Morrisons terminate agriculture manager position

As part of its big operational shakeup, management of supermarket chain Morrisons have made another drastic change - the termination of the agriculture manager position.

Morrisons’ current agriculture manager, Andrew Loftus, has held the post for the past five years, but he will leave the company voluntarily at the end of next week.

However, David Evans will continue to work as the head of agriculture.

This is just the latest major adjustment to the supermarket chain’s managerial structure the new chief executive was announced as David Potts, who axed five major managers in his first week on the job.

These included marketing & digital director Nick Collard, group retail director Martyn Fletcher, group property and strategy director Gordon Mowat, group logistics director Neal Austin and convenience managing director Nigel Robertson.

In mid-April Morrisons also announced it is set tocreate 5,000 new in-store jobs in an attempt to revive Morrisons’ dipping sales by boosting customer service, while 720 head office roles will be axed to reshuffle the company’s management.

The most recent adjustment came late last month when the supermarket chain decided to scrap self-service machines and reintroduce over 1,000 staffed checkouts.

Mr Potts’ strategy to restructure operations at Morrisons is mainly a reaction to the supermarket chain’s dismal start to 2015, which included the foreclosure of 23 stores after reporting a pretax loss of £792m for the year ending 1st February - compared to a loss of £176m for the same period last year.

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