Haldanes Stores, the new supermarket chain which launched in Scotland in November 2009, has hit the expansion trail.
Having began trading with the acquisition of five former Somerfield stores from the Co-operative, the company has taken on a further 13 outlets across the UK.
Haldanes’ network now stretches from Wick, in the far north of Scotland, to the Midlands.
Chairman Arthur Harris said: “Our acquisition plans are right on track and we will have all 18 supermarkets running under the Haldanes name by Easter. And we are still on the acquisition trail for other stores the length and breadth of the UK.”
The first batch of acquisitions came about after The Co-operative Group agreed with the Office of Fair Trading [OFT] to offload 133 outlets in centres where it already had stores, following its take over of Somerfield earlier this year.
Haldanes has opened its first three supermarkets in the past fortnight in Prestonpans, East Lothian, Carluke, Lanarkshire, and Tranent, near Edinburgh. A fourth, in Broxburn, also near Edinburgh, will open its doors for business on 8 December 2009.
Heading south
Haldanes’ first store in England will open in January 2010 in Tattershall, Lincolnshire.
Between January and March next year other stores will open in Belper, Derbyshire, and Kirkby in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire.
In Scotland branches will open in Kelso, in The Borders, Arbroath and Forfar, in Angus, Buckie, in Banffshire, Ellon and Fraserburgh, in Aberdeenshire, Shawlands, in Glasgow, Crieff, in Perthshire, Wick, in Caithness, Dunbar, in East Lothian, and Larkhall, in Lanarkshire.
Haldanes – which has the trading logo “Refreshingly local” – claims it will be the first mid-sized supermarket chain to open for business in the UK for 27 years, filling a gap left following the acquisition of William Low by Tesco in the mid-1990s.
The company’s headquarters will be in Grantham, in Lincolnshire, with a regional base in Broxburn.
All 728 jobs in the 18 stores have been guaranteed by Harris and his team. The workforce will increase to around 750 when all the management positions have been filled.
Harris said: “Our growth plans are that Haldanes will have a chain of around 50 stores within the next four years, which would mean our staffing level rising to about 1,200.”
Haldanes said it has three key words at the core of its trading policy – quality, fresh and local.
It claimed it would source more than a third of its food and drink from local producers at each of its stores.
“In particular, stores in Scotland will include an enhanced range of Scottish foods,” said Harris. “And much of the Scottish-sourced produce will be sold in our English outlets too.”
Local knowledge
“We believe that local knowledge is essential and that is at the heart of our expertise. Our local knowledge is particularly important because it means that we are able to tailor products to local tastes. Although some of the established supermarket chains have tried to source locally, we believe that that none has managed it effectively,” Harris said.
In addition to local producers, Haldanes main suppliers will be Nisa-Today’s and Total Produce.
