SimplyFresh co-founder Sukhjit Khera is moving some of his stores over to Morrisons Daily, The Grocer can reveal.
Khera, who set up the symbol along with his brother Kash, is understood to hold the largest account with SimplyFresh, owning six stores in total with the SimplyFresh and SimplyLocal brands.
Morrisons and SimplyFresh both declined to confirm the number of stores moving over, but The Grocer understands up to four sites could be switched.
SimplyFresh has denied the move indicates a shift in strategy or the start of a new supply partnership with Morrisons, but said it was instead the result of “poor-performing stores” that had fallen victim to the pandemic.
The 90-plus SimplyFresh estate is currently supplied by the Bestway-owned Costcutter symbol. The group had previously been involved in a supply agreement with Sainsbury’s, before the supermarket pulled the plug on its wholesale operations in 2021.
At the time, there were five SimplyFresh stores in the supplied by Sainsbury’s model, though it had a target of signing up 30 retailers to the format by the end of the year.
The Grocer revealed SimplyFresh had held discussions with Waitrose as a potential supply partner shortly after Sainsbury’s exit, but the parties did not come to an agreement.
SimplyFresh had previously said it had paused the search for a new supply partner.
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