Co-op is to open 120 new stores over the next 18 months as it enters a “more proactive mindset” in growing its food business.

The convenience retailer, which returned to profit following a £33m loss last year, has unveiled plans to “grow at scale”.

Co-op Food managing director Matt Hood said the business is “increasingly much more in a proactive mindset when it comes to acquisition of new sites and growth in our food business.”

“We’ll be using all our routes to market to both retain the space we already have and grow at scale to meet longer term ambitions,” he explained.

Having reported a “strong” set of half year results today (25 September), Hood said: “With the strength of the balance sheet, alongside focusing on improving all stores and ensuring we have a model for success for every small store across different sizes and different routes to market, means we are fundamentally back out there, growing our footprint again.”

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It comes as Co-op chief executive Shirine Khoury-Haq noted that the grocer is the “most shopped shop in the nation”.

“We have two and a half million transactions per day, which is 800 million per year.”

Hood says that this, “alongside the approach of being the best small store operator, means that more than ever, we’re focused on giving every single shop what it needs to be sustainable and to be profitable.”

When questioned over whether these new stores would feature self-checkouts, Hood said: “The reality is, I want to make convenience constantly more convenient and for our customers, self-checkouts are something that makes it quicker and makes it easier for customers to get in and out of our shop. So for us, they continue to play a key part of our format.”

It comes despite other retailers, such as Morrisons, having unveiled plans to remove some self-checkouts from certain stores after its chief executive Rami Baitiéh said the technology had gone a “bit too far”.

Some industry leaders including Baitiéh and M&S chair Archie Norman have raised alarm bells around whether customers are taking advantage of self-checkout technology, adding to the rise in shoplifting.

Earlier this month, Co-op said it was experiencing the highest levels of crime and abuse in its stores that it has ever seen as shoplifting levels in the UK hit a 20-year high.