Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
Total sales excluding fuel were down 21.2% at Waitrose last week (to Saturday April 14) compared with the same week last year.
The supermarket chain’s retail director Ben Stimson said: “Comparisons are heavily distorted by the earlier fall of Easter this year. This means that data is being compared to 2017’s week, which concluded on Easter Saturday.”
He noted that the retailer’s ‘Spring Clean’ promotion drove growth in the ‘family and household’ category with sales boosted 4%. Laundry products also performed strongly, up 27.5% overall.
Ben added: “Warm food did well with sales of café hot breakfasts up 31% and hot takeaway food up 6%. Canned soup sales also rose 29%.”
During the week, Waitrose announced that it would no longer offer free single-use coffee cups from autumn 2018: a move which will save more than 52 million cups a year. “This underlines our commitment to plastic and packaging reduction,” Ben said.
Salmorejo – chilled tomato & bread soup from Waitrose
