Waitrose is the food retail division of the John Lewis Partnership where it operates alongside – and increasingly in tandem – with John Lewis department stores. The partnership bought Waitrose in 1937.
Waitrose has a reputation for an upmarket food offer with a strong focus on product quality and provenance. Despite being seen by many as ‘expensive’, Waitrose has generally held its own as the rise of discounters Aldi and Lidl in recent years has reshaped the grocery landscape.
As well as selling through stores, Waitrose sells online both through its own website and Ocado. The Ocado partnership is coming to an end following M&S’ creation of a joint venture with the online grocer. Waitrose sought to team up with one of Ocado’s founders to accelerate online growth, but the plan came to nothing after its partner was mired in controversy.
Waitrose stands at a crossroads as John Lewis Partnership goes through a radical restructure, under which both of its businesses will be run as one under a single leadership team.
The scale of the turnaround challenge facing new John Lewis Partnership chair Dame Sharon White was thrown into stark relief today as it plunged to a £55m first-half loss. Is her turnaround plan enough to save the business from the department store scrapheap?
Department stores and grocery business John Lewis Partnership has posted a first-half loss and told staff they will not receive a bonus this year.
Waitrose is set to close three stores and sell another to Tesco after struggling to make the sites profitable in the long term.
Traffic to Ocado’s website surged to its highest level since April in the first week of its joint venture with Marks & Spencer.
The coronavirus pandemic has sent hordes of shoppers online for all their needs, and grocery is the category where the shift has been felt most profoundly.
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