John Lewis Partnership - Supermarkets

Supermarkets

The John Lewis Partnership also owns Waitrose, an upmarket supermarket chain which has 259 branches (2011) and 35,573 (summer 2006) partners. Waitrose trades mainly in London and the South of England, and was originally formed by Wallace Waite, Arthur Rose and David Taylor. The company was taken over by the John Lewis Partnership in 1937. The acquisition of 19 Safeway branches in 2004 greatly increased the size of the company and saw branches open in the north of England for the first time. A further six stores were purchased from Morrisons in Autumn 2005 and again helped the march into previously unexplored territories. Then, in March 2006, Waitrose announced the purchase of five stores from Somerfield, with the first two stores in Scotland, both of which are in the capital, Edinburgh. In July 2006, Waitrose announced the purchase of six more stores and a distribution centre from Morrisons. In 2007 the first purpose-built Waitrose supermarket in the north of England opened at Cheadle Hulme, Greater Manchester. In January 2009, Waitrose announced the purchase of an additional 13 stores from Somerfield. Waitrose also does online shopping and was the first to offer a free delivery service. This is in addition to Ocado.

Ocado is an online supermarket which sells Waitrose own brand products. It delivers in vans which have pictures of fruit and vegetables. The John Lewis Partnership pension fund previously owned 29% of Ocado, but fully divested itself of its share ownership in February 2011.