Majestic feels the Force

MAJESTIC Wine hopes the Force will be with it as the alcohol retailer launched Project Jedi, an initiative to motivate staff following disappointing half-year results.

Profits halved to £4.3m for the 26 weeks to September 28 from £8.5m the previous year due to a one-off charge from the purchase of rival Naked Wines in April.

Sales increased 36pc to £181.6m, however if the impact of the acquisition is ignored, sales increased just 6pc.

Chief executive Rowan Gormley re-introduced a dividend, paying 4.2p-a-share.

He said staff, many of whom are graduates, had become demoralised because much of their decision making powers had been removed.

Project Jedi was introduced, borrowed from the movie Star Wars, in an attempt to give staff new powers. Gormley said: ‘Staff were asked to do more work for less money which is never a good thing. We hired graduates who weren’t being treated like the intelligent people they are. ‘We want to treat them like entrepreneurs so that they can run the store how they would like.’ Majestic has seen its growth hurt by fierce competition from discounters Aldi and Lidl selling cheap, good quality wine.

It has responded by getting rid of a requirement that forced shoppers to buy a minimum of six bottles.

It also said it would scale back plans to expand to a target of 330 stores in the UK choosing instead 230. It currently has 211 shops. This will deliver a £6m saving which will be spent on marketing, new staff and computer systems.

Gormley says Majestic can be fixed saying: ‘I don’t think it was badly broken.’