Fultons Foods closing: Poundland confirms closure of remaining stores, including shops in Sheffield

The budget retailer, which acquired the frozen food specialist in October 2020, said it had converted 11 Fultons stores to either Poundland or PEP&CO clothing and homeware shops but all those which have yet to be rebranded are set to close.

It did not confirm the full list of stores which would be closing but a spokesman said the Fultons store in Crookes was among them.

There are eight Fultons Foods stores in Sheffield, according to Google Maps, including the one in Crookes, two in Sheffield city centre and ones in Middlewood, Darnall, Woodhouse, Firth Park and Manor Top.

Poundland had announced plans last October to convert the Crookes store into a PEP&CO shop but said it concluded at the end of 2021 that it couldn’t make this conversion work.

A Poundland spokesman said: “We announced to colleagues last month that Fultons stores that hadn’t already been converted to a Poundland format would sadly close, but we’ll do all we can to find the team there opportunities to transfer to a Poundland store or other openings elsewhere in our business.

“Just by way of a bit of context, over the past 18 months, we’ve opened chilled and frozen departments in over 250 Poundland stores and will open another 100 this year. By the end of September 2022, we expect that Fultons, the frozen food specialist we acquired in October 2020, will be powering the chilled and frozen offer in over 350 Poundland stores – and we aspire to have well over 500 in time.

Why are Fultons Foods stores closing?

“Over the course of the last year, 11 Fultons locations have also been given a new lease of life as either a Poundland or PEP&CO store. Having reached this scale at pace, we’ve now carried out a detailed review of the remaning 42 Fultons branded stores, of which Crookes is one.

“Sadly, we see no prospect of being able to convert it to a Poundland format in the near-term or that it will be able to continue to trade profitably as a standalone Fultons store and that’s why we shared with the colleagues in there last month that it will sadly close in the next few months.

“While Poundland is a growing business – the programme to bring frozen food to hundreds of Poundland stores and establish specialist frozen distribution capability in Barnsley and Harlow is creating around 1,000 jobs – we understand how disappointing this decision will be for the Fultons colleagues in this specific store.”

Plans to open new Poundland stores in Sheffield

Asked how many jobs would be affected by the closures, Poundland said there were on average around seven colleagues in each Fultons store.

A spokesman added: “However when chilled and frozen from Fultons is introduced into a Poundland store – and there’ll be another 100 between now and September – that allows us to create some roles.

“Over the course of the next few weeks we also hope to be able to confirm the opening of two new Poundland stores in Sheffield.

“What’s more, the closure of the remaining Fultons stores will happen over a period of time.”