Morrisons pledges to up its game

UK supermarket Morrisons has set its sights on producing a new ‘unique’ non-food and entertainment offering.

Following the company’s massive price cuts on games this month, CEO Marc Bolland has said he is keen to widen the appeal of the retailer.

According to Retail Week, the grocer’s home and leisure director John Vinuesa – who has previously worked for Tesco and Asda – has been working for the past nine months "to create a new range in non-food".

Bolland said Morrisons had already delivered strong growth in its home and leisure division and has "done a lot of work" on its technology offer, which includes DVDs, CDs and MP3s.

"The first signs are positive, but we need to look at what happens in spring," said Bolland.

Bolland said that a non-food range would have to be something specific to Morrisons, something "ownable" and "unique" to the grocer.

For the 26 weeks to August 3rd, Morrison’s reported pre-tax profits up 12.8 per cent to 309 million and like-for-like sales, excluding fuel, up 7.6 per cent.