Westcroft ‘Market Kitchen’ food outlet gets the chop.
Milton Keynes has been included in the list of UK towns and cities affected by a massive raft of closures planned by supermarket giant Morrisons.
The store’s Westcroft branch will have its Market Kitchen department closed as the company carries out a ‘programme of renewal’. It’s understood the store’s cafe will remain serving food.
In the coming weeks Morrisons will shut all of its 18 Market Kitchens, along with 52 cafes, 17 convenience stores, 13 florists, 35 meat counters, 35 fish counters and four pharmacies. Around 365 staff face redundancy.
The Market Kitchen scheme promised ready cooked meals such as steaks, curries and pizza, available to take away. But the idea, says the superstore, has become ‘simply uneconomic’.
“The changes we are announcing today are a necessary part of our plans to renew and reinvigorate Morrisons and enable us to focus our investment into the areas that customers really value and that can play a full part in our growth,” said Rami Baitiéh, Morrisons Chief Executive.
“Although these changes are relatively small in the context of the overall scale of the Morrisons business, we do not take lightly the disruption and uncertainty they will cause to some of our colleagues. We will of course take particular care to look after all of them well through the coming changes.”
