WH Smith considering hot food offer as it doubles down on food and drink

WH Smith Travel is exploring the rollout of hot food to its travel and hospital stores, as it continues to expand its food and drink offer.

In May, the retailer launched its first-ever own-label range of sandwiches. The line – called Smith’s Family Kitchen – includes an initial 34 products, across both a meal deal tier as well as premium lines.

Having enjoyed “record weeks” for food sales since the launch, the retailer was now working expand the range, including into new categories, WH Smith Travel MD Andrew Harrison told The Grocer. 

“We don’t have as much of a cohesive breakfast offer as we’d like and we know that that is a really important day part,” Harrison told The Grocer, adding that the retailer would be investing in developing the offer, including into hot food. 

This could ultimately include the addition of hot food counters in some form, Harrison suggested, adding that Smiths had already begun an early trial of the format at its store in Churchill Hospital in Oxfordshire.

The retailer was in the “early days” of the process, he said.

“Over the next couple of years, we’ll be starting to dial up some of those options,” Harrison said. “The next year for sure is about optimising what we’ve got.”

Over the past few years, the WH Smith group has worked to transition from its legacy as a high street book and stationery seller, into a “one-stop shop for travel”.

It has more than 600 stores in travel locations like railway stations and airports, as well as hospitals. Travel now accounted for 70% of the group’s total sales, with food and drink featuring in at least half of baskets, Harrison said.

While WH Smith had previously stocked a range of meal deals made up of third-party brands, the development of its own brand of sandwiches was a “logical next step” in building its credibility in the category, Harrison said.

The retailer would also work to expand the number of brands it works with across its fresh, ambient and drinks lines. The latest was the addition of new lines of sport nutrition products from THG-owned Myprotein, announced earlier this week.

Harrison insisted that Smiths’ renewed focus on food was not seeking to rival or “mimic” food to go players like Pret a Manger and Greggs, which have been upping their presence in airports and railway stations over the past couple of years.

“Don’t get me wrong, we’re not talking about becoming a sort of fast food outlet, it’s just trying to broaden the range of options we can offer our customers.

“Just over 10 years ago we didn’t sell food, we now do 11 million meal deals a year. We sell 80,000 different combinations of product in our meal deals every week. That’s the scale we’ve got to. As we look forward, we just want to continue to make sure we understand what our customers’ requirements are and fulfil those needs,” Harrison said.

E.coli scare had ‘zero’ impact

The retailer was among a number of food and drink retailers affected by the e.coli outbreak in June, after supplier This recalled a batch of its chicken & bacon wraps. The product is stocked exclusively by WH Smith.

The recall was as a precautionary measure, and only affected a single line from a batch dated to 18 June. None of its own-label products were affected, Harrison said. 

“It was almost zero impact on our business,” he added. “Food safety is a big part of what we do. It’s at times like that that you get to test your own processes.”