’s a bit of York productivity lab visit and the remaining bits and pieces of Kirkstall plus a quick look at the work that’s been carried out on the own label relaunch that seems to progressing well with Fresh Pies and Quiche seeing an overhaul before a gradual roll out to the rest of Fresh.