Tesco has announced that it will be converting fifty eight of its in store bakeries to full bake-off where all products are delivered pre-prepared, then baked and finished in store.
The Company blames changes in the market saying that they have seen a big shift in customer tastes and preferences.
“Customers are buying fewer traditional loaves of bread and are increasingly looking for a wider range of options, with sales of wraps, bagels and flatbreads growing. In light of this, we have undertaken a review to make sure our bakery operation is relevant for the way the market and our customers have evolved.”
Tesco will retain scratch baking in 257 stores but are making some changes to our other bakeries. In 201 stores the most popular products will continue to be baked from scratch with other products moving to part-baked.
“As a result, there are 1,816 bakery colleagues being put at risk of redundancy. At this difficult time, our priority will be to support those colleagues impacted, including finding an alternative role from the many thousands of vacancies we will have available across our store networks between now and May, for those who wish to stay with us. ”
Jason Tarry, UK & ROI CEO, said:
“We need to adapt to changing customer demand and tastes for bakery products so that we continue to offer customers a market-leading bakery range in store. We know this will be very difficult for colleagues who are impacted, and our priority is to support them through this process. We hope that many will choose to stay with us in alternative roles.”
