Northern grocery chain Booths will invest £2 million to revamp the design of its 28 stores over the next 14 months.
As part of the new design, the fresh produce aisle will be positioned at the entrance of stores with accompanying storyboards telling the story behind the origin of Booths' fruit and vegetables.
Chairman Edwin Booth said: "It is important to differentiate ourselves. Waitrose has said it said it aims to populate the North and we need to look carefully at what increases our point of difference between us and them; doing nothing is not an option."
The grocer's sales topped £270m in the year to 2 April 2011 as like-for-like sales dropped by 2 per cent.
Booth admits that the retailer has been forced to reduce its prices to keep customers, with 24 per cent of products now sold on promotions, against the industry average of 30 per cent.
