Waitrose & Partners’ latest Food and Drink Report highlights that, in a year dominated by the pandemic and national lockdowns, customers moved online more than ever before and became oddly fixated on fermentation.

Waitrose customer data shows that the most seismic shift of what has been a year of seemingly endless tremors has been the migration to online food shopping, which it believes is here to stay.

Of the tens of thousands of customers who shopped for food online with Waitrose this year, more than 70% say they will continue to do so post-pandemic. 

To that end, Waitrose has increased its delivery slots more than fourfold to more than 200,000 a week and is one of the fastest-growing online grocers. 

Ecommerce explosion

Before Covid-19 hit, Waitrose’s online grocery business was worth around 5% of total sales. It is now on track to be worth 20% of sales by the end of the year. Its rapid delivery service has also seen sales grow fivefold. 

Car usage chart

Some 25% of customers shopped online with Waitrose for the first time this year, while a further 39% used alternative online food delivery services, such as Deliveroo or food boxes. 

Waitrose found it wasn’t just Gen Z and younger millennials driving this growth either. More than a quarter of over-35s shopped online for food with the retailer for the first time this year, while that number jumped to one in five for the over-55s. 

The rise in online and pay-as-you-go technology has also seen society move even more inexorably to becoming cashless. Waitrose found that 48% of customers have gone entirely cashless during Covid-19 and plan to continue to do so. 

With food being delivered to homes more than ever, Waitrose says this could have a profound effect on car usage. Some 30% of all respondents say they have reduced the number of vehicles they own, rising to 43% for those under 35.

“We’re all living more locally now, so who needs wheels?” says Waitrose. 

Yet while 2020 will be remembered, among other things, as the year online food shopping came of age, the report notes that Waitrose customers’ tastes have changed, too. 

The upmarket grocer’s new executive director James Bailey notes: “There’s no question that this has been a challenging year for us all. Yet from the disruption and uncertainty of Covid-19, we have seen the emergence of a new consumer worldview.”

Home comforts

With everyone confined to their homes for vast swathes of the year, and with the world outside becoming an increasingly uncertain place, Waitrose found that its customers looked to treat themselves in lockdown. 

With so many people having more time to cook at home for themselves and their families, many became more adventurous. Searches online for good joints of meat to slow-cook rose 46%, while sales of hearty bone-broth staple oxtail soared 258%. 

How often do you shop waitrose chart

As the nation prepares to celebrate a truncated Christmas braving the elements outside, sales of pizza ovens, mushroom heaters and fire pits have also jumped. 

Another trend that has emerged is the rise of what Waitrose calls “posh coffee at home”. With so many missing their daily latte on the way to the office, sales of ‘bean to cup’ coffee machines are up 64% at John Lewis, while roasted coffee bean sales at Waitrose spiked 44%. 

However, while the joys of cooking and coffee at home definitely dominate, the Waitrose consumer has also become more adventurous in their tastes. Unable to travel physically, it appears many have sought to supplement their wanderlust by experimenting with new flavours and experiences. 

“Store-cupboard essentials from Asia are the fastest-growing of our Cooks’ Ingredients range,” says Waitrose. Sales of Chinese rice wine (194%), mirin (188%) and Japanese rice wine (180%) all experienced huge surges. 

In keeping with more adventurous palates, Waitrose customers have also begun experimenting both with outdoor foraging – social media interest in the activity jumped 89% – and with fermenting or pickling what they bring home. Searches on Waitrose.com for ‘pickling’ are 222% higher this year.

Here to stay

While new trends have emerged during the Covid pandemic, Waitrose says a number of existing customer trends haven’t gone anywhere – particularly those focusing on health and sustainability. 

Nearly 70% of respondents said they wanted the government to invest in more advanced agricultural practices to make farming more sustainable and eco-friendly in future. 

More than 60% of households now want to see UK businesses bring forward their net-carbon-zero goals, one in three people want grocers to do more on deforestation and nearly half want to see more being done on plastic wastage. 

Values chart

As the UK barrels towards its end game with the EU, nearly three-quarters of people want to see more being done by grocers to support British suppliers.

However, consumers are concerned that food standards might drop after Brexit and in the event of any free trade deals with the likes of the United States. 

In terms of health, online views of Waitrose’s Healthy Mediterannean meal plan were up a whopping 630% this year. 

Searches for high-protein (330%) and high-fibre (230%) diets also soared, while 57% of people also began searching for portion-size guides. 

“The way we shop has been fundamentally reshaped by the pandemic,” says Bailey. “These changes are here to stay. The ‘new normal’ that we all spoke about back in the spring isn’t new anymore. It’s just normal.

“Call it a pivot, a new dawn or a fresh start, but one thing is clear: things will never be the same again.”