Our future

In October 2020 we unveiled our five-year, self-funding, Partnership Plan. It positions Waitrose and John Lewis as the go-to brands for customers who want quality, value and sustainability and was the result of seven months' work, where we listened to feedback from around 8,000 customers, over 100 suppliers and local community groups and 12,000 Partners, who submitted more than 450 ideas. 

The Plan has highlighted the following key areas of focus. For more information view our press release or watch our short film.

• Affordable quality. Waitrose will continue to emphasise the value for money we offer and ensure that customers feel recognised and rewarded for shopping with us. Our Essentials range has seen sales rise by nearly 10% in the past six months. John Lewis will relaunch its Home range in the spring and introduce more affordable price points. This will reinforce fair value to broaden our appeal to more customers, recognising shoppers are especially cost conscious at the moment.

• Digital and virtual. As shopping habits evolve, we’re bringing expert Partners and products into customers’ homes through a tap on an app. This means investing in more virtual services like personal styling, home design and the John Lewis Virtual Christmas shop.

• Waitrose - delivered. We’ll grow delivery capacity beyond 250,000 orders per week, up from 55,000 before the pandemic, to give customers greater convenience. And we’ll save 25% of delivery slots for the vulnerable. To attract new customers, we plan more partnerships like the trial with Deliveroo, which delivers shopping in 30 minutes.

• Inspirational new services. We’re a Partnership for positive change, improving lives and building a more sustainable future. We’ll grow in areas where these are important to our customers, like rental, recycling, savings, insurance and private rented and social housing.

• Net zero carbon. We’re bringing forward our ambition to be net zero carbon by 15 years to 2035.

• Waitrose sustainable food ambitions. We're committing to source only from net zero carbon farms in the UK by 2035. And in addition to our commitment to halve food waste in our own operations by 2030, we’re today extending this to our supply chain too. We’ll also aim to help halve our customers’ household food waste by 2030.

• John Lewis leading the ‘made to last’ movement. We’ll do more to ensure our products can be loved for longer and today make three bold commitments: all product categories will have a ‘buy back’ or ‘take back’ solution by 2025; all key raw materials in our own-brand products will be from sustainable or recycled sources by 2025; and we’ll develop sustainable rental and resale options for customers.

• Recruiting people from the care system. We’re pledging to recruit people coming out of the care system to help them forge a career in the Partnership. We know we  must go further to better reflect the whole of the UK, and we’re taking steps to do so.

As we’re not owned by shareholders, we can share any success with our Partners, customers, suppliers and communities.

The Partnership Plan builds on strong momentum in a tough year. Waitrose.com has grown fourfold since February 2020, now taking around 240,000 orders a week, and stands as a £1bn sales business. Johnlewis.com has grown significantly, up 73%, and in the 2020/21 financial year, was three quarters of the brand’s sales, from 40% before the pandemic.

First-class customer service delivered by Partners is our unique strength. We know it’s not always been as easy as it should be to shop with us, so we’re first investing to deliver a fantastic experience - online, on the phone and in-store.

We’re committing £1bn over five years to accelerate our online business and transform our shops. This will make it easier for customers to shop with us on our websites and apps, and provide more convenient delivery options. And we’re modernising Waitrose and John Lewis shops so we have the right space in the right place.

We’ll do this by aiming to save £300m per year by 2022, making our operations and head offices simpler and more efficient. Making these savings is crucial to free up money to invest and to deliver our plan.

Waitrose and John Lewis will work much more closely together, in store and online, bringing new inspiration and excitement to all of our customers. 

We’ll make John Lewis more accessible locally in different formats, building on significant expansion in Click & Collect. We’ll soon have 1,000 locations - through shops and collection points - to buy or pick up our products to reflect changes in how people are shopping with us.

We’re investing in data analytics and loyalty plans across our brands to reward and develop deeper relationships with our customers. Substantial customer research is under way to inform our new value pledge, which will be announced next year. Never Knowingly Undersold remains in place until then.

Our ambition for Waitrose, which was recently voted Which? 2020 UK supermarket of the year, is to be customers’ first choice for food and drink when quality, ethics and service matter. More of our business will be online, delivered and digital.

John Lewis’ focus is on meeting the needs of families with a variety of products, services and celebrations all under one roof and online. As shopping habits continue to evolve, we’ll become a 60-70% online retailer by 2025, alongside our inspiring shops.

Both brands will also add more local assortments that reflect the diversity of our customers depending on where they live.

We’re creating partnerships to reach new customers and provide capabilities we don’t have, building on trials with Deliveroo and online furniture rental business Fat Llama. We’ll add more products to Fat Llama after all initial products were rented out.

After the first phase of improving customer service in our core retail business, we’re committing a total of £400m to grow in new areas where we are trusted and which fulfil customers’ needs. We’re also doing so because tightening retail margins in the long term won’t allow us to pay the wages we would like, or invest in our customers and communities. We're targeting 40% of our profits from new areas by 2030.

• Financial services. We’re already successful here and the Partnership credit card is the UK’s biggest retail credit card. We’re committing £100m over five years to quadruple this business, offering new products and services like savings and insurance, where trust really matters for customers. 

• Housing. We’ve identified 20 sites we own that could be used to benefit local communities by providing quality and sustainable housing, while providing a stable income for the Partnership. We’ll make planning applications for two of these in the new year in greater London. Entering the ‘build to rent’ market also allows us to furnish properties using John Lewis Home products and deliver Waitrose food. We’re a landlord already at three of our properties so this is an obvious extension for us. And we’re now talking to developers and investors who can help us achieve our ambitions.

• Outdoor Living. We’ll start by joining up what we already do across both brands, including horticulture in Waitrose, garden furniture in John Lewis and our plant nursery, garden design and landscaping services at Longstock Park on the Waitrose Farm. We’re carrying out research to understand what customers want, and considering new partnerships and possible acquisitions.

• Rental/Resale/Recycle. This is a growing priority for our customers. We’ve set targets on being more sustainable and have more than 20 initiatives running across our different product ranges or being developed to test with customers.