Poundland has launched a raft of new fresh food products in its new Nottingham site, in a bid to attract shippers to do their weekly shop with the retailer.
Over the weekend, Poundland unveiled its biggest store situated in Nottingham’s Riverside Retail Park, which consists of a bakery, fresh fruit and vegetable shelves and a Costa Coffee machine.
The discount retailer has been trialling fresh food in some convenience stores, but, this is the first time it has stocked these items in its main store.
Poundland also plans to add these new ranges to over 20 other large stores by the end of the year.
“It’s a natural extension of what our customers are looking for,” says the managing director of Poundland, Barry Williams told the BBC.
“Our business is growing. The size of the basket that shoppers are spending with us is growing quite dramatically.”
“I’m seeing shoppers shop around a lot more particularly than what they were doing during the pandemic. There are locations that are coming back to life again, I think shoppers are definitely on the hunt for value now”.
However, Poundland is also grappling with rising costs, like every other retailer.
“The cost of transportation and fuel, the cost of containers – that is double digit percentage inflation that we’re seeing right now. And if you think of wage inflation for our colleagues, which we’re supportive of, that is high single per cent inflation as well.
“I’ve got suppliers approaching us, and they all want cost increases. I’m not a magician, I’m not Paul Daniels. I can’t magic all of this stuff away,” he added.
“What I can do is work as hard as I can on behalf of shoppers, to make sure that we mitigate as much as we can to protect them. Our view is really clear – that people who work the hardest on behalf of shoppers are the ones who are going to win.
“The ones who just pass that on to the shoppers. Well, shoppers are king, they can go wherever they want.”
The move follows the retailers decision to roll out its chilled and frozen range to 100 more stores by September this year.
According to the retailer, the extension will mark the total to around 350 stores in the UK and put it on track to pass the 500-mark in 2023.
At the time Williams, said: “The coming year will see us step up our transformation programme – including some of our largest stores and widest ranges – as we become the Poundland we know our customers want us to be.
“From groceries to clothing, homewares to frozen food, day-by-day we’ll continue to bring much more to customers in new and exciting stores tailor-made for where they live and how they want to shop.”
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