Fortnum & Mason‘s director of online Sarah Wilkinson has swapped luxury shoes for hundreds of SKUs, moving from Jimmy Choo two years ago to the historic grocer.

“It’s not until you come here that you realize just how much goes into the creation of our products and how much dedication to quality there is”, she notes.

Fortnums buying team often take the wider business through their thought process: “They’ll walk through new products that they’re launching. They walk through the provenance, what ingredients are used, who they worked with and why there’s always an amazing story behind the brand.”

This storytelling can then be feed into online content or the in-store experience. In May this year, biscuits become the focus of that in-store journey with the introduction of the Biscuitorium. This interactive ‘Biscuit Library’ coincided with the launch of a 400g sharing biscuit – The Whoppalossus.

“It is the biggest biscuit you’ve ever seen in your life,” says Wilkinson. “It’s the size of a dinner plate, and you slice it into bits of biscuit. We’ve got two versions of that.”

The Biscuitorium also has a biscuit countertop, where shoppers can sample and buy a selection of individual biscuits. It also has a section dedicated to biscuits for drinks. “There’s one for champagne, there’s one for beer, there’s one for gin. It’s the things you never knew you needed,” adds Wilkinson.

Subscribe to Grocery Gazette for free

Sign up here to get the latest grocery and food news each morning

Launching new products that capture the attention of a global audience remains a key focus for the nearly 320-year-old retailer. And while Wilkinson works to future-proof the business, the retailer continues to take a pro-active approach to customer services, and events outwith its control.

During the recent heatwaves, F&M had to protect their famous biscuits. Wilkinson explains: “We are having to make sure that we’re keeping all of our ingredients cool, because we have so much butter in our biscuits they might melt. We like quality butter, so we put ice packs in things last week, just to make sure that in the 30 degrees heat nothing melts.”

For ecommerce customers expecting delivery of goods during the heatwave, this same level of care was given.“We have a really good relationship with DPD, actually, who deliver all of our parcels. In fact, they were really supportive when we made changes last week to make sure that we had ice in every package,” says Wilkinson.

Protecting the product, and that crucial customer relationship, is a 365-day job for F&M. While, Christmas remains the busiest time of year for the retailer, it has started to experience mini peaks around gifting events such as Mother’s Day. Fortumns is also working to capture a new summer audience.

“We’ve got the most amazing picnic items: blankets, baskets and flasks, and this amazing array of picnic bits and pieces. People love them. Our summer campaign is taking off now, and actually we’re seeing people starting to think about us during the summer period as well, which is amazing” she notes.

Read the full interview Fortnum & Mason director of online on why listening to customers is not a luxury on Retail Gazette.