From food retailer to food service!

A new vision

With changes in shopping and eating habits and competition from food service Waitrose needed to develop a new vision of the store.

LAB worked with a cross disciplinary leadership team to re-imagine the retail experience; develop a live in-store 'test, learn, iterate' process called 'fast and furious' while building the operational capability to deliver it on an ongoing basis.

Insight to implementation

The process involved a stimulating insight dive with leading edge food service, service delivery and retail; re-designing core store elements and developing a repeatable and inspiring 'fast and furious' test, learn and iterate process to grow internal capability among store partners to experiment and roll out fast.

Together we also generated a multi-year pipeline of ideas for adding further value in store and within communities - some rolled out immediately and some still being rolled out; an internal process to generate and test ideas fast and a new vision of retail and customer experience which will continue to evolve as needs change.

Energising the whole business

Dwell time, basket size and customer satisfaction stores all increased along with a healthier spread of trade across breakfast, lunch and dinner. Fresh tastings and new advisory services continue to deliver on a commitment to help customers make healthy seasonal choices.

Building a closer connection to customers the 'fast and furious' process and new 'kitchens' and 'grazing areas' continue to be rolled out - the whole business has been energised - able to detect and respond fast to changing customer needs with a culture of experimentation, trial and iteration being built into the organisational DNA.

StoreLAB team

Simon Byerley, Clare Flynn, Emma May Morley, Rob Curran, Laura Van Gelder, Sarah Dryden, Sarah Myles, Rosie Frost, Meg Price, Ananda Pellerin, Hollie Bradbury, Wout Vergauwan.