A MAJOR supermarket will close “badly organised and outdated” stores in a huge blow for thousands of loyal shoppers.
Waitrose, which is owned by the John Lewis Partnership, is aiming to attract a wider customer base and become more “accessible”.
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James Bailey, director of Waitrose, said the company needs to have its stores positioned in “the right place in the right postcode”.
He added that Waitrose has “really big, well-thought through plans”.
“For the past two or three years, with Covid-19 and the cost of living challenges, and a little bit before that, we had to be careful about the shops we were investing in,” Mr Bailey told the Telegraph.
“Now the partnership is in a position to reinvest in that shopping estate and we’ve got really big, well-thought through plans about how we go back through the years.”
Mr Bailey said the upmarket retailer wants to relocate several shops to places that are more cost-effective and efficient.
He continued: “Most of our shops are in the right postcode but some of them might be in the wrong place in that postcode.”
Mr Bailey also said it is a “myth” that Waitrose is aimed at middle-class shoppers and has a “very particular kind of customer”.
The plan is to make Waitrose “more accessible and more appealing to more people”.
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It is understood the company will have around the same number of big shops after the overhaul, but more smaller convenience stores.
It comes as Waitrose said it would lower the prices last week of a further 250 products by an average of 10 per cent.
It said the reductions, its third wave this year, would be on items such as pasta, whole chickens, sausages and potatoes.
Monthly industry data has consistently shown Waitrose losing market share and underperforming rivals including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, as well as German-owned discounters Aldi and Lidl.
Weekly pricing data from industry publication The Grocer also regularly shows Waitrose to be the most expensive of Britain’s major supermarkets for a basket of goods.
