Waitrose Whiting Way, Wells: Grocer 33 store of the week

Waitrose recently announced changes to the structure of its in-store teams. But you were ahead of the game on this… We’ve been testing a new operating model for the last year, which involves changing the way we structure the branch and training partners in a lot more areas. This means they can be flexible and move around with demand of customers rather than staying in one area of the branch. We’re really reaping the benefits in terms of being more efficient and improving service.

Our mystery shopper gave positive feedback on your wine and spirits specialist - how have other customers reacted? It really makes a difference. Louise, our specialist, has qualifications in wine and spirits and does additional training with our partners. We regularly get comments about the advice she gives. It’s a real point of difference for Waitrose and every few months we look to do customer evenings with our specialists where they share their expertise and do food matching.

You opened after Tesco and Morrisons in Wells city centre. Until four years ago, Tesco was the only large supermarket in Wells, then Morrisons opened and we were the last. It feels like the city and the surrounding area can support three large supermarkets and we all get ­different types of customers.

How popular has the John Lewis click & collect service been? It works really well where we are based because although we’re not a million miles from Bristol, there’s no John Lewis that close by. So there are always a lot of customers and we have about 300 orders a week, with deliveries every day.

Finally, have the veg shortages been laid to rest in your store? Yes, it’s actually not been bad. The first indication was spinach about four weeks ago, then there were shortages of broccoli, and lettuce has been hit to a certain extent. But we never got to the point where we’re not able to offer some sort of lettuce.