Morrisons’ crass talk of a supermarket renaissance clouds its stellar online performance

“During the pandemic there has been a renaissance of the supermarket in Britain.” 

So said Morrisons, Britain’s number four grocer, which has majored on fresh, tasty food but seems set upon adding tasteless, hyperbolic statements to the mix. 

A renaissance of the supermarket? Really? A pandemic that has killed in excess of 150,000 Britons calls for a little more tact, perhaps via the sort of bland corporatism most big businesses specialise in. That’s especially true of those who’ve done well through the course of it. 

How about: “Our supermarkets have performed above expectations and demonstrated the value of the model”?

It isn’t just that the renaissance line is borderline tasteless, either. The first-quarter numbers that Morrisons put through the checkout don’t really justify the line – not when you dig into the guts of the statement, where lie the interesting bits the company didn’t pick for the headlines. 

It’s a funny sort of renaissance when you’re reporting “retail” sales growth at stores open a least a year of just 1.6 per cent excluding fuel.

It’s true that Morrisons did very well over the same three months last year, when the number was 5.1 per cent and the group grew overall sales by 5.7 per cent (once again excluding fuel) as shoppers rushed to stockpile food and empty shelves were a common sight. 

It’s always tough when you’re up against strong comparatives, and set against them the overall 2.7 per cent rise in like-for-like sales was a solid result, somewhat better than the City had forecast. You could even use the word “encouraging”, as some of the broadly favourable analyst comment did. As well as growing its sales, Morrisons also made good money, with the promise of better to come. 

The result satisfied the market. There wasn’t much sign of profit-taking, even though the company’s shares, which spent most of the day in modestly positive territory, have had a strong run. 

Morrisons might be smaller than its fellow members of the traditional “big four” grocers, but sometimes that can work for you. 

“Our increasingly special butchers, bakers, fishmongers and other food makers are helping to brighten shopping trips,” said the company, a clear nod to rivals who have been busily firing them in favour of centralisation. 

But the hard truth is that price exerts the most powerful pull over shoppers, especially in an economy which has taken a severe beating. This could ultimately favour those majoring on that: the Aldis and the Lidls, and those best placed to match them. 

If Morrisons can at least continue holding its own in a brutally competitive sector – and it has been doing that of late – it would count as a good result. While its market share has been in decline over the longer term, the most recent set of numbers from researcher Kantar showed a modest uptick (to ten per cent). 

That said, there was nothing modest about the most notable part of the results, certainly when you look to the future of the company. Online business, which Morrisons was initially slow to embrace, doubled with the assistance of the group’s partnership with Amazon. 

There’s occasionally been speculation that Morrisons could one day be a target for the latter, which is already competing aggressively with Walmart in the US grocery market and has dipped its toe into bricks-and-mortar stores with automated outlets in Britain. Morrisons products can be found in them.  

Jeff Bezos could gobble up the business as easily as an hors d’oeuvre served up by the crew of that grotesquely ostentatious new yacht of his. 

It’s a prospect that could help to fortify Morrisons shares while frightening the life out of every one of its peers. Potentially the group’s staff too. A deal with Amazon would be no renaissance for them, given the stories that keep coming out about its attitude towards its employees.