Waitrose team up with Deliveroo to give customers access to Waitrose products in as little as 30 minutes

Friday 28 August 2020

• Thousands of Deliveroo customers will be able to access Waitrose food in as little as 30 minutes as part of a new trial to give customers a taste of what the future of convenience shopping could look like for Waitrose
• The move underlines the supermarket’s ambition to use new partnerships alongside its own channels to make it more convenient for customers to buy Waitrose products

Thousands of households will now have the option to have Waitrose food and drink delivered to them in as little as 30 minutes for the first time after announcing a new delivery relationship with Deliveroo.    

The trial will be initially for 12 weeks, giving over half a million households the opportunity to have Waitrose  food delivered direct to them. If successful, they expect to extend the trial into more locations before looking at further opportunities to roll out on a larger scale.

More than 500 Waitrose products will be available for Deliveroo customers to choose from, including ready meals, fruit, vegetables, meat, milk, snacks, store cupboard and cleaning essentials, as well as beer and wine. Customers will be able to place orders from one hour after the shop opens through to one hour before the shop closes. 

Today’s announcement underlines the ambition set out in The John Lewis Partnership’s Strategic Update in July that it intends to look at commercial partnerships to allow Waitrose to grow efficiently and give customers more convenient access to its products.  

Deliveroo, which works with 35,000 restaurants and 30,000 riders in the UK, has seen rapid growth and expansion in convenience and grocery delivery in recent months and is keen to build on this momentum.   

The trial with Deliveroo will start on 1st September from the Waitrose shops in Bracknell and Clifton, before launching in its Surbiton, Fitzroy Street (Cambridge) and Notting Hill shops from 3rd September. 

It is designed to complement the supermarket’s two-hour home delivery service, Waitrose Rapid, which now has over 23,000 customers, a three-fold increase compared to pre-Covid. Additionally, Waitrose.com provides online access to a full-shop range and now offers over 160,000 weekly slots, compared to 60,000 before the pandemic, with plans underway to increase capacity to 250,000 weekly slots.

Customers can find out more about how they will be able to order Waitrose food on Deliveroo at Waitrose.com/deliveroo from Saturday 29th August ahead of the launch on 1st September.

James Bailey, Executive Director for Waitrose, said: "We have laid down a marker for our future strategy with the growth of Waitrose.com and Waitrose Rapid and this gives us another opportunity to give our customers a taste of what the future of convenience shopping could look like for us. Our trial with Deliveroo has huge potential to give new and existing customers greater choice and flexibility for when and how they want to shop with Waitrose."

Ajay Lakhani, Vice President of New Business, Deliveroo said: "Deliveroo’s on-demand grocery services have proven vital for so many people during this difficult period, allowing families to get the items they want and need quickly without having to leave home. This new partnership will bring Waitrose’s fantastic product range to people in as little as 30 minutes. We are excited about working with such a brilliant British brand, bringing people the food they need and want, on-demand."

About the John Lewis Partnership

The John Lewis Partnership owns and operates two of Britain's best-loved retail brands - John Lewis & Partners and Waitrose & Partners. Started as a radical idea nearly a century ago, the Partnership is the largest employee-owned business in the UK and amongst the largest in the world, with over 80,000 employees who are all Partners in the business. For all intents and purposes, the Partnership is a social enterprise; the profits made are reinvested into the business - for customers and Partners. John Lewis & Partners operates 42 shops plus one outlet across the UK as well as johnlewis.com. Waitrose & Partners has 337 shops in England, Scotland, Wales and the Channel Islands, including 61 convenience branches, and another 27 shops at Welcome Break locations. Waitrose & Partners exports products to more than 50 countries worldwide and has nine shops which operate under licence in the Middle East. The retailer's omnichannel business includes the online grocery service, Waitrose.com, as well as specialist online shops including waitrosecellar.com for wine and waitroseflorist.com for plants and flowers.