Tesco Outlines Expansion Plans For Ireland

 Namnews, 17th August 2022

Tesco has revealed that it will spend more than €50m in Ireland this year on new stores and refits of its existing outlets as it targets further growth in the market.

Yesterday, the group opened its 154th Irish outlet in the South Lotts area of Dublin. According to The Irish Times, this smaller-format convenience outlet will be followed this year by further openings of Express outlets in Smithfield and Charlemont Square. Tesco will also open a new superstore in Adamstown in west Dublin later this year.

In addition to the €50m capital expenditure for 2022, Tesco is also preparing to rebrand nine of the Joyce’s supermarkets that it bought in Galway last year.

Earlier this year, Tesco opened its first new store in Ireland in four years, at White Pines in Rathfarnham. It also opened a new Express outlet this year at Spencer Dock in Dublin.

Natasha Adams, who took on the role of Chief Executive of Tesco Ireland back in April, told The Irish Times: “We have a line of sight towards growing our business in a significant way over the next three to five year.”

Meanwhile, she acknowledged that price rises were having an impact on consumers – Irish grocery market inflation is running at 7.7% – but she declined to say if the crisis has peaked. “Prices do have to go up,” said Adams. “I wouldn’t want to predict whether they have peaked or not … But the reality is that other challenges from an inflationary perspective are waiting in the wings, in the form of energy prices increases.”

NAM Implications:

• Why?
• One good reason is that retail prices and thereby margins are greater than in the UK…
• …raising the question re ‘growth at whose expense?’