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Food not fashion at Fortnum & Mason
Upmarket retailer to expand food hall
Picadilly retailer Fortnum & Mason is to focus on its core reputation as the top people's grocer, expanding its food hall at the expense of most of its fashion offer.
Fortnum & Mason plans to modernise the Picadilly store, in a drive to revive sales under new managing director Beverley Aspinall, who joined the business earlier this year.A new central atrium
Most of the retailer's clothing offer will be dropped, with only lingerie and fashion accessories retained.
Food accounts for 70 per cent of Fortnum & Mason sales, with food hall sales strong and internet and mail order sales of its iconic food hampers increasing.
Aspinall, who joined from the John Lewis owned Peter Jones department store in February, believes sales can be boosted from their current £40m to beyond £50m appealing to younger shopper with the food offer. She said: "Our challenge is to be better than the best specialist cheese shop, better than the best coffee shop, better than the best deli."
In the year to July last year, pre-tax profits were down to £351,000 from £638,000 the year before, mainly caused by the cost of implementing a new international strategy. The company has moved from distributing products through overseas wholesalers to selling directly to retailers.
Fortnum & Manson is owned by the Weston family, whose retail empire also includes Selfridges and Heals in London, Brown Thomas in Dublin, and, through its controlling interest in Associated British Foods, the Primark discount clothing chain.
Tagged as: Fortnum & Mason. Selfridges | Heals | Primark
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