Duty manager: Jared Hughes
Store: Waitrose, Holloway Rd, Ldn
Opened: 1993
Size: 14,870 sq ft
Market share: 3.3%
Population: 504,513
Grocery spend: £42,565,715
Spend by household: £197.84
Competitors: 124
Nearest rivals: Aldi 1 mile, Asda 3.2 miles, Co-op 0.4 miles, Iceland 0.2 miles, Lidl 0.1 miles, M&S 0.7 miles, Morrisons 0.1 miles, Sainsbury’s 0.2 miles, Tesco 0.3 miles, Waitrose 0.8 mile
Source: CACI. For more info visit www.caci.co.uk/contact. Notes: Shopper profiling is measured using Grocery Acorn shopper segmentation. Store catchment data (market share, population, expenditure, spend by household, competition) is within a five-mile radius. For CACI’s shopper segmentation of the other stores we visited this week see the online report at www.thegrocer.co.uk/stores/the-grocer-33
Congratulations on the win. Did you always want to work in retail? I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do if I’m honest, but I’ve always put effort into what I’m doing. When I started back in May 1995 at the Saffron Walden branch, I was three days a week on fruit and veg. Nearly 30 years later, I’ve worked every role up to branch manager, across many different regions. I joined here in 2022 following our management restructure. My job is fascinating, no day is identical. The role is so different to what many people believe running a shop is like. I’ve always been attracted to shops that are deemed to be a bit more challenging, and we’ve been on a real journey over the last three years to make sure we are really delivering for our customers.
What makes Holloway Road so challenging? We’ve got 155 partners and it’s a 24/7 operation. Although we are slightly to the north, we are considered a central London shop, and we’re really at the heart of the hustle and bustle. We’re lucky to have a large car park, which is rare for a London shop. Combined with the tube station being a stone’s throw away, we get a real mix of commuters, as well as locals doing their full shop. On top of that, the Emirates stadium is a five-minute walk away, which means there’s a massive influx of people on match days. Visiting fans are escorted past the shop by police. It can be quite entertaining to watch, but also quite intimidating.
Does the football affect trading peaks? It doesn’t change our trade overall, just when customers tend to visit. The roads get very congested before and after the game.
This was the launch store for Ottolenghi. What have you made of the partnership, and Waitrose’s recent innovation efforts? The test kitchen is just down the road, and we were lucky enough to have Yotam Ottolenghi himself visit on launch day. Picking out winning ranges like Ottolenghi is what Waitrose has always been so good at. We give opportunities to ranges that our competitors maybe wouldn’t. If you think about the vast range of lines we carry, that is our point of difference.
Waitrose is in the middle of a store investment programme – any changes at Holloway Road? We underwent a fairly big programme five years ago to upgrade all our refrigeration. We now have better reliability in our units. As a store, we’ve also focused on identifying our points of difference over the last three years. For example, we’ve doubled the range on our dry-aged counters because it was successful, and amended our range to bring new products into store. But one of the most successful editions has been on-demand grocery – its impact here has been unprecedented. No doubt part of that success has been down to our reach – we’re almost the perfect location – but also the massive range available.
Has it been a challenge to adapt to the increase in demand? The very nature of on-demand is its unpredictability – that said, we have strong reports that help us predict when those peaks are going to be. We’ve had to recruit a few more hours to satisfy the demand – around 40 people. So it’s been a welcome addition, not only for the shop but for jobs in the local area.
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