Grocery Guru Ep #29: Tesco Metro's Demise and Fewer Formats for Tesco

Join Andrew Grant and Darren A. Smith in the twenty-ninth episode about the demise of Tesco Metro, what is happening to the Tesco Jack's format, and maybe the start of Tesco managing fewer formats.

You Can Read the Demise of Tesco Metro Episode Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

Hello, and welcome to episode 29 of the Grocery Guru. We're here with Andrew Grant. Andrew, how are you doing?

Andrew Grant:

Morning, Darren. You well?

Darren A. Smith:

Yes, I'm very good. I'm very good. We'll ignore all the technical issues we've just had, because no one cares, but we've just had a few. What are we talking about this week?

Andrew Grant:

Well, I picked up the news. We often try and bring the most topical items in the grocery world. So yeah, I picked up this week, didn't get a lot of press, but the demise of the Tesco Metro. It will be no more.

Darren A. Smith:

Oh really? Okay. Tell us more.

Darren and Andrew discuss Tesco Jack's format and the demise of Tesco Metro

Andrew Grant:

Yeah, so I've got to do some very quick math here. 147 Tesco Metros, all being rebranded either as Tesco Express or as Tesco Superstores, which I find interesting. I can understand 89 of them becoming Expresses.

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah. I can.

Andrew Grant:

58 Superstores, god, there must be some big monsters out there forgotten about.

Darren A. Smith:

That seems odd, so just remind us what is a Tesco Metro?

Andrew Grant:

Well, originally it was a reason to take... So if you think back to what Tesco's original heyday of operation check-out and Green Shield Stamps, all their stores were in bustling town centers.

Darren A. Smith:

Yep. Very true.

Andrew Grant:

So, you and I are probably old enough to go back that far, but your quintessential high street with your Woolies, your Marks & Spencer, your Boots, and your Tesco. [crosstalk 00:01:46] So Tesco ended up in the 80s as it was starting to build their out of town estate, which was the making of them, left with all of these city and town center stores on a high street, and they thought, "What the hell do we do with them?" And they came up with a Metro format. But essentially all they did was took an existing small supermarket and stuck a camp sandwich cabinet and some soft drinks chillers at the front, and still to this day most metros have far more range probably than the shoppers need. And it was interesting in the press release, Tesco said that 70% of the shopping missions in Metros are for top-up shops.

Darren A. Smith:

Oh okay. All right. So we've got a good understanding of Tesco Metro. All right. So these guys are saying, they're going to take 80... How many was it? 89?

Andrew Grant:

89 into Tesco Express format, and I'm 58 into the Superstore format.

Darren A. Smith:

Okay. So does this mean that Tesco Metro format will be gone completely?

Andrew Grant:

It's like the proverbial parrot. It is no more. It is dead.

Darren A. Smith:

All right. Okay. Okay. So do you think this is about head office trying to manage fewer formats, or the other format's more popular? What's your take on this?

Andrew Grant:

No, I think, again, it shows the power of shopper insight and club card. They know precisely what every single one of their shoppers is buying in every single store, every single minute of the day, and it's fine tuning a very, very well honed engine.

Darren A. Smith:

Okay. All right. So I get that. I get the insight into shoppers, but why remove Metro? What does it add, or what does it add by removing it?

Andrew Grant:

Well, no, I think you said it as you said that first, what does it add? Express is a phenomenally successful C-store concept, the out of town extras again phenomenally successful. Why do you want a Metro stuck in the middle, which is neither one thing or the other. It's not a full on c-store, and it's definitely not a full range, weekly supermarket shop store. And of course we know,