Martin Clayton, bakery specialist at Morrisons, shares his thoughts on the supermarket’s goals for 2009

At Morrisons we have the largest number of craft food specialists anywhere in the retail sector. This year we’re strengthening this position and launching a far-reaching programme to train new craft food specialists, including bakers, and it’s one of our two main focuses for this year.

The Morrisons Fresh Food Academy, which is just getting under way, will train 18,000 food specialists in year one - including a huge number of bakers. The first qualification they will attain is NVQ Level 2, which is the equivalent of five GCSEs grade A-C, and ultimately our colleagues can progress up to NVQ Level 5 - which is the equivalent of a foundation university degree. By spring 2011, we’ll have put 100,000 people through this course. Making sure people are successfully enrolled, trained and supported through this training will be a big part of ensuring we can deliver our promise of freshness and value to our customers in 2009.

The other major initiative we’re engaged in is the transformation of a whole host of Co-op and Somerfield stores into fully-fledged Morrisons stores - and in each one we’ll be aiming to include a comprehensive in-store bakery. For us, the big hopes for 2009 are to ensure that these two massive undertakings deliver on time and on budget, and enable us to continue to grow market share.

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