Page 3 CSR: business as usual

For Waitrose, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is just 'business as usual'. Protecting the environment, sustainable product sourcing, responsible farming and agriculture, long-term supplier relationships, good customer service – they're all integral parts of how we do things, each and every day.

The importance we attach to these responsibilities is embedded throughout our business operations, from the shop floor to the boardroom, simply because we do not answer to external shareholders. We make long-term decisions about how we source our products, build and operate our shops, and support the communities we trade in for the best interests of all our stakeholders. We also do these things, and much more besides – which I hope this report demonstrates – because they are the right thing to do and because they make good business sense.

The marketplace has brought many challenges since I took over as Managing Director last year, but we have celebrated much success too. We have embarked on an unprecedented growth programme, building new shops, refurbishing and modernising others, and even a move into licensing our brand internationally, with the first Waitrose opening in Dubai in October 2008.

At Waitrose we believe that few things in life are as important as the food people buy. Good, healthy food is not just essential but also one of life's great pleasures so we extend the notion of partnership to our suppliers, ensuring we deliver the very best quality products to our customers at a fair and honest price. We don't buy fresh produce on the open market, rather we source from farmers and growers with whom we have longstanding relationships.

Whenever we work with our British producers, we are doing much more than striking a deal with suppliers – we are making agreements with the people who ensure our country's long-term ability to feed itself. We recognise that our suppliers' long-term viability is much more important than any immediate savings. For example, we have introduced a structured pricing plan for British farmers supplying our beef. In a very challenging year for the British lamb industry, we sustained the prices we paid to our farmers above a depressed market rate. By the end of this year, we will have switched to 100% British bacon to support UK pig farmers.

Beyond our shores, the Waitrose Foundation has been expanded to provide more investment in social, educational and health projects in communities where our South African fruit farmers live and work. And Partners also called for greater democracy, so we changed our Partner engagement structures so that everyone will have even more of a voice in the business.

Looking at the not-so-distant future, one major challenge that lies before us all, both society as a whole as well as the food industry, is how we are going to feed an ever-growing population. In 1900, there were 1.5 billion people in the world; in 2000, there were 6 billion; and by 2050, there will be 9.5 billion. Yields are already levelling off, so the way we manage food, and the relationship we all have with food, has to change. We believe our partnership approach to supplier relationships , the importance we attach to food quality, provenance and traceability as well as our agri-environmental efforts are just a few of the small steps we can all take to meet this global challenge.

In this report, as with last year's Partnership-wide publication, we have focused on seven key areas that matter most to our Partners, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. Their passions and concerns mirror ours; like us, they want to know how we are reducing our energy use and the waste we generate, sourcing our products responsibly and supporting the people who supply them, running our operations more sustainably and improving the communities around us.

We trust this report provides some of the answers to these questions by demonstrating how our performance 'stacks up' on these material issues, confirming what we stand for, sharing what we have achieved so far and outlining our priorities for the future.

Mark Price
(Picture of Mark Price)
Managing Director, Waitrose

Read Mark Price's blog at www.waitrose.com
Partners can send in questions to Mark via the 'Ask Mark Price' section of our intranet 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