Waitrose lifts lid on food production with live-streaming from farms

Waitrose is launching what it claims is a ground-breaking advertising campaign taking people “behind the barn door” of real farms to show them where their food comes from.

Its TV ads will be broadcast on the same day they are filmed with additional live streaming to commuter hubs with the short time scales giving “immediacy and authenticity”.

Commuters at Waterloo and other major train terminals will be able to watch ‘dawn to dusk’ live footage from Waitrose’s Leckford Farm in Hampshire, including beehives, rapeseed fields and panoramic views. The retailer said the ‘live stream’ footage would be an industry first.

The opening TV advert on 15 April will come from a dairy farm near Newbury that supplies milk to Waitrose.

“Waitrose is the only supermarket able to guarantee that all the cows that provide its milk and cream have access to grazing,” the company said.

One of the farm’s dairy cows will wear a camera to give the animal’s view of how and where it is grazed.

Waitrose said innovative technology would let it demonstrate its sourcing credentials in a new and contemporary way, adding that its campaign was in response to the demand it is seeing for quality food and shoppers wanting to be reassured about its provenance.

“We’ve always been proud of where our food comes from, and the care and commitment our farmers and suppliers put into producing it,” said Waitrose marketing director Rupert Thomas,

“We have never compromised on quality, and never will - but rather than telling customers what we do, we’ve decided to show them in an open and honest way.”

The supermarket said that further adverts in the campaign would highlight it was the only supermarket to guarantee all its eggs were free-range and that all its fish was responsibly sourced.

The ads will feature David Homer’s dairy farm near Newbury, which supplies essential Waitrose milk and a free range hen farm managed by Rachel Rivers near Marlborough, which supplies Waitrose with its free range eggs.

Additionally, all national print advertising will use images of real Waitrose farms that have been taken within 24 hours of publication.