Safeway supermarket making a comeback after 11-year absence as owner Morrisons announces relaunch
Range of products to bear name of cherished brand that disappeared from the high street in 2005
MORRISONS is to bring back the Safeway name within weeks, after more than a decade away.
The supermarket yesterday revealed hundreds of new fresh food products featuring the brand would go on sale from early next year.
They will initially be sold by independent wholesalers, which Morrisons supplies.
Analysts yesterday hailed its return "eminently sensible".
Morrisons bought Safeway for £3billion in early 2004, in a deal which helped the Yorkshire grocer expand in the South and become a major national player.
But it rebranded or sold off most of Safeway's 479 shops and by late 2005 the brand, created in 1962, had disappeared.
The food for the revamped brand will be sourced from Morrisons' 16 UK factories.
Analysts at stockbroker Shore Captital welcomed Safeway's return, saying the brand was a much-loved label and had "a warm heritage and feel".
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The chain is also growing its convenience store presence after it last year sold its M Local chain.
It is to pilot ten Morrisons Daily stores in petrol station shops owned by operator Rontec.
Four will open before Christmas and the other six in January.
This adds to the five it is currently trialling.
David Potts, chief exec of Morrisons, said its innovations were "capital-light ways of growing in the convenience food market".
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Safeway is back. Morrisons will hope shoppers' warm, nostalgic feelings towards the brand will boost its return to form.
It grew steadily in the years after buying Safeway in 2004.
But it struggled in the two years to early 2015 as budget grocer ALDI and LIDL stole customers.
After a return to profit in the year to January, Morrisons is on a roll under boss David Potts.
Safeway helped it grow before. A decade later, it can do so again.
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