Great British supermarket chain Waitrose is ramping up investment in its store portfolio with plans to open up to 100 convenience shops across the UK over the next five years.
The company say £1 billion will be invested in new and existing shops over the next three years.
Waitrose & Partners is a British supermarket chain, founded in 1904 as Waite, Rose & Taylor, later shortened to Waitrose. In 1937, it was acquired by the John Lewis Partnership, the UK’s largest employee-owned business, which continues to operate the brand.
The new investment announcement comes as Waitrose unveil their latest vision for what their shops could look like for customers in the future.
Waitrose say their John Barnes shop in Finchley Road, London will test new concepts as part of their store investment programme. This will see them inject a record £1 billion over the next three years into new stores and improvements to 150 existing shops, almost half of their estate.
The transformation of the Finchley Road store builds on the revamp of their Sudbury shop, in Suffolk, last year. These stores, along with the makeover of their Maidenhead shop in the autumn, which will mark the next evolution of the Waitrose shop proposition, will be used to trial new services, product offerings and concept upgrades over the next 12 months before a new blueprint for Waitrose shops is revealed in 2025.
Waitrose say the investment in their store portfolio will focus on the areas that differentiate them, including:
- Upgrading service counters: At a time when many food retailers are removing theirs, meat and fish counters have been given a new look and upgraded.
- Award-winning wine selection given greater prominence: Finchley Road is the first Waitrose to feature an entirely chilled department for white wine, champagne, rose and beer.
- Greater flexibility to respond to local demand: Finchley Road has given more space to top sellers including adding a second dry aged beef cabinet and dedicated parmesan section – 12% of Waitrose parmigiano counter sales come from the one store.
- More third party collaboration: A new and exclusive partnership with Crosstown doughnuts has been introduced as part of a refreshed bakery and we have expanded our concession with Sushi Daily to include a Hot Wok offer of ready-to-eat dishes.
- More dedicated space for on demand grocery orders: The store becomes the first Waitrose shop to feature a hatch to allow riders to make collections outside of the store’s opening hours. It is also the first UK supermarket to have a dedicated internal space for on-demand grocery collections due to the increased popularity of orders through Deliveroo and Uber Eats.
The first new Waitrose store in six years will open in Hampton Hill later this year, subject to planning approval, with a second following in Greater London which will open early in the new year. The convenience store will trigger one of our biggest periods of expansion as we look to reach more customers having served a record 15 million last year.
James Bailey, Executive Director for Waitrose, said:
“Waitrose will always offer fantastic food, but the groundwork we have undertaken behind the scenes in recent years means we can now focus on growth through new shops and ensuring our existing ones are providing great shopping experiences that match the quality of our products.
“The transformation of our Finchley Road store marks the next evolution of our journey to create a great shopping experience for our customers, underpinned by a high-quality product offering tailored to the local area, and the quality service we are synonymous with. In designing the store, we have taken time to understand how our customers like to shop, and used this knowledge to introduce new concepts that will be tested and rolled out nationally as we continue to work towards the Waitrose of the future.”
Nish Kankiwala, Chief Executive Officer of the John Lewis Partnership, said:
“Our investment in our Waitrose store portfolio is already yielding strong results, with customers responding positively. As our retail driven plan continues to gain traction, our growing number of shoppers and increasing customer satisfaction scores are clear indicators of its success. This is a result of our unrelenting focus on improving the customer experience of our retail businesses, taking the love that exists for both brands and making sure customers are rewarded with better shops, the highest quality products, and the best service.”
Waitrose has also continued to significantly invest in value and innovation this year to help attract and excite customers. They say they have invested millions of pounds in lowering hundreds of prices while refusing to compromise on the quality and animal welfare that sets them apart. They have also relaunched their premium No.1 range, agreed exclusive partnerships with Yotam Ottolenghi and ZOE’s Daily30+, and acquired the restaurant-quality meal-kit delivery service, Dishpatch.
The latest Kantar figures reported last month show customers are responding to the investment in their offering, Waitrose recorded their strongest growth since November 2023 and is continuing to gain market share after July’s figures showed an increase for the first time since January 2022. Waitrose were also named top food retailer by the Institute of Customer Service last month.
A brief history of Waitrose John Barnes, Finchley Road
- 1981 – Following the opening of John Lewis as part of the nearby Brent Cross Shopping Centre, the store became a Waitrose, headed up by the company’s first female Branch Manager. Today it’s our third biggest store in London.
- 1940 – the store became part of the John Lewis Partnership (JLP), it opened as a John Lewis department store with a foodhall in the basement. Our then Chairman, John Spedan Lewis, lived upstairs, together with employees who worked at the store.
- 1926 – it was acquired by the Selfridges Provincial Group and rebuilt to become the building it is today.
- 1898 – the building was acquired by John Barnes who opened a department store with accommodation for staff above the store.
About Waitrose
Run by over 45,000 passionate Partners, Waitrose has been serving customers for 120 years and offers extraordinary products in our 329 shops and on Waitrose.com. Inspiring food discovery, our expert Partners run almost 800 specialist food service counters in store, where customers can shop a variety of the best quality meat, fresh fish, dry aged beef, sushi, as well as cheese. Our Beer, Wine and Spirits team features the largest number of Masters of Wine of any UK supermarket and we sell nearly 3,000 different wines, beers, ciders, spirits as well as no and low drinks in our shops, on Waitrose.com and Waitrose Cellar. We are committed to selling products which have been responsibly sourced, grown using the very best sustainable farming methods, some of which are grown or trialled on our very own farm, the Leckford Estate. In 2024, Waitrose was granted the Royal Warrant of Appointment to be Grocers and Wine & Spirits Merchant to His Majesty King Charles III.
Photo credit: John Barnes, Waitrose and Partners
