Tesco has moved to dispose of its Nutricentre arm, with plans to potentially integrate its services into the core store estate.
Nutricentre currently operates under the Tesco umbrella, selling healthy food and drink, health supplements and other products promoting healthy lifestyles for customers. The Big Four grocer originally had optimistic designs for the chain, announcing in 2014 that it planned to roll out “hundreds” of concessions and outlets.
Yesterday, however, staff were informed that the business would finally be going the way of its management team, most of which had their positions axed by Tesco last year.
The supermarket plans to close 12 Nutricentre outlets and 11 concessions operating within Tesco stores. In December 2015 it was revealed that Nutricentre‘s losses had almost quadrupled from £2.2m to £8.3m.
“We have taken the difficult decision to close our Nutricentre business,” a Tesco spokesperson said. “We have learned a lot through Nutricentre but we believe we can serve our customers better through our core UK business. Our priority now is to support affected colleagues.”
Tesco has already launched a consultation with the 137 employees that will be impacted by the decision.
This is sadly not an anomaly amongst Tesco‘s non-core businesses. In February Tesco took full ownership of coffee chain Harris + Hoole which, like Giraffe and Dobbies Garden Centre, has failed to generate much needed profits.
Following the accounting scandal of 2014 Tesco CEO Dave Lewis has taken a number of steps to cut costs for Tesco‘s operation. It remains to be seen whether Tesco will continue to cut its losses or make a last ditch effort with the companies under its umbrella.
