120 years of food passion. We made every year count.

Waitrose & Partners

How a beloved grocer transformed deep-rooted heritage into a category of its own.

Sales growth, reaching £8.5B in revenues.

Consecutive quarters of customer growth.

NPS

Highest ever NPS ratings across the business.

“We wouldn’t be where we are today without Jackman.”

— Nathan Ansell

Chief Customer Officer

Project Details
Client: Waitrose & Partners
Category: Grocery / Retail
Location: United Kingdom
Scope: Strategy, Brand, Activation
Situation
Waitrose is a British food icon. 120 years of quality, a loyal customer base, and a reputation that most brands would trade everything for. Yet rapid industry shifts and intensifying competitive pressures proved challenging, from M&S on the premium end to Sainsbury’s gaining ground as a traditional national supermarket, and Aldi and Lidl elevating discount. Waitrose needed to re-ignite growth in the fiercest operating environment the category had seen in years, against both competitive and macroeconomic headwinds, without compromising the heritage that built its reputation in the first place.
Discovery
We combined customer mindset segmentation with transactional, loyalty and market data to build a 360-degree picture of the Waitrose customer and market. What we found confirmed something that had always been true about Waitrose. It simply needed to be modernized and amplified for today’s market.

The brand’s deepest emotional truth was already there, alive in the Waitrose Partners from shop floor to headquarters and the customers who loved them. We didn’t need to build a new story. We needed to tell the real one with more conviction.

That truth pointed directly to the growth Waitrose had the unique opportunity and position to win. The biggest opportunity was in growing share from the foundation of premium, special-event good occasions to own the full weekly shop. Waitrose had long-standing leadership in the premium, food-focused mission, and had the strongest proposition to earn the full basket for food lovers – the strongest opportunity for growth, and to increase loyalty and share and a strengthened competitive market position. The competition was taking ground that Waitrose had the strongest proposition and permission to win.

The proposition that emerged: Passionate Partners Serving Food Lovers.
Shift
Great reinventions aren’t defined by where they land. They’re defined by how far they’ve come. For Waitrose, it was this:

FROM: Premium Grocer → TO: The Food Experience Partners

We built a Category of One on the idea that food is more than what you buy. It is the emotions food evokes, the rituals it anchors, the discoveries it sparks. Food Lovers live to eat vs. Eating to live. Waitrose is the home for food lovers. Everywhere. Every day. The entire go-to-market followed that single strategic reframe.
Build
We built a single view of the Waitrose customer, combining attitudes and value with real transaction and market data, to get absolute clarity on who we were serving: the Food Lover. That clarity shaped a strategy with a clear point of difference, a bold long-term ambition, and a 3-Year Momentum Map to bring it to life with precision.

We didn’t stop at the strategy. We built the governance to run it and tested it in the real world, four in-store pilots that built belief and momentum across the business and sharpened exactly what the future Waitrose experience needed to be.

That conviction culminated in a brand-defining store at Newbury, the boldest expression of the strategy and now the model underpinning a £100B store investment programme. Designed around the Food Lover, the experience was rebuilt around discovery and inspiration: reworked flow, sharper sightlines, and a more open layout that draws customers deeper into the store, while elevated service counters, meal-preparation showcases, and Food Lover spotlights bring food expertise and passion to life. The result is an experience that moves Waitrose beyond selling premium food to creating a premium food experience. Alongside it, we built the scaling playbook, the category analysis, business case, and value-engineering plan that turned one flagship into a model for every store that follows.

3 Big Takeaways

Unleashed Waitrose’s DNA into a platform for growth.
Transformed buying groceries into an inspiring food experience.
Built the business case through occasion-led design and flow.

1. Unleashed Waitrose's DNA into a platform for growth.

Three Test & Learns. One winning food strategy.

Our Test & Learns proved that Partners’ love of food is Waitrose’s sharpest edge, true to the pioneering spirit that built the brand. That passion became the lens for everything: simplified messaging, sharper curation, and every product designed to let its quality shine. These insights now drive everything Waitrose builds next.

2. Transformed buying groceries into an inspiring food experience.

A store designed to spark food discovery.

A Food Lover Spotlight is the first thing customers see, an invitation to discover something beyond habit. From there, Waitrose doubled down on service counters at a time competitors were walking away from them, placing Partner expertise and product quality on full display. The result brings the energy of a European food hall to a supermarket aisle, grab-and-go ease included, turning every counter into a celebration of food and a reason to explore.

3. Built the business case through occasion-led design and flow.

Designed to build the full shop.

A strong fresh impression at the entrance earns trust the moment customers walk in. Opening the centre of the store guides customers naturally toward a fuller shop, with Beer, Wines & Spirits anchoring the end of the power aisle. Clear, simplified wayfinding across the whole store turns every sightline into a discovery, and every discovery into a bigger basket.