How changes to Tesco's bakeries will affect Northampton's Mereway and Weston Favell stores

Northampton's Tesco superstores in Mereway and Weston Favell Shopping Centre will both be affected by the supermarket's plans to scale back its bakeries.

The chain of supermarkets announced yesterday (February 25) it would be "converting" all 58 of its in-store bakeries across the UK to reduce the number of baked-from-scratch products available.

It could result in the loss of 1,800 jobs across the country through redundancies.

It means that Northampton's Mereway and Weston Favell supermarkets will be keeping their bakeries - but the range of products they will offer will be scaled back.

Each Tesco store with bakery is now beginning a consultancy phase to see which of its products are most popular to customers in each store.

After their "conversion", the bakeries will be able to make their most popular products, while other products will be pre-baked elsewhere and delivered to the store.

It also means the number of redundancies will not be clear until the consultations are over.

Jason Tarry, Tesco’s UK and ROI chief executive, said, “We need to adapt to changing customer demand and tastes for bakery products so that we continue to offer customers a market-leading bakery range in store.

“We know this will be very difficult for colleagues who are impacted, and our priority is to support them through this process. We hope that many will choose to stay with us in alternative roles.”

Tesco has said that 257 stores will still keep their in-store bakeries and staff.

Tesco said it will look to find other jobs for the staff, with "thousands of store vacancies" expected to be available across its network between now and May.