Specialty supermarket group Marqt is to close its two large stores and concentrate on outlets of around 350 square metres where the focus will be on best-selling items, RTLZ reported.

The large branches on Amsterdam’s Rembrandtplein and on the Hofweg in The Hague will shut down and staff will be transferred to other shops as the company again shakes up its strategy.

Marqt, founded 10 years ago, continues to make a loss and said earlier last month that it would start looking for ‘strategic alliances’ as its complete supervisory board stood down.

More information will be made public in the autumn, the spokeswoman told RTLZ.

The chain currently has 19 outlets, of which 12 are in the Dutch capital, and former director Joost Leeflang had plans to boost this to 60.

‘That was a mad idea,’ retail expert Paul Moers told the FD in June. ‘There is a target audience who want to buy organic products and don’t worry about the cost within the central urban belt of the Netherlands. But they are not in the rest of the country.’

Marqt was launched by two former Ahold workers who wanted to set up a supermarket which had close relationships with its suppliers and which focused on organic and locally-grown produce.

The company posted a loss of €1.3m in 2017, when its Belgian investor left and Social Impact Ventures and a Triodos investment fund stepped in.