Costcutter has appointed Craig Farrington as head of store development, tasked with designing five new shop formats.

Farrington joins from Musgrave Retail Partners GB, where he was head of format development for Budgens and Londis stores.

He is now in charge of a team of 20 people developing a new range of store designs to allow Costcutter to better adapt its offer to the 1,600 shops that trade under its fascia.

"My job is to design new stores to suit the way the market is moving and consumer shopping needs," said Farrington.

"It's a very exciting role and a great opportunity to work with a fantastic and enthusiastic team to really make a difference to Costcutter's stores and boost sales."

His team is in the process of developing new layouts and product ranges to suit four different types of store - 'suburban', 'village', 'essential' and 'high street' - which are scheduled to be launched from next month. A large supermarket format is set to follow.

Currently, Costcutter has two formats - stores over 3,000 sq ft are known as supermarkets, while smaller stores and forecourt stores are labelled Express stores.

The 'village' and 'suburban' stores will be more geared toward top-up shopping or people buying food in preparation for a meal later that day, and will stock a bigger range of fresh, chilled, and alcohol.

The 'essential' and 'high street' stores will have a stronger focus on food to be eaten straight away and will stock a larger range of hot food, pre-heated ready meals and food-to-go.