Farmers Boy Deeside
In the first half of the year, we acquired a cooked meat production plant which will add to our existing capacity and allow us to produce nearly all of our requirements in-house.
Simply Fresh
We also acquired Simply Fresh in the first half of the year, a stir fry and prepared vegetable business. It will add capacity and enable us to consolidate our sourcing of all these products in-house.
Kiddicare
In February 2011 we purchased kiddicare.com, a specialist retailer operating in the baby and infant merchandising category. We intend to grow the business organically and believe it will bring us four key benefits:
- its sophisticated technology;
- its speed and agility to react to the market that a large corporate finds difficult;
- it is multi-channel and allows us to retail online and in store kiosks; and
- it has best-in-class logistics which is a primary challenge for online product fulfilment.
FreshDirect - New York
We have invested in a c10% stake in FreshDirect, a profitable, fast growing and highly successful internet grocer serving the New York market. FreshDirect has a well established infrastructure and profitable operating model which Morrisons can learn from.