Bargain supermarket chain with 300 branches to close another store in just DAYS
The store will host a mega sale on its last open day
A BARGAIN supermarket chain with 300 branches is set to close yet another store in just days.
The shock closure comes after its sister-site opened a mile away three years ago.
Originally a butcher shop in Aberdeen, FarmFoods has been serving Great Britain for over 60 years.
Along with frozen food, the Scottish family business sells chilled food, groceries, bread, milk, fresh fruit and vegetables, plus household items.
Now, a store closure sign hangs from the window of the branch in Greyhound Retail Park, in Greyhound Way, Southend.
It states that the shop will close on Sunday, February 9.
A mega half price sale will be held on its final day and customers are being redirected to another store on Eastern Avenue.
The Eastern Avenue shop opened in 2021 and is bigger Greyhound Retail Park store.
The closure poster reads: “This shop will close on Sunday February 9, 50 per cent off on the last day.
“Your nearest shop will be Eastern Avenue, Southend.”
No reason has been given as to why the store is closing but FarmFoods has been approached for a comment.
Comments from unhappy shoppers have flooded in on social media.
Many of which believe this store to be “convenient” in its placement and will “miss” it once it closes.
One person said: “So sad I use this Farmfoods every week always people In there shopping and lovely workers there so friendly.”
Followed by a second: “I pop in there often because of its good location, can’t imagine I’ll be going to the new site, it’s a pain to get to and less convenient.”
And then a third said: “FarmFoods will be missed by many who can’t get to the bigger one such as the elderly and disabled people.”
Meanwhile a fourth said: “I shop here once/ twice a week.. staff so helpful & nice..hopefully they have been given other employment..”
It comes after another FarmFoods branch closed just days ago.
The shop at Calthorpe Centre on Calthorpe Street in Banbury pulled the shutters down for good on Sunday, February 2.
Rumours about the closure began to circulate online at the start of the year with speculation that staff could be made redundant.
A spokesperson confirmed the closure last month, adding: “I confirm our shop at the Calthorpe Centre, Banbury will permanently close on February 2 following a 50 per cent sale.
“We’re grateful to all customers who have shopped with us during our time trading from the property and hope to open a new shop elsewhere in the town in future.”
The company did not provide any further details about when this branch may open.
And it is unclear as to how many staff have been let go or why the store is closing.
Retailers close branches here and there for a number or reasons, like a lease for the location may come to an end.
Other examples of one-off rather than widespread closures is if there are changes in the area, like a shopping centre closing, and in some cases a shop will close to relocate to another area.
Some chains have faced tougher conditions though, forcing them to shut dozens of stores, or all of them in the worst case.
Farmfoods sales surpassed £1billion for the first time in 2023, the most recent accounts available for the supermarket show.
According to the annual figures published in July last year, sales jumped 8% to £1.09billion in the 12 months to December 2023, from £940million on the 12 months before that.
Profits before tax increased to £23million, up from £22.2million the year before.
At the same time it said that it had made significant investment in opening new retail stores, adding 24 locations in 2023, and the number of staff increased to 4,971 from 4,767.
Why are retailers closing stores?
RETAILERS have been feeling the squeeze since the pandemic, while shoppers are cutting back on spending due to the soaring cost of living crisis.
High energy costs and a move to shopping online after the pandemic are also taking a toll, and many high street shops have struggled to keep going.
However, additional costs have added further pain to an already struggling sector.
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs from April will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
At the same time, the minimum wage will rise to £12.21 an hour from April, and the minimum wage for people aged 18-20 will rise to £10 an hour, an increase of £1.40.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: “The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025.”
It comes after almost 170,000 retail workers lost their jobs in 2024.
End-of-year figures compiled by the Centre for Retail Research showed the number of job losses spiked amid the collapse of major chains such as Homebase and Ted Baker.
It said its latest analysis showed that a total of 169,395 retail jobs were lost in the 2024 calendar year to date.
This was up 49,990 – an increase of 41.9% – compared with 2023.
It is the highest annual reading since more than 200,000 jobs were lost in 2020 in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced retailers to shut their stores during lockdowns.
The centre said 38 major retailers went into administration in 2024, including household names such as Lloyds Pharmacy, Homebase, The Body Shop, Carpetright and Ted Baker.
Around a third of all retail job losses in 2024, 33% or 55,914 in total, resulted from administrations.
Experts have said small high street shops could face a particularly challenging 2025 because of Budget tax and wage changes.
Professor Bamfield has warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector.
“By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer’s household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020.”
