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.
There has been a lot of interesting analysis of Covid-19 and thoughts on what life post-pandemic will look like for the retail sector.
John Lewis Partnership and TK Maxx parent company TJX Europe have pledged their support to the CaRe20 fundraising campaign.
The enormous efforts made by grocers and their supply chain partners over the past week are helping to bring stock levels under control. Over the last two to three days in particular, the situation has shown signs of easing, according to the latest availability figures from Edge by Ascential.
Asda and Marks & Spencer have both implemented further in-store initiatives designed to keep staff and shoppers as safe as possible during the coronavirus outbreak.
John Lewis Partnership has launched a £1m community support fund to be distributed across the country “at this time of national crisis”.
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