More than 900 staff at Grape Tree will share a special £100,000 bonus payment, following completion of the business’s move into an Employee Ownership Trust earlier this year. 

The payment has been described as “a little ‘thank you’”, by Grape Tree founder, Nick Schuttts, to show staff “but if the business does well, so do they”. 

The health food retailer – which operates around 200 stores nationally – has reported a 10% increase in annual sales. 

“Feedback from staff has been great and you can see it translate into efficiency gains secured at our assembly and packaging HQ in Kingswinford and in the way we deal with customers in store.

“In turn, it is having a real impact on the bottom line. Our market share in the healthy foods market is growing, sales are increasing across multiple ranges and we’ve got several exciting new store openings set to take place.”

Since the EOT, the company is reported to have opened ten new stores and created more than 50 jobs, taking the total workforce to in excess of 1,000.

Image: Courtesy, Grape Tree