Waitrose & Partners news

From next month, Waitrose will expand its rapid delivery service to Bath and Hove, in addition to 58 additional London postcodes, including Battersea, High Street Kensington, Bayswater, Victoria and Kingston, following a successful trial. Delivery within a couple of hours The delivery service launched last September thanks to a partnership between Waitrose & Partners and On the dot, a last ...

Waitrose kickstarts the trial of a dedicated refillable zone where customers will be able to fill their own refillable tubs and jars with products, including wine and beer on tap. Botley road store in Oxford to be the first to trial The scheme, named ‘Waitrose Unpacked’, will see products, such as rice, coffee and pasta sold loose in dispensers, while frozen fruits will be offered packaging...

The John Lewis Partnership has committed to making its transport fleet zero carbon by 2045. The move will involve switching 3,200 trucks, trailers and vans to zero-emission vehicles. Currently, transport emissions contribute over 40 per cent to the company’s overall carbon footprint, meaning the switch will be a significant contributor to the partnership’s target to reduce operational greenhouse...

By the end of 2019, UK stores could have vegetables grown in store. John Lewis has confirmed that it is working with Lettus Grow to install aeroponic containers to grow the plants in store. The company is based in Bristol and is currently growing vegetables such as red cabbage, kale, salads and micro-herbs in a disused railway tunnel. The vertical growing units are soil free, meaning they can ...

Waitrose & Partners is implementing a new design of shelf edge strips to accelerate its sustainability plans. Waitrose will be fitting the Wirth Research (WR) EcoBlade™ in stores from March, and it will reduce the energy consumption of refrigerators by up to 25%.  As well as maintaining a consistent fridge temperature to ensure optimum product quality, the aisles will also feel warmer and ther...

Waitrose has created a virtual shelf signposting a range of goods made by B Corps certified businesses. These companies are committed to ensuring that they balance profit and purpose, and consider the impact of business decisions on the environment and communities. B Corps certified companies are dedicated to using business as a positive force, and the values of these companies are rooted in the ...

UK Retailers, M&S and Waitrose are taking action to address the issue of plastic waste. M&S has launched a new scheme that will allow customers to bring non-recyclable packaging back to stores to stop it going to landfill.  The recycling bins will allow a range of plastic packaging items such as crisp packets, black plastic trays and sachets, which aren’t currently recycled by local councils, t...

Waitrose & Partners is trialling an in-home grocery delivery service, While You’re Away, in London. Improving convenience through delivery The shopper can grant access to the delivery driver using Yale smart lock technology, by setting a temporary access code for the lock, which is then sent to Waitrose via a secure app. The driver receives this code at the time the customer has booked the de...

Barcode standards agency, GS1 UK, has launched its new product data service, productDNA. ProductDNA aims to deliver accurate and consistent data; capturing, managing and distribution information in way that is easily accessed and shared across the supply chain. The productDNA service consists of: A new industry data model for suppliers to share product data with retailers A cloud-base...

Ahead of Black Friday, Waitrose has introduced improvements for customers collecting John Lewis orders in-store. Speeding up in-store collection Customers are now able to register their order number via iPad at the service desk, helping speed up their collection. This option is available in 140 Waitrose locations where iPads are already in place. Another time-saving change is the inclusi...