Musgrave is to rebrand its upmarket grocery chain Superquinn to SuperValu to make it the second largest grocer in Ireland, and has made 102 redundancies as part of the restructure.

The 24 Superquinn stores will be rebranded as SuperValu from February 2014 while staff will leave Superquinn’s support office over the next 18 months as the company merges the two retailers’ head offices.

Musgrave will invest €10m in the rebranding of the stores.

The move will allow discounter SuperValu to take on 5.4% market share on top of its own 19.5% share, putting it ahead of Dunnes which has 21.5% of the market and behind Tesco on 27.6%, according to Kantar Worldpanel’s latest data.

Musgrave group chief executive Chris Martin said: “Combining our SuperValu and Superquinn stores creates an unrivalled Irish retail brand, enabling shoppers to access SuperValu’s offer nationally, while incorporating the best of Superquinn. We understand that some customers will be sad to see the Superquinn name change.

“However, the decision follows a considered review of all options and is an inevitable next step given the realities of a totally changed grocery market and what the Irish consumer now needs.”

He added: “SuperValu has grown by 30% over the last 10 years and achieves annual retail sales of just over €2 billion. With the addition of Superquinn, one in four Irish consumers will shop at the expanded network of 222 stores. We will continue to deliver the largest selection of fresh Irish foods in the market with total purchases of Irish goods and services made by SuperValu worth over €1.6bn to the Irish economy annually.”

Martin said that new ranges, store revamps and improved value will also be introduced across the SuperValu stores in the coming months.

Musgrave, which also operates Budgens and Londis, bought Superquinn out of receivership in 2011.

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