30 Sustainable products
Local and regional sourcing
Through our local and regional sourcing initiative, we aim to sell the best-quality range of local and regional food, ensuring we recruit, nurture and support smaller suppliers and strengthen our relationships within the community. Running since 2001, it is one of the most established in its sector, with sales rising by 58% to £21 million in 2007–08. Our Regional Fresh Produce programme was named Best Business Initiative at The Grocer magazine's prestigious 2007 Gold Awards.
All Waitrose shops offer some local or regional products, and 155 of them now have dedicated display areas for regional fruit and vegetables, up from 86 in 2006. Shelf-edge ticketing highlights the origins and provenance of each product, helping customers to find items from their local area, but in response to customer feedback for more specific labelling, we will be focusing on the exact origin of products and highlighting their qualities.
Our dedicated team of buyers constantly work to improve our local and regional range, and we now source over 1,400 product lines (an increase of 17% since last year) from more than 465 smaller-scale producers. Some, like Farrington Oils, the 2006 winner of the Waitrose Small Producers Awards, supply all our shops but others, such as Hampshire Cheeses, the 2007 Supreme Champion, can still benefit from selling their produce to a multiple retailer like Waitrose but without having to serve our entire network. Building on the success of our Small Producers Awards, we have joined forces with Country Living magazine to launch the Made in Britain Awards – to reward the best independent artisan food production in Britain.
(Picture of apples)
Waitrose sells a higher percentage of British apples than any other supermarket – over 70% are home-grown during the British season.
(Picture of grapes)
We doubled our range of English wines in 2007 to 28, and we will become the first UK retailer to plant vines in England – on our own Leckford Estate.
Save Our Bacon
We already source all our fresh pork and over 90% of our bacon from the UK, but we are the first major retailer to commit to buying only British bacon by the end of the year. At a challenging time for the industry, with nine out of 10 pig farmers considering quitting for good, our payment model takes the cost of production into account, and ensures our suppliers receive sustainable returns.
We also believe there are strong animal welfare reasons for buying British pork and bacon, as the UK has higher standards than many parts of Europe.
To help to raise public awareness, celebrity chefs Gordon Ramsay, Rick Stein and Heston Blumenthal have backed Waitrose Food Illustrated's 'Save Our Bacon' campaign. Members of the public can sign a petition and pledge to buy British pork at
www.waitrose.com/saveourbacon.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44