With its headquarters located in Bradford, West Yorkshire, Morrisons is the fourth largest chain of supermarkets in the UK. The legal name for the company is WM Morrison Supermarket Plc. Morrison’s market share stands at 11.2% after a small dip of 2.5% year on year in February 2014. The company was founded in 1899 and began as butter and egg stall in Rawson Market, Bradford, England. Right up until 2004, Morrisons’ stores were mainly located in the north of England. However, after the takeover of Safeway in 2004, Morrisons now have stores across the United Kingdom.
The company was started by William Morrison in 1899 (hence the name MW Morrison Limited), like an egg and butter stall. William’s son Ken Morrison took over the company in 1952, and 1958 opened up a small shop in the city center. This was also the first self-service store with three checkouts in Bradford. The store was also the first to have the price of the product affixed on all its products. In 1961, the company opened “Victoria” its first supermarket in the Girlington district in Bradford. In 1967, Morrisons became a public listed company and was listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Up until 2004, Morrisons operated only in the north of England, it was only after it acquired Safeway, a British supermarket chain with 497 stores in Scotland and the south of England that Morrisons started operations out of the North of England. Currently, the company has over 569 (as of February 2014) superstores in the United Kingdom, including the ones retained after purchasing Safeway PLC.
Morrisons’ “M Savers” is an economy brand that offers various items ranging from food and drinks to toiletries and is currently the fastest growing grocery brand in the UK.
With over 500 stores located worldwide, these are some of the store locations: Aylesbury, Beccles, Bedford, Braintree, Bulwell, Boston, Chesterfield, Acton, Barnard Castle, Birmingham, Canterbury, Dover, Brighton, Gosport, Reading, Reigate, Winsor, Wokingham, Worthing.
