Tesco have announced major changes which will affect its Launceston and Callington stores.

The UK’s largest supermarket has announced that it will shortly embark on a programme of management cuts and hot counter closures, with the changes set to affect 2,100 jobs nationally.

While Tesco has since 2019 made cuts and closures on their Fish and Deli counters, the supermarket chain has today announced that all remaining counters will close as of February 26, due to what they say is a lack of demand.

The new plan from the supermarket will introduce 1,800 new, lower-paid shift leader roles in their stores, with the new roles set to involve leading the day-to-day operational duties on the shop floor. Any member of staff transferring from a management role to one of the new roles will remain at their existing salary for two years, however.

All workers affected by the closures will be offered alternative roles, however, Tesco would not confirm how many staff work on counters and delis.

Third-party concessions, such as in-store offerings by Rowes, Costas and others are not affected, and the supermarket said more concessions could take the place of the closed counters. A spokesperson said: “Where we can work with a third party to offer a counter experience in-store, we will continue to do so."

The spokesperson added more detail of the new roles, continuing: "With the introduction of these new shift leader roles and realignment of management roles, we have taken the difficult decision to reduce the number of lead and team managers in our large stores, impacting around 1,750 colleagues.

"We are supporting colleagues impacted by these changes, who will have the option of moving into Shift Leader vacancies with financial support or taking redundancy."

Jason Tarry, Tesco UK and ROI chief executive officer, said: "These are difficult decisions to make, but they are necessary to ensure we remain focused on delivering value for our customers wherever we can, as well as ensuring our store offer reflects what our customers value the most."