Waitrose executive director James Bailey has pledged to relocate “terribly organised” shops as part of a major overhaul of its store estate.
Bailey told The Telegraph that he wanted to make sure its stores were “more accessible and more appealing” and that it had “the right place in the right postcode”.
He said: “For the last 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.
“Now the [John Lewis] Partnership is in a position where it’s able to reinvest in that shopping estate from now on, and we’ve got really big, well-thought-through plans about how we go back through the years.”
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The supermarket revealed in March it would embark on an £250m revamp of its 332 store estate.
As part of that mission, Bailey said he wanted to relocate several stores to more cost-effective and energy efficient sites.
“Most of our shops are in the right postcode, but some of them might be in the wrong place in that postcode.
“If you’re a Waitrose shopper and you’re shopping in a high street or some of the older shops, that shop itself might be on three floors.
“It might be really terribly organised and it’s just not a very modern facility to do your shopping in,” he told the newspaper.
The supermarket expects to have around the same number of larger stores by the end of the revamp, and will add John Lewis concessions to some stores.
It is also understood to be rolling out ‘Little Waitrose’ convenience stores.
Bailey’s comments come a week after John Lewis Partnership chair Dame Sharon White revealed that its turnaround plan would be delayed by two years.
Waitrose trading operating profit rose 17% to £504.4m in its half year to 29 July, as sales edged up 4% to £3.7bn on the back of price rises.
