Co-op Takes Over Convenience Store in Woodbridge Road

Published on: 10 Dec, 2022
Updated on: 13 Dec, 2022

By Hugh Coakley

The Co-op is taking over a convenience store next to the petrol station in Woodbridge Road, Guildford, with it opening on Wednesday (December 21).

The Co-op convenience store in Woodbridge Road being prepared for opening on December 21.

The shop and petrol station, formally a NisaLocal shop run by Guild Foods, is undergoing alterations and refurbishment.

Nisa is actually an owned subsidiary of the Co-operative Group.

Other recent Co-op stores opening in the Guildford area includes one at the top of the upper High Street and another in Bramley.

This takes the Co-op to the top of the number of supermarket and convenience stores in the area.

M&S Simply Food has four locations, Tesco Express and One Stop have five, Sainsbury’s has three, with Aldi and Lidl with one store each.

Supermarket share of the UK grocery market as of November 2022. The Co-operative group is ranked seventh (data from Kantar).

The new Co-op in Woodbridge Road is part of Southern Co-op, based in Portsmouth. Like other food stores in the area, surplus food and other goods will be donated to the North Guildford Foodbank, The Hive in Park Barn and The Salvation Army.

Tony Scott, Southern Co-op’s area manager, said: “We are really happy to be able to retain the sense of independence in this store whilst bringing in some new sustainable elements which we hope the local residents will value.

“It is also an added bonus to be able to make such a considerable donation ahead of the reopening to the local foodbanks.”

The Co-op said the store will feature “environmental additions, such as a soft plastic recycling point making all Co-op branded food packaging easy to recycle in the Guildford area, eco-friendly technology such as LED lighting, a building management system to reduce electricity use, and electronic shelf edge labels which reduces paper wastage”.

The store will keep its existing opening hours: Monday to Saturday. 6am to midnight, and Sundays, 7am to 11pm.