Waitrose has committed to the long-term future of its food service counters in-store, in efforts to reassure its suppliers.
And, the supermarket has unveiled plans to expand to more online customers by relaunching its fish and meat counter range on Waitrose.com at the beginning of 2021.
The news comes less than a week after Sainsbury’s confirmed it would be closing its meat, fish and deli counters in efforts to simplify the business and improve financial performance (see Direct Commerce news story).
Waitrose says as the only supermarket to have kept its counters open throughout the Covid pandemic, it has continued to support suppliers by launching new products, with over 30 new lines having launched since April 2020.
The supermarket’s commitment to continue its counter expansion follows the supermarket’s pledge in 2019 to train new specialist partners to enhance skills, knowledge and expertise across its counters to further improve customer experience.
Jackie Wharton, Director of Category Proposition at Waitrose, comments: “Waitrose is renowned for its service counters and they remain a key reason why many people shop with us. Having tripled our slot capacity to over 200,000 orders a week and in light of increased demand for online this year, there is now a huge opportunity for us to offer our counter range on Waitrose.com and we’re excited to relaunch it at the beginning of next year.
“Not only do our counters offer the freshest produce available on the market, they provide something special, personalised and more sustainable. And having taken the decision to keep our counters open broadly throughout this pandemic and thanks to support from our customers, they are also helping to sustain many of our smallest British suppliers, who otherwise would not have had a route to market this year.”
Share