Waitrose to sell own brand products worldwide to boost sales

Upmarket supermarket Waitrose announced they will be selling its own brand products through an expat website worldwide.

The retailer will be the first supermarket to sell its products on the British Corner Shop website, to 138 countries including the US and Germany.

British Corner Shop will stock over 2,000 products including Waitrose Duchy Organic, Essential Waitrose and the Waitrose 1 premium range. The website already has over 10,000 British brands stocked and last year shipped over 50,000 orders abroad.

Waitrose is the food retail division of John Lewis partnership (JLP), the largest employee owned retailer. The announcement came as it reported a fall in pre-tax profit of 17% to £66.6m for the year till 31 January, due to tough conditions in the industry and rising pension costs in JLP, according to Companies House figures.

Sales were also down to £5.9bn from £6bn and like-for-like sales were down 1.3%.

Waitrose’s commercial director Mark Williamson said: “British Corner Shop gives a global audience access to Waitrose and provides a platform for our British suppliers to showcase the great food and drink they produce. We are proud that our brand continues to retain the loyalty and trust of customers wherever they are in the world.”

British Corner Shop managing director Mark Callaghan said: “We are delighted to have agreed a deal with Waitrose...We know the Waitrose brand will go down well with our British expat customer base, in particular categories such as biscuits and household are in demand, and the Waitrose Duchy Organic brand is often requested.”